+1 to "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". Here's an example page from a recent project at ASF that had to write up how/what they will accept (http://openoffice.apache.org/contributing-code.html) On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 6:10 PM, Mark McLoughlin <markmc@redhat.com> 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.
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.
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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