Re: Candidates question: Contributor agreement

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Thu, 2011-05-26 at 12:01 +0200, Olav Vitters wrote:
> Given that we already have a policy on copyright assignments[1], I
> wondered what is your position regarding contributor agreements[2]?
> Should the board do something with contributor agreements and if so,
> what should be done?
> 
> [1] https://live.gnome.org/CopyrightAssignment
> [2] e.g. http://lwn.net/Articles/442782/ and
>     http://www.harmonyagreements.org/

Like copyright assignments, contributor agreements create an
artificial barrier to entry for contributors. That's reason
enough for me to oppose contributor agreements for any module
in GNOME Core.

Frankly, I find the attitude behind many contributor agreements
to be disingenuous and, frankly, a bit insulting. It's like saying
"That's a cute patch, now let the grown-ups get back to the real
work". If that's how you treat your "outside" contributors, then
you'll only ever get small contributions.

Many of our most successful projects are developed by people from
different companies, and people with no affiliation. That's how
we should strive to work. And that doesn't work when one company
says "This is *our* project, but we'll let you work on it".

I've been maintaining Yelp for eight years. Some of the earliest
work on Yelp was done by Red Hat employees. Would I be doing all
the stuff I'm doing if I'd had to give all my work to Red Hat?
Almost certainly not.

--
Shaun