Open Stack

On 22/04/14 23:10, Mark McLoughlin 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.

Hey Mark,

I often help people get started contributing to open-source and
explaining "and now you need to join the Foundation" is more difficult
to explain than even the CLA, as joining a Foundation indicates a longer
term commitment and belief in the project (in my mind and based on
experience in other projects). It seemed like adding another barrier to
making a contribution.

When a volunteer contributor is submitting their first patch to test the
waters and get a feel for the community, it seems like asking for a lot
especially when they don't know yet if they'll be sticking around. (To
the more pragmatic folks it just seems like unnecessary bureaucracy.)

> 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.

That's the order in which "joining a Foundation" would make more sense
to me, too.

Julie

> 
> 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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