[jraph]

Is this FUD? [edit: it's not, see the replies - I kept my original comment below because that's what people answered to, but I no longer agree with it]

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The linked announcement says

> Going forward, any contribution to LXD will be made under AGPLv3 by default. The author of a change remains the copyright holder of their code (no copyright assignment).

Emphasis mine. No copyright assignment.

So, Canonical now contributes in AGPLv3. The project is now AGPLv3 as well, with some parts in Apache 2. Contributors may contribute in Apache 2 if they wish but probably won't bother. They still own their code.

The author is pissed off because he can't build custom versions without redistributing the modifications and can't sell services to companies afraid of the AGPL anymore.

[ropyeett]

https://ubuntu.com/legal/contributors/agreement for the details.

In short, you don't lose your own copyright but you grant them a license to do whatever they want including re-license as they wish without having to ever consult you, allowing for your code to be used within their closed source projects under any license they wish.

[jraph]

Ah, right, it's not a copyright assignment, but there is a CLA. Confused the two concepts, rookie mistake. So yeah, not good. I will edit my comment. I would even say that not mentioning the CLA and mentioning the absence of copyright assignment in the announcement is quite dishonest.

[stgraber]

Yes it is indeed

[jraph]

My best wishes for your fork!

[creatonez]

> Contributors may contribute in Apache 2 if they wish but probably won't bother.

They couldn't make a contribution under Apache 2 that is a derivative of AGPLv3 code. It will have to be bound by the licenses of both at the same time (or be based on a clean-room implementation of the AGPL code additions -- good luck with git merge)

[xoa]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the post also links the "add Canonical CLA check #12665" [0], and my understanding is that "retain copyright" here is like a typical forum agreement where you going forward must agree to a perpetual worldwide unlimited license to Canonical that they can use as they please per [1]:

>In effect, you’re giving us a licence, but you still own the copyright — so you retain the right to modify your code and use it in other projects.

You explicitly do retain ownership, so you can then take that same code and contribute it elsewhere under any license you wish. The same author could contribute the same patch to both the LXD and the Incus fork. But some might object to being required to allow Canonical to specially license as they want.

So your characterization seems unfair, and then gets kind of nasty at the end:

>The author is pissed off because he can't build custom versions without redistributing the modifications

Incus is a full fork, and Canonical has apparently been taking changes back from it as well as is often the case with such forks where both sides get value from each other. It's perfectly understandable for some folks to be bummed if that's no longer the case, and there is nothing evil about the Apache2 license. There's plenty of history that in OSS going back to the beginning, no need for insinuations or attacks. Shouldn't throw around "FUD" at core authors just because they're a touch blindsided.

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0: https://github.com/canonical/lxd/pull/12665/commits/eb5c773d...

1: https://ubuntu.com/legal/contributors

[jraph]

Yep, you are right. See the followups. My characterization was indeed unfair. I confused copyright assignment and CLA, and understood "no copyright assignment" as "no CLA", which is of course wrong.

And for me this totally reverses the situation, AGPL + CLA means "We can make it proprietary tomorrow, and only we can do it".