[llvm-dev] RFC #3: Improving license & patent issues in the LLVM community

[Chris Lattner via llvm-dev]

> On Apr 29, 2017, at 8:03 AM, Rafael Avila de Espindola via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> 
> Chris Lattner <clattner at llvm.org> writes:
> 
>> I don’t have a link off hand.  Two major points:
>> 
>> 1) CLA’s in general require an additional approval step, which reduces contributions.
> 
> Yes, that is the cost I mention in the email. I think it is better to
> take this cost than to impose a new license on the users.

For a variety of reasons, we need to change the license.  “Just adding a CLA on top of what we have” isn’t an option.

> 
>> 2) The apache CLA in general gives too much power (e.g. the power to relicense arbitrarily going forward) to the organization (in this case, llvm.org <http://llvm.org/>) which can deter contributions from folks who don’t want relicensing to be a simple act.
> 
> But that is a property of only some CLAs, no? We don't need or want (I
> hope) that property. We just want to make sure contributions can be used
> without worrying about patents.

Rafael, I appreciate your interest in this topic, but all of these ideas were discussed in the first round.  Please refer back to that thread, which I linked to in the first post on this thread.

-Chris