Open Stack

On Fri, 2014-05-09 at 11:22 -0400, James E. Blair wrote:
> Mark McLoughlin <markmc at redhat.com> writes:
> 
> > Hey
> >
> > I'm almost done drafting - with Richard Fontan's help - a wiki page
> > describing what the CLA is and why we have it, the issues we see with it
> > and why we should consider changing to the DCO:
> >
> >   https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/OpenStackAndItsCLA
> >
> > This clearly isn't just a matter for the TC and I plan to circulate this
> > more widely after next week. However, I do think the leadership and
> > consensus of the TC is required to even begin making a case for change.
> > Unless we - as a group - perceive an issue with contributor friction in
> > particular, then it's likely quite pointless pursuing this further.
> >
> > Anyway, I hope some of you will get a chance to read through this and
> > come along to the session on Tuesday at 14.50:
> >
> >   http://junodesignsummit.sched.org/event/bf582e043302263432fb50d34c96d98c
> >
> > Also, please do send me questions for the FAQ.
> 
> An excellent piece, thank you so much.
> 
> In my experience at FOSDEM and at PyCon, I noted serious skepticism from
> people I spoke with about the "legitimacy" of OpenStack as an actual
> Open Source project.  In essence, there is a perception that it is a
> corporate project and contributions from individual or unaffiliated
> developers are not welcome.  I think we strive very hard to make sure
> that everyone is welcome, but the bureaucracy of the individual
> membership requirement and the CLA in particular are actions that say
> otherwise to many developers.  If I were not so employed, I would count
> myself among them.
> 
> The CLA is an "image problem" for our project, and in addition to all of
> the intangibles associated with that, it may adversely impact the
> recruiting of new developers.
> 
> I do think that this aspect is important; I leave it to you to consider
> whether you would like to add it to the document.  And once again, a
> thousand thanks for writing that.

Nicely put. Please do add it as a sub-section, perhaps between the
"contributor friction" and "organizational cost" sections?

Thanks,
Mark.