Open Stack

While individual membership may not be technically required at the bylaws level to submit a contribution, it is required to be eligible to vote in TC and PTL elections. As Thierry mentioned, this was the reasoning when the Foundation formed for creating the tie between the contribution process and individual membership. It was the easiest way to verify the chain of governance eligibility and be able to pull voter lists for technical elections from the contribution logs.

If we de-couple, we should make it clear that non-member contributors will not be ATCs. We will also need to develop a new process for determining the subset of contributors who are ATCs and eligible to vote, etc.

We might want to look a little more at all the requirements that are fulfilled by the current system moving into implementation to make a pretty significant change.

I think this discussion is good and actually is touching on several distinct issues that touch other systems, processes and policies as well. Perhaps it would be useful to put some time on the schedule in Atlanta for a broader governance forum, maybe over lunch one day, where we can get feedback and come up with steps to improve the processes.

Jonathan

On Apr 23, 2014 8:01 AM, Julie Pichon <jpichon at redhat.com> wrote:
>
> 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 
>
>
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