Open Source and Contributor Agreements

[Ian Lance Taylor]

David Barrett <dbarrett at quinthar.com> writes:

> To repeat, I'm proposing an open source license that has integrated
> grant-back license (*not* a copyright assignment) that can be optionally
> reassigned to someone else, or removed entirely.  Thus while anything
> you get from my source repository would probably list my name as the
> default grant back, you are welcome to change that name to yourself when
> you redistribute the code.

I missed that proposal earlier.  Sorry.  It sounds generally
compatible with open source to me.  Obviously I don't speak for OSI.

> Ian also writes:
> > I will add that it should be clear that such a license will drive
> > away many potential contributors.
> 
> Possibly.  But it seems to work for some of the most successful open
> source projects -- even when requiring overt copyright assignment
> requiring physical stamp licking.  If it works under those difficult
> conditions, it seems like it work much better if the contribution
> process were made much easier.

When I wrote that I was thinking in terms of a license in which the
grant-back could not be changed.

Ian