LukerContributor License Agreement
Skip to the end of the page to find the CLA
I require every developer who wishes to contribute to print the CLA, compile it, sign it, and send it to cla _at fenrirproject.org as a PDF.
The reason I do this is to protect myself, this project and its users.
Please remember that this agreement does not change your rights to use your own contributions for any other purpose.
This will also permit me to relicense this project for those who need it.
If you don't sign the CLA, don't send the patch. I can not accept it. I will ask if I can accept bsd-licensed patches, but chances are I can't.
Who gets the code under which license?
- (L)GPL3 for everyone
- as needed for other people.
Each case will be publicly listed in this page, along with the (new) licenses.
No licenses other than (L)GPL3 have been granted yet.
Why do you need to relicense the code?
libRaptorQ and the Fenrir protocol projects will always remain GPL'd software, but that gives me some limitations.
Right now libRaptorQ and libFenrir are LGPL3. Dual licensing is needed for the Apple and windows store environments. Windows store seems to explicitly disallow licenses with requirements on redistribution and modifications (=> *GPL), and the Apple apps are statically linked (which has some strict requirements no one ever cares about in the lgpl), plus *gpl and apple store are incompatible. The LGPL lets you statically link the library to a program only if you distribute the un-linked object files. I do like the philosophy behind it, but nobody seems to be able to do this easily, everybody is scared to try, and the result is that nobody does it.
There are some projects that say they are "LGPL with static linking exception", but the (L)GPL clearly states that the license can not be modified, and that is a clear enough modification.
Even with these problems, I still want to take advantage of the LGPL, and want them to be able to use these projects in the various stores, so I'm thinking about a license which will not permit non-lgpl3+ source-code modifications, that will not permit others to close source this project, but still let them use it for statically linked libraries, and for any signing they need.
That is a lot of work, so for know I opted for double-licensing.
Also, in the future the situation might change, better licenses might come out, the (L)GPL3 might prove insufficient. You might not like future GPL licenses.
And You won't like being stuck with the wrong license then.
Why not just a MIT-license/apache/bsd, then?
Because those licenses still lets other people fork-and-close the project, which duplicates the effort needed to keep the codebase clean and secure for everybody.
I want an LGPL3 where statically-linking is possible, and only if the whole library can be verified not to have extra or different changes (deterministic builds)
If I just put this in a BSD-style license, everyone can take it, modify it a bit and claim it is the same, even with a backdoor inside it. DO. NOT. WANT.
This will also prevent a lot of smart people to modify the code and still escalate the bugs to this project.
So there will be a clause that forces the usage of deterministic builds for this library, so that people can check that they have a safe version of the library.
libRaptorQ / Fenrirproject CLA
The CLA you are required to sign for contributions is taken from the contributoragreements.org website.
The only modification for now is a clarification of the patent clause taken from the GPLv3, to be sure that the only patents you grant are the ones required by your contributions.
This CLA covers contributions to the libFenrir, Fenrird, Fenrir and libRaptorQ projects. This is done so that you don't have to sign everything twice if you want to contribute to our other projects.
The files are at the bottom of the page, pick the right one if you represent a company or if you are coding by yourself.
One you have signed it, send it to cla at fenrirproject.org, I will print it, sign it and send it back. Then you can send your patches.
What if I do not own the Copyright to the contributions I want to submit?
If you are a company and want to pay one or more developers to work on the above projects, you can just sig the "entity" CLA.
If you are a lone developers, sign the "individual" CLA.
If you do not own the contribution you want to send, don't send it, we can not accept it. You can still give the ideas of what you want to do, but we can't legally accept the patches.