Contribution Policy

[Andrew Robin]

[Thread moved from "Automated Wrapper..."]

Disclaimer:  I am not a lawyer (for sure).  If you are in need of legal 
advice, be sure to consult your lawyer.  Lawyers are there to CYA.

 From Chris:

>  (3) There is no contribution policy for Clasp.  What should it be?  Are there any good models we can copy? If you keep it as a separate project for now then maybe there are no immediate issues.

Chris,

Following up on the discussion of others(including Faheem andGeorgiy), if you accept significant amounts of code (like over ten lines?) you probably should have a contribution policy.  Again, if you want to change the license in the future this is a pragmatic idea.  Hunting down contributors is a pain, a posteriori.  I am willing to transfer my own contributions to your project without strings, or even an attribution--but I<3 free software.

I'm not affiliated with the FSF, but they are a place to start, especially if you use one of their licenses.  They are very nice people who will talk to you.  I have worked with them, with positive results.  I think GNU requires you to assign your contributions in written form.  (I'm sure I will be corrected.)

In the past, I have licensed my code under a corporation I owned, to do a corporate shield.  Faheem mentioned theSoftware Freedom Conservancy takes free software projects under a legal umbrella.  I have no experience with them.  They do want a cut of your revenue stream, but they are up front about it, and maybe worth it.  Relevant link:

https://sfconservancy.org/members/apply/

Again, think "CYA".  Not to scare you but, if your project becomes very visible, "they" might come out of the woodwork :)  (I personally hide my projects in an obscure place--I'm not telling you where.)

--Andy (o>