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by akerl_ 1511 days ago
I’m not sure I’m grokking this. As you note, the hard part about changing license is if the copyright for a project is jointly held by a large number of contributors.

Contacting all those contributors to get them to agree to a license change is a large undertaking. But assigning the copyright to the SFC Conservancy also requires contacting all of them for their agreement. If my concern is ensuring flexibility in licensing, the original developer might as well just contact them all and have them sign a CLA or similar, granting control of the copyright to themselves. Then they’ve got the same flexibility, without needing the SFC.

2 comments

> Contacting all those contributors to get them to agree to a license change is a large undertaking.

With the right licensing language it doesn't need to be.

Authors must maintain contactability through emails listed in source / git commits, if authors fail to respond to pings about changes to licensing in a timely manner they forfeit their rights.

> Authors must maintain contactability through emails listed in source / git commits, if authors fail to respond to pings about changes to licensing in a timely manner they forfeit their rights.

That’s just not the case.

I meant each author who accepts their offer and assigns their copyrights, not each contributor to an individual project.