[License-discuss] Contributor Clauses in Licenses

[Pamela Chestek]

On 12/8/2025 4:06 PM, Josh Berkus wrote:
> On 12/8/25 3:43 PM, Pamela Chestek wrote:
>> As to Josh's comment "No text contained within the license can 
>> enforce that my PR is under that license," I disagree. When I created 
>> my contribution I necessarily accepted the terms of the outbound 
>> license, or at least I am hard-pressed to think of a way that someone 
>> made a contribution that matters but would not have taken an action 
>> that requires acceptance of the license.
>
> I can think of lots of ways to make a meaningful contribution without 
> having either run or redistributed the software:
>
> - Someone contributing grammar corrections to the docs or website 
> without using the software
>
> - Someone offering to naturalize the documentation based on a 
> translation framework, which also doesn't require using the software
>
> - Someone building a code contribution based on a differently licensed 
> version of the same software (if, for example, it's available under a 
> proprietary license as well)
>
> - Someone submitting 3rd-party dependency version updates without 
> running the software (like, for example, DependaBot does, and humans 
> do this as well).
>
> - A graphics designer submitting a change to graphics or UI design 
> created entirely with design programs.
>
> I'm sure there's other situations I haven't thought of.  Are most 
> contributions based on the contributor having first downloaded and run 
> the software under the license?  Sure.  But definitely not all of them.
>
Assuming the non-software bits are under the open source license, if I 
am contributing grammar corrections, naturalizing the documentation or 
submitting changes to UI, I am creating a derivative work of those works.

Submitting 3rd-party dependency version updates is not making a 
copyrightable contribution, so no license enforcement is implicated.

You got me on the code contribution based on having accepted a 
proprietary license. But how often does that actually happen? The point 
remains that inbound = outbound isn't enforceable against them either.

Pam

Pamela S. Chestek
Chestek Legal
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