[dpkirchner]

I don't know. Do you really know what you're giving up by signing these? I'd have to study CLAs and hope that I am interpreting them correctly within our respective jurisdictions, or ask a lawyer.

All of this stands in the way of contributing. And this is their decision to make, of course, but it is hostile to would-be contributors.

[the-grump]

If you don't understand the legal implications of the license and CLA, please don't start rumours like "Grafana discourages contributions from the community, even for its documentation".

I could try explain to you what the purpose of a CLA is, but you could also easily put in the effort by going on Google.

Make sure to also look into the implications of contributing code with an OSS license, any license. That's as much contract as a CLA is.

[ilyt]

> Do you really know what you're giving up by signing these?

Yes. Everything. That's the point of near-every CLA.

So the corporation behind it have option to close the code if they want to, taking your contributions with it.

Some corps might not ever do it, but any company is one MBA away from "what we can cut from OSS version and move to enterprise to get more customers"?

[striking]

I mean, this flatly contradicts this line in the CLA:

> Except for the license granted herein to Grafana Labs and recipients of software distributed by Grafana Labs, You reserve all right, title, and interest in and to Your Contributions. [emphasis mine]

You can always use the version of the code your contributions went into. You still own the code you wrote, and still retain the rest of theirs under its original license. You're just not entitled to future versions of the source like a copyleft license without a CLA would grant.

I understand not being excited to serve corporate interests (that's what a CLA does), but posting intellectually uncurious flamebait as a result makes for boring reading.

[striking]

I do, actually. It looks like a standard CLA. It grants them a perpetual license to whatever code you're contributing and allows them to use it as they please, and not affecting any of your other rights. There's also some stuff in there about you only contributing code that you actually have the right to contribute, and how to manage edge cases around that. It's fairly standard when someone intends to be able to use your contribution as part of a greater open-core / closed-source distribution and to be able to simplify licensing matters. They have to protect their own interests and they're doing so in a manner that basically doesn't affect you at all.

Do you hire a lawyer any time you encounter an unfamiliar OSS license? I assume you don't, or you'd have a hard time using any modern packaging ecosystem.