[TYPO3-team-core-v5] Contributor License Agreement

[Bernhard Kraft]

Hello Roberts,

Am 2010-08-04 14:58, schrieb Robert Lemke:

> The problem with changing the license at a later stage is that we would have to
> ask every past contributor for permission. That's practically impossible.
> Therefore we ask all contributors to grant the TYPO3 Association the right to
> change the license of TYPO3 at a later point in time.

Changing the license is something which starts to sound problematic for 
me. I mean I give away my code (to the Assoc), knowing it is released 
under the GPL. I would not want, that after some years the Assoc says: 
Hey, the GPL is "too restrictive" / "not too restrictive", lets change 
the license. I mean I know the GPL, and it was fine for the past 20 
years (except some updates during the versions). I would not know any 
reason why the license should get changed.

And anyways: Who decides which license is fine and which not? The 
lawyers of the T3 Association? I mean if the FSF (Free Software 
Foundations) decides that the XYPL (XY Public license) is equivalent and 
"compatible" [1] with the GPL such a switch would be ok with me.

But from my point of view (as a non-member) the Association is some 
untransparent construct which I can not put my ultimate trust into to 
handle them over my work and tell them "do what you want with it" ?!?!

Giving away my code under the GPL already enables any entity to put the 
code into another GPL project, and I could not claim any rights on it 
later (may it be patent or licensing right). Code distributed under the 
GPL must stay GPL code. A company can not release code under the GPL and 
make it closed-source afterwards!


> However, TYPO3 must always be free. The TYPO3 Association cannot start to
> just sell TYPO3 licenses - it must not be "contrary to the public benefit or
> inconsistent with its nonprofit status and bylaws in effect at the time of
> the contribution."

I think this is already specified very detailed in the GPL. Again I 
wonder who and how it is decided which license would be ok for a switch 
to it. The Assoc or some Open-Source Association like the FSF?


> There are some more advantages of such a CLA (contributors cannot be sued so
> easily by users of TYPO3 if they infringe upon some patents.

This is the paragraph I did not really understand at all. In Europe 
currently there ARE NO software patents. At least none which are valid 
in a way you could sue someone. I know TYPO3 should and will also get 
used in the United States, but did Paragraph 3 mean, that the 
Association would defend me in court in the case of a patent infringment 
case?

Or what did you mean with "cannot be sued easily". If I would submit 
code which is patented. What would happen. Would the Assoc get sued on 
my behalf, would I get sued and the Assoc would defend my rights, or 
would I get sued and the Assoc just tells me I submited patented code?

I guess in the case of the GPL the later one is the case - which is not 
an quite optimal solution.


PS: I know there are many legal issues out there which are not 
absolutely transparent. For example the linux software "Wine", which is 
an "emulator" for MS Windows(TM) probably conflicts with some licensing 
issues. Altough they did not simply copy all the Windows DLLs, but 
recoded them from scratch by using techniques like reverse engineering. 
It now is questionable if such techniques conflict with any licensing 
rights (Did MS state in its licenses, that you are not allowed to 
investigate how all those DLLs and other things work and behave in a 
running system?) ... but that is another story.



greets,
Bernhard