[llvm-dev] Relicensing: Revised Developer Policy

[Rafael Avila de Espindola via llvm-dev]

Chris Lattner <clattner at llvm.org> writes:

>> On Aug 10, 2017, at 2:59 PM, Rafael Avila de Espindola <rafael.espindola at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I can find old threads about it, but nothing saying why it was decided
>> that contributor agreement wouldn't work. Care to send the URL?
>
> Here are some quick points that come to mind:
>
> 1. It raises the bar to contribution, because something must be
> “signed” before a contribution can be made.

Yes, but changing the license impacts our users, which is a bigger issue IMHO.

> 2. The Apache CLA is the only widely available one, but it is unsuitable for LLVM’s goals because it allows a project to relicense contributions.  
> 3. Some contributors are significantly concerned with the Apache CLA, partially because of #2, but there are other concerns.  Losing contributors would be unfortunate.
> 4. We do not want a novel legal device (e.g. a new or significantly hacked up CLA).

We are proposing moving to modified Apache license. Why is a modified
license less troublesome than a modified CLA?

> 5. The only way to achieve our goals (e.g. the ability to move code between the compiler and runtime libraries) is through a relicense, so a CLA doesn’t make anything simpler.

I have no problem changing the license to something FreeBSD and OpenBSD
are happy with.

Cheers,
Rafael