Legal advice (was Re: CLA is broken)

Stephen John Smoogen smooge at gmail.com
Tue Apr 22 16:15:55 UTC 2008


On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 3:38 AM, Stepan Kasal <skasal at redhat.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
>  On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 11:55:25AM -0400, Jesse Keating wrote:
>  > On Mon, 2008-04-21 at 17:49 +0200, Stepan Kasal wrote:
>  > > But the contributor is supposed to sign it, supposedly without
>  > > getting a legal advice.
>  >
>  > Where do we state, suggest, encourage, hint that you should sign it
>  > without getting legal advice?  Seriously?
>
>  nowere, of course.  Sorry for implying that.
>
>  Let me put is this way:
>
>  1) I'd be interested to learn how many of the Fedora contributors got
>  a legal advice about it before they signed it.
>

I did.. and I signed it anyway.

>  2) If the CLA were so simple that most developers were able to
>  understand it without getting a legal advice, that would lower the
>  enter barrier and thus would present a competitive advantage.
>  (No, I do not imply it is possible, I'm just dreaming.)
>

I don't think it is really possible. Back in the day when we looked at
something like this .. the legal off the cuff advice was to remind us
that most of the non-simple language is there for a reason. Simple
agreements usually have giant legal holes in them where one or both
sides can screw the other party intentionally or unintentionally.
-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"




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