Open Stack

Since the CLA maintenance on Sunday (2013-03-03) we've been fielding
many questions on this list and in IRC. While most of the relevant
information was present in announcements and updated wiki articles,
some of it was regrettably unclear or understated. We've done our
best to further expand current documents and circulate information
based on this wonderful feedback from the community, but wanted to
also follow up to the list with an announcement summarizing answers
to the most frequent questions we've been asked about the change.

1. Why am I getting an error message about an expired CLA when
trying to submit patches for review? This is because we expired the
old OpenStack LLC agreements on Sunday, requiring active
contributors to sign new agreements with the OpenStack Foundation
instead.

2. Okay, so I understand the reasons for needing to sign a new CLA
but why all the process changes? We also took the opportunity to
automate and integrate more of the Individual Contributor License
Agreement signing process, eliminating convoluted requirements for
wiki updates and group memberships. Gone are the days of applying to
an LP group and waiting a business day or two for approval before
you can contribute patches--now we have something new contributors
can complete in a matter of minutes and get started right away.

3. When trying to sign the new ICLA and include contact information,
why am I'm getting an error message saying that my E-mail address
doesn't correspond to a Foundation membership? If you haven't signed
up with the Foundation yet, you'll need to do so before proceeding.
If you've already got a Foundation membership and are still getting
this error, be aware that the "Preferred Email" you set in Gerrit
needs to match (at least temporarily) the "Primary Email Address" in
your Foundation Profile.

4. Why am I getting an error message about the ICLA requiring
contact information when trying to submit patches for review? This
is because you've apparently managed to sign the ICLA but avoided
providing any contact information. Go to the Contact Information in
your Gerrit Settings (in its Web interface), and put relevant
data in one or more of the text entry fields. Then save your
changes.

5. I don't have appropriate information to put in some of the
contact information fields--is that a problem? No, they don't all
need data entered in them, just put in what you can. You just need
something in at least one (any one) of the Mailing Address, Country,
Phone Number and Fax Number fields for Gerrit to be able to process
it and fulfill the contact information requirement for the ICLA. Of
course it would be great if the information you provided were to be
accurate, but we don't have any way to confirm that.

6. Why do I need to provide contact information anyway? At the
moment, this is mainly an existing feature in Gerrit we're able to
leverage to help signal the Foundation that you're a code
contributor and also allow Gerrit to confirm you have a valid
Foundation membership at the same time. In the future the Foundation
may also integrate it with the contact information in member
profiles or use it as a fall-back when attempting to contact past
contributors they're unable to reach through usual channels.

7. Everything seems to be working for me and I know I provided
contact information in Gerrit, so why are those fields blank now?
Mailing addresses and phone numbers are not stored on the Gerrit
server, but merely forwarded (encrypted) to the Foundation member
system. You'll see it lists the date you last updated your contact
information--this is the best way of confirming it really was filed.

8. What can you tell me about the Corporate CLA or the U.S.
Government CLA? Not much... the processes for those have not changed
to the best of my knowledge and are documented on the wiki. I gather
there are new versions of them which refer to the Foundation now
instead of the LLC. If you have questions about either of these,
you should get in touch with the OpenStack Foundation and they can
help you out.

9. When choosing a CLA to sign I see a USG CLA and a System CLA with
scary-looking descriptions; should I sign these? No. Please, please
just... no. We adjusted the descriptions and provided detailed text
to try and dissuade anyone from signing, but it didn't stop some
people. Then we adjusted them again with even more all-caps shouting
warnings in the descriptions, and it still didn't stop a few from
mistakenly choosing one of those, ignoring the page they were
provided and trying to agree anyway. These are an artifact of how we
implemented the U.S. Government CLA backend and also how we
integrate some outside tools which need to submit changes. We'd like
to hide them from the interface but it's going to require a patch to
Gerrit. If you do accidentally try to sign one of those, it won't
work (it will be shown as pending approval) and you'll no longer be
able to send in patches for review until someone clears that from
the database. Don't be that person.

Quick links related to things discussed above...

 * Foundation Profile: https://www.openstack.org/profile/

 * Gerrit Agreements: https://review.openstack.org/#/settings/agreements

 * Gerrit Contact Info: https://review.openstack.org/#/settings/contact

 * Gerrit Help: reply to this or /join #openstack-infra on freenode

 * Foundation Questions: ecosystem at openstack.org (I hope this is right)

Thanks for reading!
-- 
Jeremy Stanley