Why would I ever need to sign such s thing? If I contribute to an open source project, isn’t it obvious that I agree to publish my code under whichever license the project is published under?

  • teri@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    I think it is generally helpful to understand the fundamental mechanism behind licenses. They common licenses used for open-source software are all build on the ‘copyright law’. Copyright law basically forbids you to copy information which is subject to copyright law (music, movies, texts, computer programs, …). The license is a statement which explicitly permits you to copy the information under certain conditions. In case of the GPLv3 one of the conditions is that you publish your changes with the same license terms.