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How do I make contributors to my project transfer copyright to me? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by dullbananas@lemmy.ca to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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Is there a pull request template that does this?

Edit: I was worried about possibly needing to change license. For now I will just use a permissive license. The situation is made seemingly complicated by the possible need to use copylefted images, combined with the possible need for using server code (which shouldn't use creative commons) in addition to the static html. I would rather deal with including parts with different licenses (probably not as complicated as I initially thought) instead of contributor license agreements.

Edit 2: Also, license enforcement is not very important for my project.

Edit 3: Now I'm using creative commons zero and making the repo comply with https://reuse.software/

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[–] tiny@midwest.social 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not saying I'm a fan but you I think you are looking for a CLA or contributor license agreement

[–] rufus@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

This is the correct answer.

I'm sure there is a way to make signing the CLA part of the pull request process on Github. I've been asked to do it. Not sure how Github works nowadays, maybe it was part of Github or an external bot.

And I don't agree with the other people here. I think having complete copyright makes some things easier. And if you do an open project, maintain it for years, do 99% of the work... You're allowed being paid with the contributions.

Mind there are other licenses than just the GPL. You could just pick a MIT license / Apache / BSD instead and maybe you don't need the contributors to sign over their copyright anymore, because these licenses cover pretty much everything and transfer it to everyone, including you.