Add a CLA (Contributor License Agreement)

[nschonni]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contributor_License_Agreement
This should be checked by bots for signing if possible https://github.com/cla-assistant/cla-assistant

[gcharest]

Jeff McAffer comments/questions

Contributors Licence Agreement:

• Individual
• Corporate

Not every company will authorize individual contributions, only corporate.

Opportunity to eliminate friction.

[smellems]

https://opensource.com/article/18/3/cla-vs-dco-whats-difference

[gcharest]

Joseph Potvin comments/questions

Exec Director XAlgorithms:

TBS IP policy defaults maps nicely to Fedora contributor agreement.

Challenge: no one follows the policy. It's a confusing policy => copyright remains with the supplier.

Copyright stays with the contributors/contractors; government is not on the hook.

Possibility of letting employees retain copyright of the code they are writing.

[jtcowie]

CLA's appear to be a slippery slope where in some cases, prior to acceptance, it would be prudent to get the CLA vetted by legal. Checkout Ben Balter's (a Senior Manager of Product Management at GitHub ) post https://ben.balter.com/2018/01/02/why-you-probably-shouldnt-add-a-cla-to-your-open-source-project/

[gcharest]

Thanks @jtcowie ! Le ven. 26 oct. 2018 10 h 11, jtcowie <[email protected]> a écrit :

CLA's appear to be a slippery slope where in some cases, prior to acceptance, it would be prudent to get the CLA vetted by legal. Checkout Ben Balter's (a Senior Manager of Product Management at GitHub ) post https://ben.balter.com/2018/01/02/why-you-probably-shouldnt-add-a-cla-to-your-open-source-project/ — You are receiving this because you modified the open/close state. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#17 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABnJ5Q-7zR1xe7RsgD1PLovOwnCVrdmkks5uoxgLgaJpZM4W_DGG> .

-- Guillaume

[gcharest]

So, just to continue the discussion here, we will need to look at both sides of this:

• CLA to contribute to external OSS projects.
• Whether we need CLA for Government of Canada OSS projects.