> That wording (from the post) is unfortunate because it is misleading, but that doesn't mean we should continue to spread the misinterpretation. Please stop conflating "project ownership" with "copyright assignment".

What else is there to own in an open source project? The trademarks? How many of these projects even have trademarks?

> I got that PDF by going to https://cla.dotnetfoundation.org/ and then clicking through the link to the CLA.

This is the document that the .NET foundation requires new contributors to projects owned by the .NET foundation to sign. Ok. But it's not the document that the owners of these projects signed as part of opening relations with the foundation, at least by the project owners claims and provided screenshot. The .NET foundation could plaster this document on their home page, but it doesn't change that the project authors are providing a different document that they claim is the one they signed.

The document that the project authors claim to have signed includes this modified intro:

> Project means the projects owned or managed by Contributor and listed below that is assigned to the .NET foundation hereunder.

If this is assigning copyright to the .NET foundation, is it bad faith to not make that clearer? Yes. Is it a reason not to do business with the .NET foundation? Yes. Does the fact that the later sections of the document discuss copyright licenses make their claim less credible? Yes. But I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to pass judgement on if it does what the .NET foundation claims, merely discuss the point that the foundation now claims it does so, and other posters have claimed that kind of assignment is needed for a foundation to operate.

Please stop attacking me for trying to discuss the situation without using your preferred description exactly. I'm trying to present both sides claims in a discussion that it is not required for the .NET to do what they claim based on the examples of other foundations which have managed without such a step.

> What else is there to own in an open source project?

Control over the code repository, maintainership, and the ability to push to master/main.

For what it's worth: while I'm not a lawyer, I'm a past ASF board member, VP Legal Affairs, and VP Incubator. Not that you should take my "argument from authority" as gospel, but that should give some perspective on why I'm focusing narrowly on the issue of copyright assignment. I've explained these issues many many times to many many projects, dealt with conflicts over administrative control analogous in some ways to the one at hand, etc.

Copyright assignment is extremely cumbersome and difficult. To achieve it, all copyright owners must be willing to give up their own copyright, which many organizations and many individuals are not willing (or even able) to do.

From my standpoint, it is unthinkable that the .NET Foundation would say that their contribution model is to license, and then slip copyright assignment language into an agreement on the sly. There would be hell to pay if that were the case. The contribution models, how you run the organization, etc., they're quite different.

EDIT: Mea culpa. I have found additional documentation that conflicts and reveals that there is now an an additional copyright-assignment track. See my soon-to-appear reply.

> > Project means the projects owned or managed by Contributor and listed below that is assigned to the .NET foundation hereunder.

> If this is assigning copyright to the .NET foundation, is it bad faith to not make that clearer?

That clause doesn't assign copyright. While IANAL, from my perspective copyright assignment language would be much more specific than that.

EDIT: There may be additional language later.

> the project authors are providing a different document

Yes, that's true unfortunately. I wish that the project author had provided the whole thing because that would make our discussion easier. I can't get at the actual current document because it's sent via Docusign, and I'd need to actually submit a project to the DNF to get at it.

I tried, though, because clearing this misunderstanding is important.

> What else is there to own in an open source project?

In terms of intellectual property: copyright, trademarks, and patents.

But then there is also administrative control over project resources: domains, Github organizations, possibly physical resources such as servers or test hardware, accounts at various places, upload permissions for distribution channels, occasionally bank accounts, etc.

And specifically, this conflict is about administrative control over project resources and permissions on Github.

> The trademarks? How many of these projects even have trademarks?

Well, technically few have registered trademarks, but in general you get a trademark by using it in commerce. So all of them have at least a claim on a trademark, although it may not be enforceable if there's a conflicting registered mark or if the project name is too generic.

> EDIT: Mea culpa. I have found additional documentation that conflicts and reveals that there is now an an additional copyright-assignment track. See my soon-to-appear reply.

On https://dotnetfoundation.org/projects/submit I found the following:

> Assignment and Contribution Models. The .NET Foundation uses either an assignment model or a contribution model for on-boarding new projects. Under the assignment model, a project transfers ownership of the copyright to the .NET Foundation. Under the contribution model, a project retains ownership of the copyright, but grants the .NET Foundation a broad license to the project’s code and other intellectual property. The project also confirms that the project’s submissions to .NET Foundation are its own original work (there are also instructions for any third party materials that might be included).

I regret my error.

Here is the best part, if you dig a little deeper into the issues and pull requests, you will find out that the .NET Foundation people have been removing the contribution option from the blank agreements, leaving only the assignment option. Lol! Unsurprisingly, this upset some of the developers on the projects, as they were unclear about how this affected them.

The consequences seem foreseeable and I don't understand why the DNF would do that. The difference between copyright licensing and copyright assignment is a big deal. If you think it makes strategic sense to transition (which I don't understand either), to my mind you'd better be loud and bold, overcommunicating in order to maintain trust — with project founders, contributors, and the broader community (including outsiders like you (?) and me).

FWIW, this would never happen at the ASF. The 800 or so Members of the ASF (who elect the Board) are drawn from the projects, so the kind of people who are upset at the DNF would be in a position to take action at the ASF (by electing a different board).