Open Stack

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