All rights reserved about gxui HOT 5 CLOSED

That's the standard 3-clause BSD license: http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause

from gxui.

And here is some info why this phrase is still commonly used in OSS: http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss/2013-June/001012.html

from gxui.

Sorry my bad! But do you really need a CLA then?

from gxui.

A CLA is standard practice in open source projects to make sure ownership rights are clear. Ownership rights are important in minimizing risk. The lack of CLA on the Linux kernel let SCO exploit unclear ownership in their attacks in the past.

Other free software organizations use even stricter requirements to minimize legal risk. For example, the FSF require ownership be assigned: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html

from gxui.

SCO had nothing to do with singning a CLA or not. SCO bought the rights to UNIX, and claimed that there were code from that codebase in Linux. Which they could not show any occurance of. They could have done exactly the same thing even if Linux had a CLA. In fact some of the things around SCO was due to unclear licenses, much like a CLA. It is just one more paper that may be exploited. Now you have two legal documents instead of just one, and if there is any contradiction in them that might be exploited.
And in case of the Kernel, a CLA would actually be harmful, since that would give the owner of the code more rights than the contributors. That might put some people off...
But if you like a CLA, have fun. I will not sign any, and I'm probably not the only one that thinks CLAs are rubbish.

from gxui.