contributor license agreement (CLA) (was: Upcoming project ownership changes)

[Michael E Brown]

On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 07:54:40AM +0100, Paul Menzel wrote:
> Dear Brad,
> 
> 
> Am 14.02.2018 um 04:53 schrieb Brad Bishop:
> 
> […]
> 
> > I'm happy to report that these industry leaders have rallied around
> > your community as the meeting point.  Very soon it will get a lot more
> > busy around here.
> > 
> > To this end, IBM will be ceding stewardship of this project to the
> > Linux Foundation in the very near future.  You can find the project
> > charter here:
> > 
> > https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uBbi5rDhWqj8Al-eoNLxERZ9OK8KVMZThOuS08-cYto
> 
> (Note, the URL is wrapped in your message.)
> 
> Thank you. Cooperating is definitely a good thing. My knowledge of the goals
> and operation of the Linux Foundation is not good enough to comment on that.
> 
> > Under the new charter, contributors will be required to sign a
> > contributor license agreement.  There will be corporate (your company
> > signs once for all future contributions originating from your company)
> > and individual agreements available:
> > 
> > https://docs.google.com/document/d/1veiAjszrhgabA8XrJWjYCs7lyXIhs5rcXWgaeuW-bT8
> > https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m61YH8GSzQpYVt5YG95fb2QNy1Gs--1-oLD3znqPNQw
> > 
> > Please work with your legal team (if using the corporate CLA) or sign
> > the individual CLA now and send them to me to avoid any delays in your
> > development work flow when the transfer occurs.
> 
> Could you please elaborate, why CLAs are needed? The Linux Kernel is under
> the umbrella of the Linux Foundation, and no CLAs are needed there. CLAs are
> a great burden, as the legal department gets involved, and should be avoided
> at all costs, as contributors want to advance OpenBMC and not do paperwork.

Interesting that this immediately is flagged as a point of contention. Here is
a counterpoint from Bradley Kuhn:

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2014/jun/09/do-not-need-cla/

For the record, I strongly oppose CLAs. However, I will submit this to our
legal team for review.

I don't envy you having to have this same conversation over and over and over
and over again over the coming years.

--
Michael