On Wed, 2009-10-28 at 10:49 -0700, Alan Coopersmith wrote:
> They may not require it, but some do allow it - for instance, the NetBSD
> Foundation last year changed the license on all the code which contributors
> had donated the copyright to them. (Dropping one of the previous BSD
> license clauses.)
Other examples of why a contributor agreement is important:
Anyone who follows Freenode's #mercurial channel knows that they're
going through a relicensing exercise at the moment, attempting to
contact developers who contributed code. They say they're up to "96%"
at this point but it's an extended exercise. In many cases all they
have for the contributor is a name and an email address which no longer
works.
Additionally, if a contributor has died (it happens!) it may prove to be
difficult to find someone who represents the estate to agree to a
proposed change.
An appropriately structured contributor agreement protects the entire
community and prevents it from having to discard contributions when
contributors wander off.
- Bill
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