Talk Intermediate

DCOs, CLAs, and other TLAs: Things You Need To Know As An OSS Contributor

Approved

Session Description

There are many pieces of open source governance that individual contributors may not be fully aware of. These include agreements between individual contributors and organizations governing open source projects. There exist legal frameworks to help protect the contributors and projects alike, and this talk is meant to reaffirm these ideas to a broad set of open source leaders.
The talk will consist of Developer Certificates of Origin (DCOs) and Contributor License Agreements (CLAs) at its core, while also tracing the timeline of SCO-Linux controversies to showcase how and why these artifacts have been designed.
The talk is meant as a follow up I gave last year about licensing, stems from the follow up questions that the audience had about elements that exist to protect the rights of contributors.

Key Takeaways

Contributors may not always have the knowledge of the various artifacts that exist which govern open source contributions. Educating developers about these will help in better decision making. Learning the stories of how open source has evolved over the years will help them understand the present context better.

References

https://osr.finos.org/docs/bok/artifacts/clas-and-dcos

https://opensource.com/article/18/3/cla-vs-dco-whats-difference

https://toscalix.com/2019/10/13/references-about-cla-dco-fla-and-similar-topics/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes

Session Categories

Contributing to FOSS

Which track are you applying for?

Main track

Speakers

Ram Iyengar

Chief Evangelist | Linux Foundation

Ram Iyengar has been breaking, and occasionally fixing, software for 15 years. As an engineer and educator obsessed with open source and security, he's a perpetual tinkerer, constantly pushing the boundaries of what's possible ― and sometimes what's advisable. He also occasionally emerges from his lab to build communities and share his hard-won wisdom. Approach with caution (and maybe a bug report).

Reviews

While commonly applied to larger projects, knowledge of these aspects is useful for smaller projects as well. Looks like a good story to be told. Some of these things can be boring, but if things can be spiced up with references from the past that people may be forgetting, then they can be made more interesting, relevant, and informative. Hopefully this talk can deliver that impact.

Reviewer #1 Approved

This is useful stuff and something open source developers should learn about. As another reviewer said, this topic can get boring quiet easily so narration is key. Ram is an amazing speaker so I'm hoping that part will be taken care of :)

Reviewer #2 Approved

I like this. Bit of a PSA and would give insight into debates and topics that come up often in FOSS conversations.

Reviewer #3 Approved

It may seem like boring stuff, but definitely getting to know such information would be useful.

Reviewer #4 Approved