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

[Denis Dupeyron]

On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 3:31 PM Alec Warner <antarus@g.o> wrote:
> I think you paint a fairly black and white picture here. If there are *concrete* issues then I want to see them here (e.g. adopting a DCO means these 5 people cannot contribute without some additional work) because its up to Gentoo to work out these issues. Maybe that means accepting contributions on a contingent basis while we work out the issues. Maybe it means delaying making the DCO mandatory for everyone. Maybe it means talking to lawyers to discuss specific legal problems.

I have no opinion of the document itself, whatever it is. I was just
making you guys aware that if this did happen, I and a bunch of others
will be asked to stop contributing in any form until the document,
whether good or bad, was reviewed and us allowed to sign it. Again,
you can make the document as suitable as possible to us, it would
still have to be reviewed by our corporate lawyers. If somebody,
somewhere, decides this has to go full corporate, i.e., to Japan where
I'm suspecting lawyers are not very familiar with both US law and
open-source matters, you're no longer counting in months. And again,
we're talking about the maintenance and continued development of
things like portage and OpenRc. I'm hoping I don't have to make the
case to you that it's difficult if at all possible to replace paid
developers with a loose bunch of volunteers.

> I'd rather do a DCO and see things like "well we tried to recruit 20 new people but 15 of them left because of a DCO" than be subject to unsubstantiated fear. At least on that basis we can decide that the DCO is 'too risky to staff' and stop requiring it. But that would be an experience based on actually trying something.

You just won't get 20 recruits or candidates. You will get much fewer
to none of them. Mark my words. Imagine the situation. Young software
developer has to choose between living his/her life on one hand, and
on the other going through our stupid recruitment system, wait for
months, and then ask his manager to ask his manager to ask etc... that
his/her employer reviews this document and clears him/her to sign it.
This person will either do nothing or become an arch developer. We
don't live in a vacuum.

Again, I don't have any opinion on the document nor the process. I'm
just trying to raise issues which I haven't seen being raised before
it's too late. When our employer asks us to stop contributing we will
have no choice but to comply.