Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Linus Torvalds: Any CLA Is Fundamentally Broken

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-sir-I-don't-like-it dept.

sfcrazy writes "The controversy over Canonical's Contributor License Agreement (CLA) has once again surfaced. While Matthew Garrett raises valid points about the flaws in Canonical's CLAs, Linus Torvalds says 'To be fair, people just like hating on Canonical. The FSF and Apache Foundation CLA's are pretty much equally broken. And they may not be broken because of any relicencing, but because the copyright assignment paperwork ends up basically killing the community. Basically, with a CLA, you don't get the kind of "long tail" that the kernel has of random drive-by patches. And since that's how lots of people try the waters, any CLA at all – changing the license or not – is fundamentally broken.'"

10 of 279 comments (clear)

  1. Spell it out the first time by tepples · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why doesn't the summary for articles like these spell out unfamiliar abbreviations such as "contributor license agreement"?

    1. Re:Spell it out the first time by Phroggy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I used to expect a lot more from Slashdot, but now that none of the old-guard are left it's steadily and inexorably slipping in the same fashion that kuro5hin, The Register, and other tech sites have slipped.

      The "old guard" editors didn't know how to do their jobs either. Note my user ID; I remember. I come here for the comments, not the articles.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    2. Re:Spell it out the first time by synaptik · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes; but back then it was because they were amateurs, doing this for a hobby.

      --
      HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
      NO CARRIER
    3. Re:Spell it out the first time by dreamchaser · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because they hope your interest will fuel the very slightest bit of initiative, like the ~5 seconds it takes to Google it?

      Just a guess, but it worked for me! No whinging here about such a trivial matter. I mean, if you are seeing this site anyway, you are definitely online...

      That's a bullshit answer. It is standard practice in good writing to say what an acronym or abbreviation means the first time it's used. Afterwards using the shortened version is just fine.

    4. Re:Spell it out the first time by zoward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Also, the Slashdot editors need to understand that when they don't spell out these acronyms the first time they use them, the first half of the comments section is going be discussing the lack of proper acronym definition and poor editorial skills instead of, you know, the actual article content. Just sayin'.

      --
      "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
  2. Co-operation and Trust by bug1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Free and Open source software are about working together to write software, its unquestionably good.

    There are tens of billions of dollars worth of Libre code out there, with thousands of unpunished violators, and only 2 or 3 people in the world defending it.

    And this "community" persistently rallies against working tegether Legally with CLA, i just dont understand, is it purely a trust thing ?

    (And if you want to help defend Free Software, consider donating to the Software Freedom Conservency)

  3. Linus may be an asshole... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But he's a wise asshole. Not cow-towing to the fail that is GPL 3 (kernel, git and subsurface.) Not climbing on the CLA bandwagon...

    One day Linus will be gone and Linux will probably fall into the hands of license-mongering zealots. I'm glad I probably won't be around to suffer that.

  4. Re:WTF... by jedidiah · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Lack of trust.

    This is what this is all about. Many people view Canonical as untrustwory for one reason or another. I could cite a whole litany. However, that's not the point.

    Many people find reason to be suspicious of Canonical in a way that isn't comparable to anything regarding the FSF or Apache. It's not a remotely comparable situation.

    As a general rule, CLAs originating from any corporation with the standard "fuck everyone else" style charter should be met with skepticism. They're not your friends. They probably aren't even your ally.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  5. Re:Wait, you care but didn't know? by tepples · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A lot of people who skim Slashdot's front page don't know enough to know whether they need to care about a particular story. People don't know what they don't know.

  6. Re:For a noted pragmatist, Linus is dead wrong... by hweimer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah, explain that to me in 10 years when some court rules that contributions under the GPL are illegal to distribute due to some legal deficiency in the license.

    Actually, it is much more likely that a CLA will be found to be unenforcable than the text of a well-established software license. In fact, CLAs requiring copyright assignment are probably void in large parts of the world, meaning you are back to square one.

    --
    OS Reviews: Free and Open Source Software