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   eri :vlpn_smol::therian: (eri@moth.zone)'s status on Thursday, 21-Mar-2024 16:29:31 JST eri :vlpn_smol::therian:

   • Kyle Davis
   @shroomie @linux_mclinuxface a contributor license agreement. it's a trick that allows corporations to steal your FOSS code whenever they want.
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     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Thursday, 21-Mar-2024 16:29:30 JST 翠星石

     in reply to
     @eri @shroomie More accurately, a CLA is an agreement where you surrender your copyrights to another party under contract terms that are in detriment to you in exchange for certain liability for you.
     
     CLA's are usually utilized to ensure that volunteers are able to improve source-available, proprietary software without even getting paid, while ensuring the software stays proprietary.
     
     Less often, they're used by businesses to maintain proprietary and free versions (usually with less features) of software in parallel, although it's somewhat often that the business decides to make everything 100% proprietary for a future version on a whim.
     
     CLA's can't be used to steal code (after all, actual free versions of software (i.e. with source code included) always remain free) - rather they can be used to steal freedom.
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     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Thursday, 21-Mar-2024 16:46:25 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • 翠星石
     @eri @shroomie Actually I've realized that what I wrote may be confusing - these two points should resolve it;
     - Free means freedom, not gratis, no matter how many people claim proprietary things are free because there's no direct payment.
     - Unless the software is under a license or terms that respects the 4 freedoms, that license is irrevocable (provided some fair conditions are met) and has corresponding source code released for all published versions, it isn't actually free.
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     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: (lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me)'s status on Friday, 22-Mar-2024 04:16:40 JST Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     in reply to

     • Kyle Davis
     @eri @linux_mclinuxface @shroomie There wasn't a CLA before the license change.
     If a contributor didn't accept the license change (I doubt they asked anyone, we'd then have known for this happening well in advance), they're effectively violating the BSD license by not keeping copyright notices and clauses.
     (Doesn't protects the source code though, because it's not copyleft)
     
     See https://github.com/redis/redis/commit/0b34396924eca4edc524469886dc5be6c77ec4ed
     clacke likes this.