Open Source and Contributor Agreements

[Chuck Swiger]

Simon Phipps wrote:
[ ... ]
>> - Groups who maintain a branch of an open project but restrict  
>> "commit" privileges to those who grant extra rights that group --  
>> even with the best intentions -- are fundamentally subverting the  
>> openness of the project.
> 
> No, absolutely not.  All developers, individually or aggregated in  
> communities, have the right to decide what processes their development 
> will follow. That may well include not accepting any input from others, 
> or deciding that input from others will only be accepted when certain 
> processes are followed. Rules of governance like this are orthogonal to 
> licensing. Open source licensing ensures that, if you don't agree with 
> the processes a given developer or group of developers follows, you 
> remain free to do it your way instead of theirs.

This paragraph is particularly well-said and deserves repetition.
The "right to fork" is fundamental to why this works, I fully agree.

-- 
-Chuck