Comment by jtl999
7 years ago
I do understand your point, but I wouldn't spin it that way or bring it up with them, just start committing using a "new" identity, assuming they have no knowledge of your "main" identity.
Easier said then done.
7 years ago
I do understand your point, but I wouldn't spin it that way or bring it up with them, just start committing using a "new" identity, assuming they have no knowledge of your "main" identity.
Easier said then done.
That dishonesty is exactly what makes it fraudulent.
They're asking you to sign some legal documentation. If you forge a signature rather than getting it signed by your employer, that's fraud. If you create a false identity in order to hide the fact that you have an employer, that's also fraud.
You have exactly two legal (and, just as importantly, honest) options in this situation: Get permission from your employer before contributing, or don't contribute. If you like the project and don't want to create trouble for its maintainers, you will pick one of those two options.
The reason this permission exists is that contributions will not be owned by your employer, but will be part of the project. It depends on your employer if they allow you to work on personal software that they do not claim ownership for or not. I think you are right to not use a pseudonym. I once did, and regret having done so.
It depends on the type of CLA. There are many CLAs that do not imply copyright assignment, it's just legalese to make sure that you are taking liability for making sure that you have the right to add your contributions to the project -- basically a longer-form version of the Linux DCO.
In those cases, your employer would own your contributions and thus you need permission from them to license their copyrighted work (your changes) under whatever the project license is.
But in any case, contributing under a pseudonym is something that you should think about very seriously. This has been done before in the Linux kernel and luckily nobody got sued over it, but it is basically copyright infringement mixed with various levels of fraud and deception. Don't do this to us poor maintainers.
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> I think you are right to not use a pseudonym. I once did, and regret having done so.
Did it cause you some problems later, or?
Well, the permission exists to ensure that the contributions will be owned by the project and not anyone's employer.
If that permission isn't secured, though, and the employee has a contract with their employer that signs ownership of some or all of their off-hours work over to their employer, and the employer decides to try and exercise those rights, then it's anyone's guess who the real owner would be. Might vary by jurisdiction. Might be down to whether the open source project can afford to lawyer up in the first place.
Given all that, a FOSS project isn't unwise for asking for a permission slip. You could argue that it's being over-cautious, but that's the project maintainer's decision, and it deserves to be respected.
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Out of curiosity, why do you regret it?
> that's also fraud.
No, it's not fraud because there's no intention to gain illegal or unlawful gain. It's just deceit.
A very interesting point. I think it's fraud. You're doing it for (potential) monetary gain. Not your own, but the ownership of copyright which you're claiming and reattributing on behalf of your pseudonym. Still fraud, I suspect.