<center> # On CLAs and DCOs in Open Source *Originally published 2019-03-01 on [docs.sweeting.me](https://docs.sweeting.me/s/blog).* A summary of my my opinions on: **Developer Certificate of Origin** and **Contributor License Agreement** requirements in the Open Source community. --- </center> I think for 99.9% of open source projects, sigining a DCO or CLA should not be required, because it significantly and unecessarily raises the barrier for new people to contribute. *... [WIP] more reasoning to come later as I do more reasearch. Also possible I may change my mind about this in the future.* --- > "Also, note that an advantage of both MPL and Apache 2.0 is that they both contain representations of contributor originality, further reducing the need for a CLA (MPL in §2.5, APL in §5)" > -- Bryan Cantrill --- ### Further Reading - https://ben.balter.com/2018/01/02/why-you-probably-shouldnt-add-a-cla-to-your-open-source-project/ - [Corporate Open Source Anti-patterns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm8P4oCIY3g) (Talk) - https://opensource.com/article/18/3/cla-vs-dco-whats-difference - https://www.joyent.com/blog/broadening-node-js-contributions - penguindreams.org/blog/why-i-dont-sign-non-competes --- <center> <img src="https://i.imgur.com/YuiNnEf.png" style="width: 60%"/> </center>