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0004. A CLA, so the project can also be licensed commercially

  • Status: accepted
  • Date: 2026-11-02

Context

The project had to choose between a CLA and a DCO. A DCO is friendlier: a contributor certifies they have the right to submit their work, under the project’s license. A CLA also grants the maintainer direct, broader rights from each contributor, including licensing the whole codebase under other terms. I decided the project should keep the option to offer commercial licenses, so it asks for a CLA.

Decision

  • Contributors sign an individual CLA (CLA.md) granting copyright and patent licenses that allow distribution under any terms, including commercial ones. Contributors keep their copyright.
  • The core stays Apache-2.0; the CLA promises that accepted contributions stay available under Apache-2.0 (no relicensing away from open source).
  • Enforcement by a CLA check on pull requests (the CLA Assistant Lite GitHub Action): a contributor signs once by posting a comment, and the signature is recorded in the repository. A corporate CLA is added when the first company contributes.

Consequences

  • Some contributors avoid CLAs; the friction is one comment on the first pull request, and the reason is stated plainly in CONTRIBUTING.
  • The name is protected separately (TRADEMARK.md).