Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
> Firstly, I should say that I think the CLA is utterly ridiculous.
> I want to be completely clear that like almost everyone else in this
> conversation, I would certainly not sign it.
It's divisive, and has already managed to fragment the community into
two camps. As Kay said (in google+, alas):
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+KaySievers/posts/C3chC26khpq
The development of systemd was, at least in part, due to the CLA. The
result was that the bulk of ongoing init system work moved away from
upstart and towards systemd.
Free software developers gain value in proportion to the number of
people sharing and using their code. Failing to enter into a CLA limits
the potential market for contributions.
I feel that having the Debian community endorse software where a CLA is
involved will tacitly encourage developers to enter into those
agreements so that their work can be published as widely as possible.
Personally, I would like us to take a principled stand against
corporate-sponsored CLA-restricted software projects as I feel they do
not follow the spirit of the DFSG, even as they follow the letter. They
remind me too strongly of Animal Farm.
> Like Andi, I think the risk to our autonomy from upstream is much
> lower in the case of upstart than systemd.
Certainly the fraction of Debian influence in upstart would be
dramatically larger than our influence could be in systemd as so many
fewer people outside of Debian are working on upstart than systemd.
A significant benefit of systemd is precisely that a lot of other people
are working on it, and appear willing to continue working on it. The
best way to make Debian gain relevance and importance there will be to
increase the number of Debian developers actively participating in
improving it.
If autonomy from other distributions was an explicit Debian goal, then
we'd presumably be spending a lot more time cleaning up the Hurd instead
of collaborating with others on Linux.
--
keith.packard@intel.com
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