The standard Apache contribution process goes something like this :
a) Any individual that is a committer must have
on file an "Individual Contributor License Agreement"[1]
This document is a statement from the individual that says
that anything they contribute is their original work that
they are free to license under the Apache License.
b) Any other entity can make contributions to the project via
a "Software Grant"[2] or through the modified "Corporate
Contributor License Agreement"[3]. Through this, if accepted,
the documentation is registered with the Apache Incubator, and
the contribution goes into the SVN repository of the accepting
project.
We will continue with these processes, but due to the extremely
sensitive legal and political nature of our project, I'd like to
discuss adding some additional constraints and processes in order to
ensure that from the beginning, the codebase we maintain and develop
has especially good tracking and oversight.
First, as part of the Apache Harmony project, we keep a registry of
all 'bulk' contributions. This doesn't replace the tracking the
incubator does for these, but augments it - I think we would be well
served if we internally tracked where code came from, and where we
used it. One of the lessons that I learned with Apache Geronimo is
that for things like this, there never is too much information or
careful oversight and screening, because even for things that are
clean and clear, you want to avoid any confusion or FUD about
materials later on.
Second, any contribution by an individual committer that is "bulk" -
a quantity of code that is "re-purposed", "re-licensed" or "re-
contributed", e.g. any bit of code that had been used elsewhere - be
also registered as such. We may or may not want to go as far as a
software grant from that committer. I'm not sure that there is any
purpose to asking for one, but am interested in what others think.
For any bulk contribution, we could have a checklist like the
following to help track where code is coming from, and help remind
committers about our contribution rules.
Contribution Checklist for Individual Bulk Contribution
--------------------------------------------------------
1) Identification
Please provide the following information
- Name of the committer and apache ID
- Names of all authors of the code or other material being submitted
2) Author's Permission
If you did not write the material yourself, you would
need to have a written agreement with those who did write
the material that either gives you ownership of the material
or otherwise provides you sufficient rights to submit this
material to the project on their behalf?
- If you do not have such an agreement, then do not submit
this Contribution.
- If you do have such an agreement, you should provide
details of this agreement.
3) All Authors Are Committers
If you did not write the material yourself, are all of
the authors committers to Apache Harmony and authorized to
participate in the related project component? If not,
then you should not submit this Contribution, although the
Corporate Contributor License Agreement may apply.
3) Re-purposed or Re-Licensed
Did you submit this Contribution to another open
source or proprietary project?
- If so, then you should provide details with the submission.
Comments?
geir
[1] http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt
[2] http://www.apache.org/licenses/software-grant.txt
[3] http://www.apache.org/licenses/cla-corporate.txt
--
Geir Magnusson Jr +1-203-665-6437
[EMAIL PROTECTED]