Exploring the appetite for DCO

[maoo]

In the last months we have several unilateral conversations around the adoption of DCO for FINOS hosted projects.

This issue is to gather interest from FINOS project maintainers: feel free to drop a comment in this issue, mentioning the FINOS project and the main reasons for switching from CLA to DCO.

To know more about CLA and DCO, I encourage reading https://osr.finos.org/docs/bok/artifacts/clas-and-dcos ; if you want to know more about FINOS CLA, you can read https://community.finos.org/docs/governance/software-projects/easycla/ .

[timkpaine]

I am interested for jupyterlab_templates! I had a perfectly good PR recently closed due to the hurdle of filling out a CLA (finos/jupyterlab_templates#252). This project has extremely wide usage (including far outside of financial services!) and the wider the contributor base, the more likely CLA is to be a barrier to entry.

[mimiflynn]

@timkpaine what was the issue with the existing CLA for this particular PR?

[timkpaine]

@mimiflynn its existence

[mimiflynn]

If this thread is to be a conversation it needs to contain specific information from which to draw conclusions. We need contributor agreements. What are the pros and cons of the two types of agreements and how do they apply in this specific PR and how would these differences impact other projects?

[timkpaine]

CLA requires end user to fill out paperwork and takes time, whereas DCO is self service. I'm not sure how else to describe it other than as someone who makes thousands of contributions across hundreds of projects a year and interacts with developers that also make thousands of contributions across hundreds of projects, every CLA is an impediment and makes one less likely to contribute.

Since there is no copyright assignment, DCO seems objectively better in all ways. Thats why projects like the Linux kernel moved to it. I think the linux kernel is a good project and worthy of emulation 😆

[maoo]

@timkpaine - thanks for the info, and to raise your hand for Jupyterlab Templates.

@mimiflynn - I believe that https://osr.finos.org/docs/bok/artifacts/clas-and-dcos provides good background to understand differences between CLA and DCO; re. FINOS CLA (and EasyCLA), the best link is https://community.finos.org/docs/governance/software-projects/easycla/ . This issue was not exactly designed for a discussion, but rather to collect interest around project maintainers. I believe that these type of conversations could/should happen in the Open Source Readiness SIG. Happy to help of course, thanks for the feedback!