I've had my disagreements with Joyent's management of the Node.js project. In fact, I am generally auto-skeptical of any Open Source and/or Free Software project run by a for-profit company. However, I also like to give credit where credit is due.
Specifically, I'd like to congratulate Joyent for making the right decision today to remove one of the major barriers to entry for contribution to the Node.js project: its CLA. In an announcement today (see section labeled “Easier Contribution”, Joyent announced Joyent no longer requires contributors to sign the CLA and will (so it seems) accept contributions simply licensed under the MIT-permissive license. In short, Node.js is, as of today, an inbound=outbound project.
While I'd prefer if Joyent would in addition switch the project to the Apache License 2.0 — or even better, the Affero GPLv3 — I realize that neither of those things are likely to happen. :) Given that, dropping the CLA is the next best outcome possible, and I'm glad it has happened.
For further reading on my positions against CLAs, please see these two older blog posts:
- Why Your Project Doesn't Need a Contributor Licensing Agreement
- Project Harmony (and “Next Generation Contributor Agreements”) Considered Harmful
