Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-core] Re: Poll: Would you sign a Contributer License Agreement?

[Denis Dupeyron]

Replying to Rich's last message to reply to the thread, not to Rich
specifically.

I want to note here that if this comes into effect, and becomes
mandatory, some critical pieces of Gentoo would go unmaintained for
months, if not longer and possibly indefinitely, until the employer of
the maintainers allows them to sign whatever it is you would require.
I'm talking about portage and OpenRC, but there may be other examples.
These particular projects are maintained by developers paid by their
employer to work on them, and as such do much more than a loose team
of unpaid developers. And although they were hired to so they would
have to wait until the corporate legal arm of their employer approves
them signing your document. That's like sending a message in a bottle
if e.g. the employee is based in the US and lawyers in Japan (example
not chosen at random).

And let's not forget about the dozens of contributors who would be
barred from doing all the awesome stuff they do everyday across the
entire tree.

Finally, think of the deterrent effect to potential new contributors.
It's not like we get a ton of candidates these days, and like we have
the slightest clue about recruiting them. There's a significant chance
that adding such a legal barrier would end up slowly strangling Gentoo
to death.