this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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graybeard
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The right thing? You must have missed the part where every contribution now requires a CLA, basically stating that they can go proprietary any time they want, right?
I did. Care to give a quick summary?
In a nutshell: When we (Element) give you code, you must open all changes back to us, when you give us code (through contributions), you first have to sign over all rights to us to do with it whatever we want, including making the whole thing proprietary at any moment.
Essentially, it means they enforce the AGPL3 on anyone but themselves.
Is that any worse than the previous Apache-2.0 license? I trust Element more to continue doing open source development than other companies which apparently just fork their projects and keep their changes to themselves.
And anyway, anything ever released under AGPLv3 will stay that way, so if Element does decide to go fully proprietary, not all hope is lost
To me as a contributor, yes it is worse, because now the matrix foundation is not only a defacto gatekeeper but also a legal one. Previously, we were legally on equal terms. We would also be on equal terms had they just adopted the AGPL3, which I would have whole heartey endorsed. A CLA is a one sided power grab made in bad faith and I for one will not invest time and energy into a project that is set up in such a way. Burned one time too many.
Huh, did not know that. Is it likely, though? I've always thought of them as the good guys. Any way to play the devil's advocate here?
Personally, I've been burnes by such ploys before, both personally and professionally. In my experience, corporations which introduced CLA or operate under CLA from the start have anterior motives that you are not privy to, so use their products at your own perils.
Fair enough, actually. I guess open source projects should only really be incorporated in charitable/social enterprise/community interest types of companies.
Not necessarily. The open source model does not prevent you from profiting of open source code, nor is it intended to. In fact, the previously used Apache 2 license permits you to do just that. The point of the CLA is not to being able to make a profit, the point is to get an advantage over everyone else by adding an expection that benefits only one party.
Thank you, I've learnt something today!