Hello all, Recently the Logging Services PMC was approached by Tidelift offering to provide monetary support either to the project or individual committers. To obtain that sponsorship the project has to agree to the terms at https://support.tidelift.com/hc/en-us/articles/4406309657876-Lifter-agreement. It appears that Struts has accepted this already.
Some PMC members are interested in pursuing this but I am questioning a) whether the agreement conflicts with ASF practices and b) whether the legal agreement is too ambiguous. Two ASF members commented on the Logging Services private list that they had concerns about the agreement. In response to these concerns I created https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LEGAL-593. The guidance there seemed to be that payment to the ASF by Tidelift would not be allowed but payment to individuals might be. No guidance on the agreement was provided. It was recommended I post here instead. In looking for more clarification from Tidelift about their agreement and who could receive payment we received this response: Great follow up question, you are spot on. Each of the individuals on the team page could become a lifter and the funds allocated for Log4j would be split between them. Additional pieces of information to add nuance: * For someone to _start_ lifting a project with Tidelift, the verification process involves us looking to official sources for confirmation–such as the team page. After a project is lifted, the verification process ultimately hinges on open communication between us and whichever lifter has been nominated to be the primary contact (in full view of all of the project's lifters so that we know there's shared agreement). * Funds can be split any way you see fit, evenly or otherwise. In most cases, we see an even split. In cases where the funds are directed back to a foundation, 100% of the funds go to the foundation and the share assigned to the lifters is 0%. * This approach has allowed us to decouple any individual project's governance from our own processes, and has proven to be effective in many different contexts. As we grow, it may well be that our processes need to evolve, so that's a conversation that I'm open to as we continue discussing :o) So it is clear to me that Tidelift requires the project as a whole to approve the agreement, even though only select individuals may choose to receive payment, especially since one of the requirements is a public acknowledgment of Tidelift on one of the project’s sites. I find this problematic as I cannot reconcile how it is OK for individuals to receive payment so that the ASF is not officially involved while at the same time the PMC must approve the agreement for individuals to be able to accept payment. Furthermore, I still have no idea whether the terms of the agreement would put a PMC in conflict with ASF policies or whether the ambiguities in the agreement would put the ASF in a bad place. I realize the ASF’s argument would be “We have nothing to do with this” but I suspect that wouldn’t fly since the PMC has to agree to it. To be clear, I have no idea if this is the correct place to discuss this. Personally, I was under the impression that a Legal Jira was where this kind of stuff got resolved. But here I am. Thoughts? Ralph --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@community.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@community.apache.org
