Contribution agreements (Re: [sldev] What is the point of firstlook and giving feedback to LL)

[Justin Ryan]

On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 6:02 PM, Rob Lanphier <robla at lindenlab.com> wrote:
> Contribution agreements are common but not universal.  Sun has a pretty
> comprehensive FAQ for theirs here:
>  http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/contributor_agreement.jsp
>
>  A very common objection to contribution agreements generally and
> specifically with Linden Lab's is that it allows us to relicense the
> contribution such that it can be incorporated into proprietary products.
> Our position is that such a clause allows us to build a business model that
> allows us to pay the paychecks of more developers to write GPL licensed
> source code. This seems like a net win to me.
>

There is a problem with this outlook, and it is not unique to
companies like LL - in fact the Free Software Foundation's Head
Counsel was involved in authoring the Plone Foundation's contributor
agreement which allows the same.

GPL code is not valuable simply because it exists in GPL, but because
it is, or should be, original ideas protected from ever being non-GPL.
 The alternative is that you propose to sell the authors their code at
some point.

The problem here is that LL thinks of its' GPL creation(s) as
something that it *owns* rather than *has the responsibility to
protect*.  You won't get any contributions from me directly as a
member of the F/OSS community to a project where you can take credit
for my code, and decide without my permission to use it as part of
your business, without compensation.  This is not an equal seat at the
table and quite frankly, given that the Computer Graphics industry as
a whole takes SL for something of the AOL of Metaverses, I think it is
just a question of when, not whether, there will be a horrible decline
in interest as other offerings based on truly open technology grow.

That is, unless LL has enough foresight to see that, for one, they
would be better served by existing as several small companies - an
outlook that your average
I-care-more-about-being-big-enough-for-an-IPO-that-will-never-happen-than-my-customers-happiness
startup could really grow to embrace.  The fact is that LL is an
overglorified web hosting company with a product that will never be
Free or Open-Source enough to allow for competition.

Furthermore, existing GPL code may not be an acceptable contribution
to a project which has a contributor agreement.  My experience is that
people pay these things lip service, that noone has any idea the
original source of ideas in their dual licensed source code, and that
it is very likely someone agreed on behalf of other people.

In my opinion, what this makes clear for organizations like Linden Lab
and Plone Foundation is that it is a litigation risk to enter into
such a model.

Also, it's ethically an ethically fragile approach to say the last.
RMS promised me that he would write an essay on this some time ago
when I raised caine with the Plone Foundation, but I'm sure he's other
things to do than criticize his own staff. ;)

Cheers!

Justin

-- 
Justin Alan Ryan
Independent Interaction Architect
http://www.bitmonk.net/
* : +1-415-226-1199

"I never meant to hurt anyone,
 or help anyone.."
 -Bender