Skip to content
This repository has been archived by the owner on Nov 15, 2021. It is now read-only.

Contributor License Agreement Q&A

Shaun Wilde edited this page May 10, 2017 · 3 revisions

Contributor License Agreement

Recently OpenCover hooked in cla-assitant.io to manage the automate signing process of CLAs to cover contributions to the project. I have tried to think about what questions people may have and answered them below. If you have any further questions please reach out and I'll try and help.

Q. Why does OpenCover have a Contributor License Agreement and why now?

A. This is something I have been thinking about for some time, especially with the increased number of external contributions, but the electronic submission process I have seen in the past (e..g. sign, scan, send) just deterred me from enacting it for OpenCover as I felt it acted like a barrier. Recently I have seen a few projects (e.g. .NET Core) use an automated process hooked into the pull request flow in GitHub and it felt so natural that I hope it will not become a deterrent to future submissions.

Q. The agreement allows you to transfer the licence does this mean you intend to go commercial?

A. No. I have no intention in going commercial and selling OpenCover, I have my own reasons for developing OpenCover and releasing under MIT licence and frankly if it went commercial it would involve having to provide some level of support to paying customers and sometimes I just want my evening and weekends for my family and I. The CLA was generated by the harmony project and has a lot of legalise and "I am not a lawyer" but I assume it has been reviewed by such, I have made some minor changes wrt. the signing/introduction process, by adding links etc, but not touched the main body of the agreement.

Q. Will I have to do this on every submission?

A. No. I experimented with the process with a test version of the agreement and it should only kick in on your first submission and when potentially if the CLA changes.