Jumping the licensing shark

Posted Mar 27, 2023 11:35 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: Jumping the licensing shark by josh
Parent article: Jumping the licensing shark

> This is something that I would love to see improved in a future license grant: the option to designate a specific party who can grant exceptions, without having to have people sign a CLA and maintain sole copyright

You could do this today, with a project that you start out owning - even GPL.

Put in a CONTRIBUTING file a clause saying that by contributing you allow the controlling foundation to sell licence exceptions. Then the foundation needs to make sure that anybody contributing has signed to say (a) they are aware of this clause, and (b) anything they contribute they take responsibility for ensuring they have the copyright (or copyright holders permission) to allow that.

Personally I don't think I'd be happy with exceptions above and beyond administrative ones, but I'd be quite happy to say "you don't need to worry about providing source to your customers, if the foundation has access to your git source tree". Something like that ...

Cheers,
Wol