Why CLAs aren't good for open source (Opensource.com)

Distributed copyright is a core strength for the community, yes. Whether it's a core strength for the company depends whether the business model of the company is aligned with the community: pressure for CLAs often isn't legal. Lawyers tend to like CLAs because it keeps them in the relevance loop, but the bias is usually minor; pressure for CLAs is often business related. For instance an open source startup often begins with an open core business model, for which they require a CLA because they don't know which component will be the profitable one and they need to own it to relicence it. This CLA dependence gets stronger as VCs decide the problem isn't a broken business model, it's a broken licence ...

I think we (as in those of us who read articles on lwn.net) can all agree that this community and business misalignment is a sign of a broken business model, but getting a business (or even a VC) to see this is a much harder problem.