Open Stack

On 23/04/14 13:19, Radcliffe, Mark wrote:
> Julie:
> 
> You may not have seen my later post, but I think that deals with your
> concern:
> 
> I have never been consulted on this issue, but this interpretation of
> the bylaws is incorrect. ATC is defined to require someone to be an
> Individual Member, but ATC is concerned with voting for the Technical
> Committee, it does not restrict contributions.  Anyone, member or
> non-member, can submit a contribution if they have signed the
> relevant CLA.

Hi Mark, that sounds like great news! At this point, our tooling and
developer documentation enforce this restriction [1] (so it's not
actually possible to submit a patch without joining the Foundation).
I'll file a bug about this that references this discussion.

Thanks,

Julie

[1]
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/CLA-FAQ#When_trying_to_sign_the_new_ICLA_and_include_contact_information.2C_why_am_I.27m_getting_an_error_message_saying_that_my_E-mail_address_doesn.27t_correspond_to_a_Foundation_membership.3F

> 
> -----Original Message----- From: Julie Pichon
> [mailto:jpichon at redhat.com] Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2014 3:53 AM 
> To: Mark McLoughlin; Richard Fontana Cc:
> legal-discuss at lists.openstack.org Subject: Re: [legal-discuss]
> Trivial contributions and CLAs
> 
> On 22/04/14 23:10, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
>> On Tue, 2014-04-22 at 14:41 -0400, Richard Fontana wrote:
>>> On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 06:24:10PM +0200, Thierry Carrez wrote:
>>>> The origin of this requirement is the definition of 'ATC'
>>>> (active technical contributor). Pre-foundation it was simply
>>>> equivalent to code contributor. You contribute, you are an
>>>> active technical contributor, and therefore you're allowed to
>>>> vote in PTL and PPB/TC elections.
>>>> 
>>>> Unfortunately, the Foundation bylaws state (in Appendix 4) that
>>>> ATCs must be individual members of the Foundation. There are
>>>> two ways to read that -- all contributors must be individual
>>>> members, or "ATCs" are the subset of contributors that happen
>>>> to also be individual members.
>>> 
>>> I read it the second way, FWIW.
>>> 
>>> I also believe that requiring all contributors (even a one-time 
>>> contributor of a 'drive-by patch') to be Individual Members
>>> would have been seen as a significant aspect of Foundation
>>> membership policy at the time the Foundation was formed, yet I
>>> can recall no discussion on the issue. I am not saying that it is
>>> something that ought to be stated in the OpenStack Foundation
>>> bylaws necessarily, but I am saying that when the bylaws were
>>> initially drafted, if it was really contemplated that all
>>> contributors would be required to become Individual Members as a
>>> *prerequisite* to making an initial contribution (however
>>> trivial), it would probably have been made explicit in the bylaws
>>> much like the CLA requirement is stated in the IP policy. In
>>> other words I do not believe a policy of "you must join the
>>> Foundation if you want to submit a patch" was contemplated when 
>>> the Foundation was formed. If anyone else here thinks I'm wrong
>>> about that, or has a different recollection about this issue, I'd
>>> be happy to hear it.
>>> 
>>> Reinforcing that point, if it is correct to read the bylaws as
>>> saying that all contributors must join the Foundation, why
>>> wouldn't the CLAs be unified with the membership agreements?
>>> 
>>> I have to emphasize how unusual I believe this policy is. I have
>>> been trying to find some example of an open source
>>> project-related membership foundation (there aren't too many of
>>> these) with a similar policy, with no success. I think Apache
>>> requires project leads to become members by its notion of
>>> membership; that's the closest analogue I've been able to find.
>>> It just strikes me intuitively as *wrong* -- isn't it in effect
>>> coercing potential new contributors into joining an organization
>>> they might not necessarily wish to join, or might not wish to
>>> join until later on?
>> 
>> All very well stated and I agree this is rather bizarre.
>> 
>> I did know about this before and, interestingly, it was Julie (the 
>> Horizon maintainer on bug #1308984[1]) who pointed out how odd
>> this situation is. Perhaps the Horizon project is seeing more
>> instances of this being an issue, or perhaps it came up in the
>> context of the OPW.
> 
> Hey Mark,
> 
> I often help people get started contributing to open-source and
> explaining "and now you need to join the Foundation" is more
> difficult to explain than even the CLA, as joining a Foundation
> indicates a longer term commitment and belief in the project (in my
> mind and based on experience in other projects). It seemed like
> adding another barrier to making a contribution.
> 
> When a volunteer contributor is submitting their first patch to test
> the waters and get a feel for the community, it seems like asking for
> a lot especially when they don't know yet if they'll be sticking
> around. (To the more pragmatic folks it just seems like unnecessary
> bureaucracy.)
> 
>> In any case, the way I see it is that a casual contributor should
>> be able to submit small patches with minimal friction and, later if
>> ever, decide they want to be more actively involved, research what
>> the OpenStack Foundation is all about and then join it with a view
>> to being an active member.
> 
> That's the order in which "joining a Foundation" would make more
> sense to me, too.
> 
> Julie
> 
>> 
>> One of the elements of disquiet I've heard about our CLA is that 
>> contributors must enter into an asymmetric agreement with an
>> entity they have not yet learned to trust ... when they merely want
>> to license their work to the world under the trusted Apache
>> License. This membership requirement takes this a step further by
>> making contributors not only trust the Foundation but also to join
>> it.
>> 
>> Mark.
>> 
>> [1] - https://bugs.launchpad.net/horizon/+bug/1308984