[opam-devel] Opam license bug

[Daniel Bünzli]

Le lundi, 18 janvier 2016 à 19:09, Louis Gesbert a écrit :
> By having a CLA in place, we ensure we have the hands free to avoid any  
> further such issues: the problem can't arise again. Yes, it does allow us to  
> re-license the software, or even negociate specific licensing terms with  
> partners, which sounds quite fair to me. Also, this adds to the range of  
> theoretical possibilities, but we currently have no plans to monetize Opam.

So let's be honest about it. From the community point of view there are very little incentives to this solution. License changes are rare.

> I am curious and would be glad to hear more about it: I intuitively don't see
> much difference between submitting a contribution BSD-licensed or under the  
> terms of the CLA, from the company's point of view. Am I wrong ?

Yes.  

Opam is LGPL'ed, contributing under the terms of the CLA allows OCamlPro to do whatever it wishes with opam and the contributions. But you as a contributor are not allowed to do whatever you wish since you are bound by LGPL terms. If Opam was under a more liberal license, everyone could do whatever it wishes with the code and we'd no even need to have a discussion about a CLA.  

Also from a broader perspective, companies may have rules that say you are allowed to contribute to projects that have these specific kind of licenses. Having other legalities under the form of CLAs surrounding contribution may be a no go because the legal setting is non standard or would need to much legal investigations.

Best,  

Daniel