Allowing to submit contributions under the MIT license? about meteor

[debergalis]

We use a standard process for IP rights, similar to Nodejs.org and the Dojo Foundation. Dojo also wrote a blog post on this a few years back: http://infrequently.org/2008/06/why-do-i-need-to-sign-this/

Because Meteor is MIT licensed, you're always free to make changes to Meteor, and to publish them under any license you choose. The paperwork is only necessary if you're also asking us to include those changes in the Meteor tree.

[antoviaque]

Thanks for the reply. However, the blog post doesn't really answers the objections to CLAs developed by Kuhn and Fontana. What do you think of the points they raise?

The post summarises the motivation for the CLA the following way:

• Those contributing to Dojo Foundation projects [verify that they] actually own what they contribute and therefore have the right to license it to someone else
• All of the rights needed to preserve the freedom of the code over the long haul have been contributed

But using the MIT license as the inbound license + a simple Certificate of Origin would:

• Ensure that the contributors certify that they own what they contribute (Certificate of Origin)
• Provide all the rights needed to preserve the freedom of the code over the long haul (MIT license)

What is missing?

In the rest of the post, the main argument for it seem to be that it is a "simple quality filtering function for weeding out the unserious" developer who isn't serious about having a "clean IP". According to the blog, having a CLA "gets people who are contributing to think about what it means to contribute". Which is exactly why I wrote this ticket - to make sure I understand the reasoning behind the decision.

So let's go to the bottom of this?