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by kevingadd
4774 days ago
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Vaguely related anecdote: I had a really bad experience trying to use node.js for a project. Eventually I figured out that the module I needed was just broken, so I decided to at least update the documentation. As it turned out, not only was it not documented how to update the documentation (...) but I had to go back and forth on undocumented style guide rules (for documentation that gets displayed in the browser anyway!) and then sign the CLA, all to update a single line of text in the docs to say 'don't use this module, it's broken'. It literally would have taken less time for them to make the change themselves. This soured me even more on node.js than actually using it had. It's bizarre that project maintainers would actively put so many walls between themselves and valuable (or not-valuable, for that matter) code contributions. I can only assume that the legal downside to not having a CLA signed for every single-line commit is enormous. Are there previous court cases in the US where not having a CLA got someone destroyed? |
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I don't know of any court cases, but I do know of several projects that were not able to change their license because they didn't have a CLA and couldn't contact all previous contributors. Thats the right that section 1 of the nodejs CLA gives them.
Fun fact: nodejs reserves the right to use your contribution under "(b) binary, proprietary, or commercial licenses".