[License-discuss] Contributor Clauses in Licenses

[Pamela Chestek]

I don't know if your comment was directed at something Josh said or what 
I said, but I don't see an inbound=outbound statement in the license as 
stating "here are the conditions upon which my contributions to the 
software are accepted," I understand it to be "here is the license I am 
granting to you to use this contribution" (which isn't one of your options).

Pam

Pamela S. Chestek
Chestek Legal
4641 Post St.
Unit 4316
El Dorado Hills, CA 95762
+1 919-800-8033
pamela at chesteklegal.com
www.chesteklegal.com

On 12/8/2025 4:25 PM, McCoy Smith wrote:
> I'm not seeing why there is a difference between a document that says 
> "here are the conditions upon which any contributions to the software 
> are accepted" and a document that says "here are the conditions upon 
> which the software is licensed, and here are also the conditions upon 
> which any contributions to the software are accepted."
>
> If you're concern is manifestation of assent, the act of submitting a 
> contribution and requesting it be accepted would be the manifestation.
>
> 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.
>>
>
>
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