The actual issue is a bit different than what is perceived.
This comes down to the actual definition of community.
Our priority is the contributor community and the user community as a WHOLE.
Of those complaining on Github and online, not a single one of them have contributed a single line of code to the project. Not even one.
Their complaints and concerns are also not very representative of the actual user community (1.2% of users are running Linux, while the overwhelming majority of complaints were from Linux users).
So, in addition to the contributor community and the user community as a whole, I do not see any other community.
There is this nebulous broader FOSS community that is often referred to. A group demanding to impose their version of idealogical purity on the project, yet not contributing a line of code.
But if they are not contributors and not representative of the actual user community... why should the project be forced to cater to the demands of 1.2% of the user base at the cost of convenience to the other 98.8% of users?
How absolutely insane would it be for any other software project to be beholden to 1.2% of their actual users?
Don't get me wrong, we are extremely committed to FOSS, and our motivations are actually quite ideological - we believe every creator deserves equal/free access to professional quality software.
The difference is our ideology is not the same as this very vocal minority that is primarily anti-corporate and whose demands limit capabilities for the overwhelming majority of users.
We do understand that the CLA will discourage some from contributing.
Audacity is transitioning from an entirely voluntary development team to a team of many engineers, designers, testers, project managers, and a product manager all working full-time on the project.
While we welcome and encourage community contributors to the project we anticipate that most of the contributions will be from the dedicated team.
MuseScore underwent a similar transition to where more than 85% of commits are now from the dedicated team, while the number and frequency of commits has also significantly increased.
Audacity was, is, and will always be GPL. The CLA does not change this.
The CLA simply provides a dual license option for distribution through channels that may not be GPL friendly (ex: app stores).
Look at the VLC/Apple issue. This is an insurance policy against something similar in future.
CLA is not to be able to create a paid version of Audacity, that is fundamentally against our core beliefs. Creators should have free access to software; the money is in content.
In addition, the CLA allows for the ability to share code between the MuseScore and Audacity projects, greatly accelerating development. MuseScore has had a CLA in place from the beginning so it is only possible to share code between projects if similar CLA is in place.
The next version of MuseScore will introduce a completely redesigned/rebuilt UX, VST3 support, realtime effects, a redesigned mixer, expanded MIDI support, and a proper sequencer is soon to follow.
All of these features have been popular requests of Audacity users and will greatly (and quickly) extend the capabilities of Audacity.
Not applying a CLA actually limits the potential of the project (availability on popular devices and using code from MuseScore) more than applying the CLA.
I only know of two - the contributor community and the actual user community.