Seven Concerns Open Source Should Worry About, Part 3: Distributed Ownership
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Back in the beginning of open source, contributors often transferred ownership of their code to a project. Bad experiences with some corporate-sponsored projects caused that to change. With so many non-profit projects hosts now, it's worth reassessing the advantages of code assignment.
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The vast majority of free and open source (FOSS) projects today operate on a license in/license out basis. In other words, each contributor to a code base continues to own her code while committing to provide a license to anyone that wants to download that code. Of course, no developer ever actually signs a downstream license. Instead, all contributors to a given project agree on the OSI (Open Source Initiative) approved license they want to use, and those terms stand as an open promise to all downstream users.
But is that really the best way to operate? What about the minority of projects that require contributors to assign ownership of their code to the project? They clearly think assignment is a better way to go. Are they right? Full Story |
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