Collaboration Summit 2014

Now that the DCO is free from the kernel (http://developercertificate.org/) it can be used in any project. This talk begins with why you need a Contributor Agreement (CA) in the first place, explores some of the history and reasons for the various CAs and why Linux was forced to adopt the DCO nearly ten years ago. We will contrast the ten years of DCO experience against some other projects which use more specific CAs and explain the benefits and pitfalls. We will also give advice on best practices around using the DCO, what else is required to make the DCO work correctly and what problems still remain. Finally we will synthesise some conclusions about how much protection the DCO provides and some general advice about whether an additional CA is needed for your project.

The audience is anyone interested in setting up an open source project, participating in an existing open source project or people who just want to be aware of best community practices around projects.

Understanding the DCO better reduces fragmentation and increases the probability that community projects won't trip over CAs or will end up alienating potential contributors for non technical reasons.