CLA v2 Note

[mark]

So, some time ago (month or two?) we introduced a CLA v2.0. This version of the document adds one important section:

10. Licensing of Derivative Work

If you provide your Contribution to us as intended for a repository or collection of work that is available under a free software license as defined by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), we guarantee that if we distribute a work based on or including your Contribution (a "Derivative Work"), in whole or in part, we will distribute that work under a free software license with terms that are no more restrictive than the licensing terms applicable to the collected Work at the time your Contribution is accepted. However, we may also distribute the Derivative Work under other terms as well. If your Contribution is intended for a repository or collection of Work that is available under differing licensing terms, this section shall not apply.

In layman's terms, this means that if you contribute code to dw-free, it always has to stay free. We cannot take that code and continue to use it if we stop distributing Dreamwidth under a FSF approved license. (Note that contributions to dw-nonfree do not benefit from the provisions of this section; but also note that we put almost nothing except site branding in dw-nonfree.)

I don't think we managed to call this out anywhere, so there you go. If you would like to sign this one and have us tear up your old CLA v1.0, please let us know. You'll have to sign and send in the last page of the new one to Denise, and then when she receives it she can file it and deal with the original one.

Comments

2 questions:

[pauamma]

Does it apply to contributions we made under the CLA 1.0?

Does that mean that from now on, you'll always distribute the js repo under the 3-clause BSD license? (It looks to me like this would keep you from getting rid of it if and when DW-local patches get merged upstream, assuming you meant to do that.)

Re: 2 questions:

[pauamma]

/me listens to the crickets chirping. :-)

Re: 2 questions:

[mark]

Sorry, I had your comment on my to-reply pile, but licensing questions usually take me longer to think about since I really don't want to screw them up.

Re: 2 questions:

[pauamma]

No problem. Just wanted to make sure it didn't fall through the cracks. :-)

Re: 2 questions:

[mark]

Yes; we are willing to retroactively apply this new CLA if people sign and send in the updated copy.

And I'm not sure what you mean re: the 3-clause BSD license. The js repository has some weird "do what you want with this" license from Six Apart, last I checked?

Re: 2 questions:

[pauamma]

The js repository has some weird "do what you want with this" license from Six Apart, last I checked?

That's the 3-clause BSD license.

Bit of history - I'm partly responsible for that getting an explicit license. I wanted to reuse something from it (the JSON Ajaxy stuff, IIRC), and I didn't see a license in the repo, so I asked Abe, who asked Brad, and I got a pasted IMish response from Brad through Abe - then the license was added to the repo. :-)

Re: 2 questions:

[mark]

Ah-hah, that makes sense. Thanks for the education.

Hmm, it makes it a weird question of how to license it when we submit upstream. I expect that we would have to allow Six Apart to license the code under the 3-clause BSD license. Which, per the new CLA which specifies "FSF approved licenses", it is. (So we can license it that way.)

I expect that, over time, we'll move away from using the js repo. I don't see us submitting much/anything to it?