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contributors agreements ??

8 messages

contributors agreements ??

Reply Threaded

Given that one of our goals is eventual incubation into OSGeo, I would
like to be well prepared for the incubation process. The most
difficult part of that process for existing projects seems to be the
code provenance review (where did all the code come from and do you
clearly have the right to include it in your project).

At this point in time, all the code in Fusion is copyright either DM
Solutions Group or MapGears (thanks Alan!). As we are starting to get
more traffic on the lists, it is conceivable that we will start
getting bug fixes, patches, and new features contributed from outside
DM Solutions Group. I would like to encourage this as much as
possible, while maintaining clear entitlement to use the code that is
contributed.

There are two models in use right now in the projects that I am
involved in.

One is to require a signed contributors agreement for anyone that
submits code (committer or not). Patches, features etc coming from
anyone who has not signed a contributors agreement are not included.
OpenLayers uses this model.

The other is to have a committers agreement, whereby committers take
responsibility for the code they are committing to the repository.
They can accept user contributions and commit them if they feel the
contribution is sound. MapServer uses this model.

On the other axis is whether or not to require a signed agreement
(OpenLayers) or just an acknowledgement of the agreement (MapServer).

I'm open on both issues, I would like to get feedback from the (now
growing) community of developers. But I would like to put something
in place before we start getting a lot of contributions so we can
prevent some of the leg work required for incubation.

Cheers

Paul

__________________________________________

Paul Spencer
Chief Technology Officer
DM Solutions Group Inc
http://www.dmsolutions.ca/

_______________________________________________
fusion-dev mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev

Daniel Morissette

Re: contributors agreements ??

Reply Threaded

Hi Paul,

It's a great idea to solve these questions now while the project is
still young.

I think my preference would be for something less rigid than what
OpenLayers has, but a bit more formal than the current MapServer
situation (which might change eventually). I'd probably go with a
scenario where committers are required to sign a committer agreement
(either on paper or electronically), and they take responsibility for
all code that they commit, including small patches contributed by
non-committers if they feel that they are appropriate and after they
have received confirmation from the contributor that the code is clean
and safe to include in the software (this should be one of their
responsibilities in the committer agreement). The inclusion of large
patches from non-committers could also be facilitated by the
non-committer signing some kind of contributor agreement that would be
the same as the committer agreement without the commit
right/responsibilities part.

That's my preference based on my experience with other projects, but I
think we'd be fine with anything as long as we have something in place
to protect the project and that it's not too rigid to avoid creating a
barrier to small contributions.

Daniel

P.S. Perhaps the Fusion PSC could be formalized first (or was that done
already, I forget?), and then solving this would be the PSC's first job.

Paul Spencer wrote:

> Given that one of our goals is eventual incubation into OSGeo, I would
> like to be well prepared for the incubation process. The most difficult
> part of that process for existing projects seems to be the code
> provenance review (where did all the code come from and do you clearly
> have the right to include it in your project).
>
> At this point in time, all the code in Fusion is copyright either DM
> Solutions Group or MapGears (thanks Alan!). As we are starting to get
> more traffic on the lists, it is conceivable that we will start getting
> bug fixes, patches, and new features contributed from outside DM
> Solutions Group. I would like to encourage this as much as possible,
> while maintaining clear entitlement to use the code that is contributed.
>
> There are two models in use right now in the projects that I am involved
> in.
>
> One is to require a signed contributors agreement for anyone that
> submits code (committer or not). Patches, features etc coming from
> anyone who has not signed a contributors agreement are not included.
> OpenLayers uses this model.
>
> The other is to have a committers agreement, whereby committers take
> responsibility for the code they are committing to the repository. They
> can accept user contributions and commit them if they feel the
> contribution is sound. MapServer uses this model.
>
> On the other axis is whether or not to require a signed agreement
> (OpenLayers) or just an acknowledgement of the agreement (MapServer).
>
> I'm open on both issues, I would like to get feedback from the (now
> growing) community of developers. But I would like to put something in
> place before we start getting a lot of contributions so we can prevent
> some of the leg work required for incubation.
>
> Cheers
>
> Paul
>
> __________________________________________
>
> Paul Spencer
> Chief Technology Officer
> DM Solutions Group Inc
> http://www.dmsolutions.ca/
>
> _______________________________________________
> fusion-dev mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev

--
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/
_______________________________________________
fusion-dev mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev

Jason Fournier

RE: contributors agreements ??

Reply Threaded

I agree with Daniel's assessment - a formal yet less rigid agreement is
preferable so long as it allows us to meet the standards expected by OSGeo
for code provenance and does not discourage contributions from the
community.

Jason

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Daniel Morissette
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 11:53 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [fusion-dev] contributors agreements ??

Hi Paul,

It's a great idea to solve these questions now while the project is
still young.

I think my preference would be for something less rigid than what
OpenLayers has, but a bit more formal than the current MapServer
situation (which might change eventually). I'd probably go with a
scenario where committers are required to sign a committer agreement
(either on paper or electronically), and they take responsibility for
all code that they commit, including small patches contributed by
non-committers if they feel that they are appropriate and after they
have received confirmation from the contributor that the code is clean
and safe to include in the software (this should be one of their
responsibilities in the committer agreement). The inclusion of large
patches from non-committers could also be facilitated by the
non-committer signing some kind of contributor agreement that would be
the same as the committer agreement without the commit
right/responsibilities part.

That's my preference based on my experience with other projects, but I
think we'd be fine with anything as long as we have something in place
to protect the project and that it's not too rigid to avoid creating a
barrier to small contributions.

Daniel

P.S. Perhaps the Fusion PSC could be formalized first (or was that done
already, I forget?), and then solving this would be the PSC's first job.

Paul Spencer wrote:

--
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/
_______________________________________________
fusion-dev mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev

_______________________________________________
fusion-dev mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev

Alan Boudreault

Re: contributors agreements ??

Reply Threaded

+1! I agree also with this less rigid model.

Alan

Jason Fournier wrote:

> I agree with Daniel's assessment - a formal yet less rigid agreement is
> preferable so long as it allows us to meet the standards expected by OSGeo
> for code provenance and does not discourage contributions from the
> community.
>
> Jason
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email]
> [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Daniel Morissette
> Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 11:53 AM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [fusion-dev] contributors agreements ??
>
> Hi Paul,
>
> It's a great idea to solve these questions now while the project is
> still young.
>
> I think my preference would be for something less rigid than what
> OpenLayers has, but a bit more formal than the current MapServer
> situation (which might change eventually). I'd probably go with a
> scenario where committers are required to sign a committer agreement
> (either on paper or electronically), and they take responsibility for
> all code that they commit, including small patches contributed by
> non-committers if they feel that they are appropriate and after they
> have received confirmation from the contributor that the code is clean
> and safe to include in the software (this should be one of their
> responsibilities in the committer agreement). The inclusion of large
> patches from non-committers could also be facilitated by the
> non-committer signing some kind of contributor agreement that would be
> the same as the committer agreement without the commit
> right/responsibilities part.
>
> That's my preference based on my experience with other projects, but I
> think we'd be fine with anything as long as we have something in place
> to protect the project and that it's not too rigid to avoid creating a
> barrier to small contributions.
>
> Daniel
>
> P.S. Perhaps the Fusion PSC could be formalized first (or was that done
> already, I forget?), and then solving this would be the PSC's first job.
>
>
> Paul Spencer wrote:
>
>> Given that one of our goals is eventual incubation into OSGeo, I would
>> like to be well prepared for the incubation process. The most difficult
>> part of that process for existing projects seems to be the code
>> provenance review (where did all the code come from and do you clearly
>> have the right to include it in your project).
>>
>> At this point in time, all the code in Fusion is copyright either DM
>> Solutions Group or MapGears (thanks Alan!). As we are starting to get
>> more traffic on the lists, it is conceivable that we will start getting
>> bug fixes, patches, and new features contributed from outside DM
>> Solutions Group. I would like to encourage this as much as possible,
>> while maintaining clear entitlement to use the code that is contributed.
>>
>> There are two models in use right now in the projects that I am involved
>> in.
>>
>> One is to require a signed contributors agreement for anyone that
>> submits code (committer or not). Patches, features etc coming from
>> anyone who has not signed a contributors agreement are not included.
>> OpenLayers uses this model.
>>
>> The other is to have a committers agreement, whereby committers take
>> responsibility for the code they are committing to the repository. They
>> can accept user contributions and commit them if they feel the
>> contribution is sound. MapServer uses this model.
>>
>> On the other axis is whether or not to require a signed agreement
>> (OpenLayers) or just an acknowledgement of the agreement (MapServer).
>>
>> I'm open on both issues, I would like to get feedback from the (now
>> growing) community of developers. But I would like to put something in
>> place before we start getting a lot of contributions so we can prevent
>> some of the leg work required for incubation.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> __________________________________________
>>
>> Paul Spencer
>> Chief Technology Officer
>> DM Solutions Group Inc
>> http://www.dmsolutions.ca/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> fusion-dev mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev
>>
>
>
>

--
Alan Boudreault
Mapgears
http://www.mapgears.com

_______________________________________________
fusion-dev mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev

Julien-Samuel Lacroix

Re: contributors agreements ??

Reply Threaded

In reply to this post by Paul Spencer-2

As long as the new contributor email the list that he have read and
understood the contributor agreement it's fine for me...as long as we
have a contributor agreement. I think the major headache we had (still
have?) with MapServer incubation was to track down everyone and ask to
give the ownership of the code.
I may have missed it, but the current MapServer committer guidelines
(RFC7) doesn't specify who own the code. GDAL Commiter Guildlines
address this with the Legal section I think. We should think of adding it.

OpenLayers:
http://trac.openlayers.org/wiki/HowToContribute
MapServer:
http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/development/rfc/ms-rfc-7
GDAL:
http://www.gdal.org/rfc3_commiters.html

my 0.02$

Julien

Paul Spencer wrote:

> Given that one of our goals is eventual incubation into OSGeo, I would
> like to be well prepared for the incubation process. The most
> difficult part of that process for existing projects seems to be the
> code provenance review (where did all the code come from and do you
> clearly have the right to include it in your project).
>
> At this point in time, all the code in Fusion is copyright either DM
> Solutions Group or MapGears (thanks Alan!). As we are starting to get
> more traffic on the lists, it is conceivable that we will start getting
> bug fixes, patches, and new features contributed from outside DM
> Solutions Group. I would like to encourage this as much as possible,
> while maintaining clear entitlement to use the code that is contributed.
>
> There are two models in use right now in the projects that I am
> involved in.
>
> One is to require a signed contributors agreement for anyone that
> submits code (committer or not). Patches, features etc coming from
> anyone who has not signed a contributors agreement are not included.
> OpenLayers uses this model.
>
> The other is to have a committers agreement, whereby committers take
> responsibility for the code they are committing to the repository.
> They can accept user contributions and commit them if they feel the
> contribution is sound. MapServer uses this model.
>
> On the other axis is whether or not to require a signed agreement
> (OpenLayers) or just an acknowledgement of the agreement (MapServer).
>
> I'm open on both issues, I would like to get feedback from the (now
> growing) community of developers. But I would like to put something in
> place before we start getting a lot of contributions so we can prevent
> some of the leg work required for incubation.
>
> Cheers
>
> Paul
>
> __________________________________________
>
> Paul Spencer
> Chief Technology Officer
> DM Solutions Group Inc
> http://www.dmsolutions.ca/
>
> _______________________________________________
> fusion-dev mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev
>

--
Julien-Samuel Lacroix
Mapgears
http://www.mapgears.com/
_______________________________________________
fusion-dev mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev

Jason Fournier

RE: contributors agreements ??

Reply Threaded

Hey All,

In an effort to get some legs under contributor agreements I'm wondering if
it would help if I started to draft something and send it around for review?
Upon general consensus of the approach it would go to an RFC for acceptance.
I think the following steps would achieve this goal:

1) Review this thread for comments.
2) Draft a pseudo agreement (i.e., the mechanism, top-level sections, etc.)
3) Submit to fusion-dev for comments
4) If there are no major objections to the approach then draft an RFC
4i) If there are major objections then review comment 3 and begin the
process again
5) Vote on RFC

Thoughts?

Jay

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Julien-Samuel
Lacroix
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 4:19 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [fusion-dev] contributors agreements ??

As long as the new contributor email the list that he have read and
understood the contributor agreement it's fine for me...as long as we
have a contributor agreement. I think the major headache we had (still
have?) with MapServer incubation was to track down everyone and ask to
give the ownership of the code.
I may have missed it, but the current MapServer committer guidelines
(RFC7) doesn't specify who own the code. GDAL Commiter Guildlines
address this with the Legal section I think. We should think of adding it.

OpenLayers:
http://trac.openlayers.org/wiki/HowToContribute
MapServer:
http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/development/rfc/ms-rfc-7
GDAL:
http://www.gdal.org/rfc3_commiters.html

my 0.02$

Julien

Paul Spencer wrote:

--
Julien-Samuel Lacroix
Mapgears
http://www.mapgears.com/
_______________________________________________
fusion-dev mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev

_______________________________________________
fusion-dev mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev

Jason Birch

RE: contributors agreements ??

Reply Threaded

In case you're looking for a legally-vetted model to start from,
MapGuide's is here:

http://tinyurl.com/4rnoxu

FDO's corporate CLA is here (can't find MapGuide's)

http://tinyurl.com/6ytgss

Jason

-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Fournier
Subject: RE: [fusion-dev] contributors agreements ??

Hey All,

In an effort to get some legs under contributor agreements I'm wondering
if
it would help if I started to draft something and send it around for
review?
Upon general consensus of the approach it would go to an RFC for
acceptance.
I think the following steps would achieve this goal:

1) Review this thread for comments.
2) Draft a pseudo agreement (i.e., the mechanism, top-level sections,
etc.)
3) Submit to fusion-dev for comments
4) If there are no major objections to the approach then draft an RFC
4i) If there are major objections then review comment 3 and begin the
process again
5) Vote on RFC

Thoughts?

Jay
_______________________________________________
fusion-dev mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev

Jason Fournier

RE: contributors agreements ??

Reply Threaded

Perfect - thanks Jason.

Jay

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jason Birch
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 11:30 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: RE: [fusion-dev] contributors agreements ??

In case you're looking for a legally-vetted model to start from,
MapGuide's is here:

http://tinyurl.com/4rnoxu

FDO's corporate CLA is here (can't find MapGuide's)

http://tinyurl.com/6ytgss

Jason

-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Fournier
Subject: RE: [fusion-dev] contributors agreements ??

Hey All,

In an effort to get some legs under contributor agreements I'm wondering
if
it would help if I started to draft something and send it around for
review?
Upon general consensus of the approach it would go to an RFC for
acceptance.
I think the following steps would achieve this goal:

1) Review this thread for comments.
2) Draft a pseudo agreement (i.e., the mechanism, top-level sections,
etc.)
3) Submit to fusion-dev for comments
4) If there are no major objections to the approach then draft an RFC
4i) If there are major objections then review comment 3 and begin the
process again
5) Vote on RFC

Thoughts?

Jay
_______________________________________________
fusion-dev mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev

_______________________________________________
fusion-dev mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev