Because Martin was the lead maintainer and original author and worked at Google for over a decade until like a month ago, and so as a project it fell under their typical standards in the Google OSPO department and had a CLA applied. When it moved orgs, they had to own the org too, so they could keep CLA robot in. That's basically it. It's just a really successful project that has grown far beyond one company or person.
In theory there is now nothing stopping us (the community/project leaders) from just... Moving the repo somewhere else. We could do that. It would be a pretty sudden alienation of other Google contributors though and probably piss off their legal department -- 99% of them just submit regular fixes like any user, because they are ordinary users of JJ. They just happen to work at Google. It would just be stirring up shit for nothing. It isn't an unthinkable outcome, but it isn't one we're just going to "do" for no reason or because it would make people posting on forums happier.
Realistically a non-ownership-assigning CLA on a non-copyleft Apache 2.0 project like in this case doesn't actually mean anything or confer any power. It's all just paperwork that serves as a legal ass covering mechanism because big companies use lawyers. It's like checking the "Yes I am over 18 years old" box on a website. I say this as someone who hates the stupid CLA bot and am a contributor.
As far as actual leadership goes Google does not "own" anything in that regard, nor the day to day work, nor can it really force any of the community to do anything. There's 1 maintainer from Google out of 9 total and +95% of major contributions don't come from Googlers, ERSC, or even any particular company. They don't contribute most of the code, they don't lead most of the community, they are vastly dwarfed by the community in total size, contribution count, etc. What "ownership" or leverage do they have beyond a Github org in this setup? It's annoying but it isn't the same thing as being able to exercise meaningful levers of power, in my experience, and so most of us are just fine with it. Even if there was some stupid bullshit like a disagreement over implied trademark rights, the community could just rename and move on and Google would have nothing. That is where the real power lies.
I'm trying to come from a place of help, truly, so bear with me.
You have to get out from under Google. This would be a red flag during due diligence for many investors.
I'm not saying Google is going to fuck you over but why not just get yourself into a place where you don't need to be writing replies like this, and we don't need to be having this conversation.
And also, I would strongly recommend acquiring trademark rights as soon as possible. If a foundation is formed later you can decide what to do with them, but having them protected is a huge deal.
There's nothing starting me from creating jjhub.com tomorrow and that is a real potential threat for you.
Since I posted previously, I realized I had forgotten trademark entirely, and Google does own the trademark for jj. (See my other comments about the Mozilla/Rust connection, it was the same back then too).
It's not an issue for investors, because again, Google does not own this, and we aren't even modifying jj at this point, and are unlikely to need to. The IP is very clear and not an issue.
> There's nothing starting me from creating jjhub.com tomorrow and that is a real potential threat for you.
That's fine! There's a lot of people already doing this, today. Competition is natural.
In theory there is now nothing stopping us (the community/project leaders) from just... Moving the repo somewhere else. We could do that. It would be a pretty sudden alienation of other Google contributors though and probably piss off their legal department -- 99% of them just submit regular fixes like any user, because they are ordinary users of JJ. They just happen to work at Google. It would just be stirring up shit for nothing. It isn't an unthinkable outcome, but it isn't one we're just going to "do" for no reason or because it would make people posting on forums happier.
Realistically a non-ownership-assigning CLA on a non-copyleft Apache 2.0 project like in this case doesn't actually mean anything or confer any power. It's all just paperwork that serves as a legal ass covering mechanism because big companies use lawyers. It's like checking the "Yes I am over 18 years old" box on a website. I say this as someone who hates the stupid CLA bot and am a contributor.
As far as actual leadership goes Google does not "own" anything in that regard, nor the day to day work, nor can it really force any of the community to do anything. There's 1 maintainer from Google out of 9 total and +95% of major contributions don't come from Googlers, ERSC, or even any particular company. They don't contribute most of the code, they don't lead most of the community, they are vastly dwarfed by the community in total size, contribution count, etc. What "ownership" or leverage do they have beyond a Github org in this setup? It's annoying but it isn't the same thing as being able to exercise meaningful levers of power, in my experience, and so most of us are just fine with it. Even if there was some stupid bullshit like a disagreement over implied trademark rights, the community could just rename and move on and Google would have nothing. That is where the real power lies.