A terribly good summary on the current state of Corporate Open Source

I upset a few people at meetings when I called out Contributor License Agreements (CLA) as theft and that (at least on a personal contributor level) will not sign them in the future. I did my learning with a Java based search engine a few years ago. On an organizational level, I don’t care, that’s for others to decide and to think about how political or risk-averse an organization wants to be about the topic.

Do you trust companies that switched licenses and then “reconsidered”? The gloves are off, and they showed that they are able to pull trough with a bad decision and shatter trust of their communities – Why trust them again?

How to make this situation better? I don’t know… not signing CLAs is a good start and staying away from licenses that don’t respect freedoms. Or, as Jeff points out very nicely – Maybe this time for a new Open Source rebellion.