Open Stack

I completely agree that the nature of what you specifically want to
contribute here shows how ridiculous this all is, which is why I asked
if you saw this as a one-time thing once I saw what your contribution
actually was. Your comparison to the Linux kernel is right on
point. Also I believe that many projects using CLAs similar to those
in use by OpenStack, such as Apache Software Foundation projects,
would not require CLA signature in your situation. I just want to make
clear I am not defending the current situation - I am a strong critic
of it.

I myself had to sign an OpenStack CLA (and wait many hours for it to
be approved - I think things have improved processwise since those
days) just to fix a typo in the openstack.org wiki . I think we are
seeing here some of the problems of having baked the CLA requirement
into the OpenStack Foundation bylaws IP policy, which Red Hat
attempted to raise concerns about.

Anyway, I do think the other idea of modifying the US Government CLA -
if there is a way for you to get someone to sign that - could be a way
forward. It's not ideal. 

 - Richard





On Wed, Dec 04, 2013 at 02:06:33PM -0800, Fox, Kevin M wrote:
> Let me try and explain it a little bit more.
> 
> The problem, as I understand it, is the following:
> 
> Basically, I think we have an organization that isn't a true legal organization.
> 
>  * PNNL is a National Lab, paid for by DOE and operated by Battelle for DOE.
>  * In reality, employees at the lab seem more closely tied to PNNL then they are to Battelle. Battelle is almost a separate organization.
>  * Legally though, there is no distinction between PNNL employees and Battelle employees.
>  * We code stuff on behalf of DOE as independent contractors and the code is DOE's.
>  * DOE can give the code back to us in mostly our choice of license, within reason.
>  * PNNL employees don't have enough authority to grant patent licenses Battelle wide.
> 
> Basically, we are the right hand, and we can't grantee the left hand won't ever be bad. We don't seem to be able to get our Head to care enough about the code since it is really trivial/uninteresting to them. And DOE own's the code anyway.
> 
> And the silly thing about the whole thing is we are talking about a sort comparator function, tweaks to existing templates to make them work in heat rather then cfn, and tweaks to heat templates to start elasticsearch instead of mongodb. Nothing that should be patent-able in the first place. Prior art all over the place.
> 
> Everyone is trying very hard not to take any risks at all for something that is extremely unlikely to be risky. If the Linux kernel operated this way, there wouldn't be a Linux kernel. I really do understand everyone's position. I'm just trying to figure a way out of it. And starting to get really frustrated by the situation. It took literally tens of minutes to write some of the code in question. Months to attempt to get it past legal hurdles.
> 
> Does that help explain the situation?
> 
> Thanks,
> Kevin
>  
> ________________________________________
> From: Richard Fontana [rfontana at redhat.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 1:35 PM
> To: Alice King
> Cc: legal-discuss at lists.openstack.org
> Subject: Re: [legal-discuss] Contribution snag.
> 
> On Wed, Dec 04, 2013 at 03:56:05PM -0500, Richard Fontana wrote:
> > Given the obstacles contained in the OpenStack Foundation bylaws IP
> > policy to flexibility in handling inbound contributions, I think the
> > easiest solution (though not the most desirable one) would be for the
> > Executive Director to make "non material amendments" to the Individual
> > (and/or Corporate) CLA so that a federal government contractor not
> > holding copyright on what is being contributed can use such a
> > CLA.
> 
> Or perhaps the Executive Director could non-materially revise the US
> Government CLA to have it cover the case of contributions coming in
> from contractors?  I realize that might seem to contradict the essence
> of my previous response, but the problem I see here is balancing
> reduction of contributor red tape against the need for a fair IPR
> licensing policy.
> 
>  - RF
> 
> 
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