Open Stack

On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 8:47 AM, Stefano Maffulli <stefano at openstack.org>wrote:

> I'd like to re-frame the conversation on the practical effects that the
> current processes have on new contributors and work towards solutions.
> The problem is:
>
> One of the Foundation's objective is to help gain contributions from
> operators; current processes for contributing to OpenStack seem to be
> harming this objective.
>
> So far we have a proposal to
>
>  - write a 'legal deed' for the CLA
>  - keep a handy reassuring message to people 'afraid' of CLA's legalese
>
> I also see a consensus forming about the need to redefine/clarify the
> concept of ATC...
>
> On 04/22/2014 08:41 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
> > 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 see no major problem redefining (clarify) the concept of ATC and
> Individual Members but this deserves its own separate thread to
> investigate the ramifications.
>

I'd like to see this investigation happen. In responses to the doc
contributor survey, people have mentioned git/gerrit as a barrier to
contributing to docs. They want to make OpenStack docs better but won't
necessarily shepherd a patch through or review patches in gerrit. They
contribute in other ways by logging doc bugs, testing instructions, and
writing blog entries about their findings.

I can envision a world where we have two equally important classes of
contributors: "I make OpenStack and contribute" and "I use OpenStack and
contribute" -- and I sense that providing an alternative to the CLA and its
responsibilities may be one way to help raise up the number of
contributions from users.

Anne


>
> > Also, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the Foundation
> > might someday charge a fee for Individual memberships. If that ever
> > happened, and the policy remained in place, I believe it would look
> > really bad.
>
> It would be so bad that it won't happen, realistically... it's as likely
> to happen as charging for downloads.
>
> Moving forward, maybe we should start discussing how we can split the
> ATC role from the 'plain' contributor role. I will take a shot at
> writing a 'license deed' to submit here for evaluation. Any other thoughts?
>
> /stef
>
> --
> Ask and answer questions on https://ask.openstack.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> legal-discuss mailing list
> legal-discuss at lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/legal-discuss
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/legal-discuss/attachments/20140423/798acc09/attachment-0001.html>