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Comment by jwildeboer | Hacker News Reader

They claim that Fedora requires a CLA. Which is simply not true. Fedora was one of the first projects to completely remove the need for a CLA. Seven(!) years ago. See https://opensource.com/law/10/6/new-contributor-agreement-fe...

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Fedora requires an FPCA. In the comments below https://about.gitlab.com/2017/11/01/gitlab-switches-to-dco-l... we say the following about that: "While FPCA may not be a typical CLA with regard to rights and restrictions, this is not the only factor we looked into. We also were looking into whether there were terms in general, other than commonly used open source terms. Our analysis took into account that non-legal users do not always understand the nuances of legal language and can be deterred by any CLA, restrictive or not, if they do not understand the terms."

I understand your position. But it hurts me a bit to see all of the hard work we put into replacing the Apache style CLA with the FPCA and our messaging around it to make sure we explain it in transparent ways being reduced to "doesn't really matter, it's still just a CLA if you're not an expert" :(

I would like to personally apologize. No offense was ever intended. Looking into what the industry was doing was not a determining factor when we decided to move to the DCO. I personally can appreciate the amount of work it takes to make changes to licensing terms. It is a difficult task to try to create terms that will please your users. As I am sure you have experienced, you will never be able to please everyone, there will always be nay-sayers and opponents. However, if you have any interest in moving to DCO, I would be happy to talk to anyone interested in talking about our analysis and process.

Mmm, I'm sorry to hear that. I agree that between CLA's there can be vast differences in the terms. We did not intent to detail those differences in our blog post. BTW Have you considered changing it to a DCO?

I've casually suggested this to some people involved in Fedora. FWIW I think it would be a good idea, and I think at this point the retention of the FPCA by Fedora is mostly a matter of inertia.

But I share jwildeboer's sentiment, having been directly involved in the drafting of the FPCA to replace the old Fedora CLA. If one looks at the FPCA in historical context, it may be clearer that it is intended as an "un-CLA".

One could argue that the DCO is a type of CLA. I know some people who call the DCO a contributor agreement, at least, and if it is a contributor agreement, it is one that refers to licensing of what's being contributed.

Anyway, kudos to Gitlab for switching to the DCO!

Thanks! I've tried to make an update to the rationale document https://www.dropbox.com/s/xklo7gqca1k9jcn/Screenshot%202017-...

It has been updated.

Any major open source project which is accepting contributions with no agreement at all from contributors is asking for trouble.

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