[r3trohack3r]

This appears to be a 7 clause contract written in good faith to ensure Grafana Labs can continue building a product and service offering around their open source project after accepting your contribution.

Am I missing something? Do you have any specific problems with the CLA? Is there an alternative option to a CLA that ensures the original copyright owner can continue offering the code base under multiple licenses after accepting an external contribution?

[dpkirchner]

Perhaps my contributions are also made in good faith with full awareness that they are subject to the licenses?

We did OSS for decades without CLAs and most projects still do not require CLAs.

[r3trohack3r]

Subject to which licenses? The current license? Is Grafana obligated to keep the licenses they distribute the current software under unmodified forever after you contribute? Do they loose their right to modify the license of the codebase with your contribution? If they decide to move it to GPL, do they need to get your permission first? If they decide to take the project closed source, do they need your permission? Can you sue for damages if they don’t get your permission first?

Your good faith doesn’t hold up in court and I understand why they’d want to clarify ownership of the contributions. Just because we’ve always done it this way doesn’t mean people aren’t open to liability. Just because another project accepts the risk of a random contributor winning a lawsuit against them doesn’t mean Grafana should. I’m surprised CLAs aren’t more common.

I was personally surprised at how generous their CLA was with ownership rights for you and your contribution to the project. You retain a lot when contributing.