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Ask HN: What does it mean when an open source project is “acquired”?

1 points by rambojazz ↗ HN
I'm asking this question after having asked this question to myself for many years, after reading news of open source software being acquired, the last of which is Audacity by Muse Group. What are they acquiring exactly, and why?

4 comments

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tsjq
This was discussed in detail in that Audacity acquisition thread in HN
emteycz
Every software project (except these in public domain) has an owner. These ownership rights are transferred. Owner is not bound by the license, as they're the ones licensing the software to others.
rambojazz
This only works with few owners/copyright-holders right? Unless:

- they pay every single committer of the project - the committers agreed on a CLA

emteycz
Yeah the contributors must have transferred ownership to the project. It might not need to be a signed contract though, at least in my jurisdiction it's possible to agree implicitly if there's a notice about it. If not then whoever wrote it owns it - each individual piece of code; and it is the moment to call a lawyer.