[Tomte]

And usually makes accepting contributions from people outside the US a mess.

Ask the FSF how long it took them to finally sort out all the legal issues and prepare new forms.

[vog]

Also, people are generally more inclined to sign that for a non-profit organization like FSF or the OSGeo Foundation, than for an individual person, although that's still more accepted than signing to a company.

CLA to non-profit > CLA to indidual > CLA to company

[skrebbel]

Why would a Canadian programmer have trouble accepting contributions from outside the US, specifically?

[detaro]

Not specifically outside the US, but the US (and apparently Canada) have the concept of copyright assignment, many other countries don't, so it gets interesting what value and consequences a copyright assignment by a programmer from there has, esp. in local courts and when the contributor isn't on your side.

[rwmj]

Don't forget that "moral rights" may not be assigned at all, in at least some countries, so you'll need a per-country agreement that the contributor won't enforce them ... in countries where it is possible to agree not to enforce them, which is not all countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights#In_Europe