Making a CLA for Thrive

So the changes to the CLA text are as follows:

Added before section 1:

For clarity, it is stated that any Contributions Submitted by You to Us also before the signature of this Agreement are governed as Contributions under this Agreement.

Replaced start of section 2.3:

As a condition on the grant of rights in Sections 2.1 and 2.2, to the extent we include Your Contribution or a part of it in a Material, We may license the Contribution under any license, including copyleft, permissive, commercial, or proprietary licenses. As a condition on the exercise of this right, We agree to also license the Contribution under the terms of any license which is approved by the Open Source Initiative (“OSI”) on or after the Effective Date, including both permissive and copyleft licenses, whether or not such licenses are subsequently disapproved (including any right to adopt any future version of a license if approved by the OSI).

Gives us permission to license proprietarily (for Steam etc.), but also requires the work to be licensed out under the GPL.

New 2.5 section inserted before “Our rights section”:

2.5 Enforcement. You, as a copyright holder to Your Contribution, hereby authorize us to enforce the OSI approved license applied by Us to a Material, but only to the extent Your Contribution has been included in a Material and always subject to Our free discretion on whether such enforcement is necessary or not.

Gives us CAA like right to sue someone who misuses the GPL licensed code of the project, without requiring contributors to hand over copyrights.

Here’s the full text again:

Thank you for your interest in contributing to Thrive (“We” or “Us”).

This contributor agreement (“Agreement”) documents the rights granted
by contributors to Us. To make this document effective, please sign it
electronically, following the instructions at
ThriveDevCenter. This is a legally
binding document, so please read it carefully before agreeing to
it. The Agreement may cover more than one software project managed by
Us.

For clarity, it is stated that any Contributions Submitted by You to
Us also before the signature of this Agreement are governed as
Contributions under this Agreement.

1. Definitions

“You” means the individual who Submits a Contribution to Us.

“Contribution” means any work of authorship that is Submitted by You
to Us in which You own or assert ownership of the Copyright. If You do
not own the Copyright in the entire work of authorship, please follow
the instructions in ThriveDevCenter.

“Copyright” means all rights protecting works of authorship owned or
controlled by You, including copyright, moral and neighboring rights,
as appropriate, for the full term of their existence including any
extensions by You.

“Material” means the work of authorship which is made available by Us
to third parties. When this Agreement covers more than one software
project, the Material means the work of authorship to which the
Contribution was Submitted. After You Submit the Contribution, it may
be included in the Material.

“Submit” means any form of electronic, verbal, or written
communication sent to Us or our representatives, including but not
limited to electronic mailing lists, source code control systems, and
issue tracking systems that are managed by, or on behalf of, Us for
the purpose of discussing and improving the Material, but excluding
communication that is conspicuously marked or otherwise designated in
writing by You as “Not a Contribution.”

“Submission Date” means the date on which You Submit a Contribution to
Us.

“Effective Date” means the date You execute this Agreement or the date
You first Submit a Contribution to Us, whichever is earlier.

“Media” means any portion of a Contribution which is not software.

2. Grant of Rights

2.1 Copyright License

(a) You retain ownership of the Copyright in Your Contribution and
have the same rights to use or license the Contribution which You
would have had without entering into the Agreement.

(b) To the maximum extent permitted by the relevant law, You grant to
Us a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free,
irrevocable license under the Copyright covering the Contribution,
with the right to sublicense such rights through multiple tiers of
sublicensees, to reproduce, modify, display, perform and distribute
the Contribution as part of the Material; provided that this license
is conditioned upon compliance with Section 2.3.

2.2 Patent License

For patent claims including, without limitation, method, process, and
apparatus claims which You [or Your Affiliates] own, control or have
the right to grant, now or in the future, You grant to Us a perpetual,
worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free, irrevocable
patent license, with the right to sublicense these rights to multiple
tiers of sublicensees, to make, have made, use, sell, offer for sale,
import and otherwise transfer the Contribution and the Contribution in
combination with the Material (and portions of such combination). This
license is granted only to the extent that the exercise of the
licensed rights infringes such patent claims; and provided that this
license is conditioned upon compliance with Section 2.3.

2.3 Outbound License

As a condition on the grant of rights in Sections 2.1 and 2.2, to the
extent we include Your Contribution or a part of it in a Material, We
may license the Contribution under any license, including copyleft,
permissive, commercial, or proprietary licenses. As a condition on the
exercise of this right, We agree to also license the Contribution
under the terms of any license which is approved by the Open Source
Initiative (“OSI”) on or after the Effective Date, including both
permissive and copyleft licenses, whether or not such licenses are
subsequently disapproved (including any right to adopt any future
version of a license if approved by the OSI).

In addition, We may use the following licenses for Media in the
Contribution: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported,
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0, and
GNU Free Documentation License version 1.3
(including any right to adopt any future version of a license if permitted).

2.4 Moral Rights

If moral rights apply to the Contribution, to the maximum extent
permitted by law, You waive and agree not to assert such moral rights
against Us or our successors in interest, or any of our licensees,
either direct or indirect.

2.5 Enforcement

You, as a copyright holder to Your Contribution, hereby authorize us
to enforce the OSI approved license applied by Us to a Material, but
only to the extent Your Contribution has been included in a Material
and always subject to Our free discretion on whether such enforcement
is necessary or not.

2.6 Our Rights

You acknowledge that We are not obligated to use Your Contribution as
part of the Material and may decide to include any Contribution We
consider appropriate.

2.7 Reservation of Rights

Any rights not expressly licensed under this section are expressly
reserved by You.

3. Agreement

You confirm that:

(a) You have the legal authority to enter into this Agreement.

(b) You own the Copyright and patent claims covering the Contribution
which are required to grant the rights under Section 2.

(c) The grant of rights under Section 2 does not violate any grant of
rights which You have made to third parties, including Your employer.
If You are an employee, You have had Your employer approve this
Agreement or sign the Entity version of this document. If You are
less than eighteen years old, please have Your parents or guardian
sign the Agreement.

(d) You have followed the instructions in
ThriveDevCenter, if You do not own the
Copyright in the entire work of authorship Submitted.

4. Disclaimer

EXCEPT FOR THE EXPRESS WARRANTIES IN SECTION 3, THE CONTRIBUTION IS
PROVIDED “AS IS”. MORE PARTICULARLY, ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES
INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT
ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED BY YOU TO US. TO THE EXTENT THAT ANY SUCH
WARRANTIES CANNOT BE DISCLAIMED, SUCH WARRANTY IS LIMITED IN DURATION
TO THE MINIMUM PERIOD PERMITTED BY LAW.

5. Consequential Damage Waiver

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL
YOU BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, LOSS OF ANTICIPATED SAVINGS,
LOSS OF DATA, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL AND
EXEMPLARY DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THIS AGREEMENT REGARDLESS OF THE
LEGAL OR EQUITABLE THEORY (CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE) UPON WHICH THE
CLAIM IS BASED.

6. Miscellaneous

6.1 This Agreement will be governed by and construed in accordance
with the laws of Finland excluding its conflicts of law
provisions. Under certain circumstances, the governing law in this
section might be superseded by the United Nations Convention on
Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (“UN Convention”) and
the parties intend to avoid the application of the UN Convention to
this Agreement and, thus, exclude the application of the UN Convention
in its entirety to this Agreement.

6.2 This Agreement sets out the entire agreement between You and Us
for Your Contributions to Us and overrides all other agreements or
understandings.

6.3 If You or We assign the rights or obligations received through
this Agreement to a third party, as a condition of the assignment,
that third party must agree in writing to abide by all the rights and
obligations in the Agreement.

6.4 The failure of either party to require performance by the other
party of any provision of this Agreement in one situation shall not
affect the right of a party to require such performance at any time in
the future. A waiver of performance under a provision in one situation
shall not be considered a waiver of the performance of the provision
in the future or a waiver of the provision in its entirety.

6.5 If any provision of this Agreement is found void and
unenforceable, such provision will be replaced to the extent possible
with a provision that comes closest to the meaning of the original
provision and which is enforceable. The terms and conditions set
forth in this Agreement shall apply notwithstanding any failure of
essential purpose of this Agreement or any limited remedy to the
maximum extent possible under law.


This is still based on the harmony CLA.

The signing process will be as follows (we’ll probably want to require people to sign before they apply to the team):

  • Person goes to ThriveDevCenter and start the signing process
  • Next they put in their email, which they confirm with a sent email link
  • (optional for non-programmers) the person uses a github login button to link their github account to the document to be signed
  • I think this is a good idea: Thrive developers / future developers should input the username they will use in the community
  • Then the person just writes their name, and their name again as a signature. I guess for underage people we might need to have a checkbox that enables a guardian signing field
  • And then they just hit sign and the signature info is stored in a database and also in an immutable file storage. Then the automated PR checking system will allow their PRs through once signed, and other PRs from authors who have not signed will get flagged as requiring the CLA to be signed.

I’ll work on the CLA signing feature in the near future, so now’s your last chance to comment or object on this. Once the CLA is in place I (or if someone wants to help me) will contact every possible past developer to get them to sign it as well.