Audacity gets a CLA [LWN.net]

Audacity gets a CLA

Posted Jun 17, 2021 21:31 UTC (Thu) by jafd (subscriber, #129642)
Parent article: Audacity gets a CLA

One problem I'm envisioning with the CLAs is that the way they usually are executed creates some unnecessary friction when all you want is a drive-by contribution without any obligations.

Like, I work with the program, it has an annoying bug, turns out that a one-line change fixes it, so I want to send this one-line change upstream and let them do what they will with it if they want to. No, I don't have any intent to become a part of your "vibrant community", thank you very much. Nor do I want to beg for the maintainers' attention for my PR, or persuade them to get their buy-in. And now sign documents and fill forms on top of it all.

I wonder if projects want to solve this problem in some way. I wouldn't have a problem with CLAs themselves, only with the amount of red tape around them.

Audacity gets a CLA

Posted Jun 17, 2021 22:06 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

it has an annoying bug, turns out that a one-line change fixes it

One-line bug fixes may not actually be eligible for copyright in the first place, especially if they fix trivial oversights in a very obvious manner. Works are supposed to be creative to deserve copyright.

Audacity gets a CLA

Posted Jun 18, 2021 0:36 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

If it's your personal fix, you can typically sign CLAs online these days using something like Docusign. It gets attached to your Github profile, so future patches will automatically go through the CLA review.