You are viewing a plain text version of this content. The canonical link for it is here.
Posted to general@incubator.apache.org by Rob Vesse <rv...@dotnetrdf.org> on 2015/01/20 11:57:37 UTC
When is an ICLA needed?
All
I keep an eye on the Lucene.Net TLP since I use it in some of my other
projects and after a long hiatus the activity in that community has picked
up considerably. However there is one thing that has caught my eye that
they've been doing recently which I'm not sure is strictly necessary. I
noticed that as they've been recruiting new contributors (not committers)
for their porting efforts they've been asking these contributors to sign
the ICLA before they will accept a pull request.
My understanding was always that the ICLA is only required if you are a
committer though may still be desirable for larger contributions, quoting
from http://www.apache.org/licenses/#clas -
"The ASF desires that all contributors of ideas, code, or documentation to
the Apache projects complete, sign, and submit (via postal mail, fax or
email) an Individual Contributor License Agreement
<http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt> (1) (CLA) [ PDF form
<http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.pdf> ]. The purpose of this agreement
is to clearly define the terms under which intellectual property has been
contributed to the ASF and thereby allow us to defend the project should
there be a legal dispute regarding the software at some future time. A
signed CLA is required to be on file before an individual is given commit
rights to an ASF project."
Note the use of the word "desires" here, only committers are required to
have an agreement on file. Contributors can always make contributions
without one since the Apache License explicitly has a clause that covers
this (http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0#contributions).
Actual committers still have to merge and push the pull requests made by
contributors to the ASF repos so from an ASF perspective the provenance of
the contributions is OK since we know they were pushed by a committer
(though obviously committers still need to be reviewing the contributions
to check for any possible IP violations)
Is my understanding on this right?
If so I shall be pinging their dev list to remind them of this since IMO
they are putting a potentially unnecessary hurdle in front of new
contributors.
Additionally they don't appear to have offered committership/PMC
membership to any of these new people who have signed ICLAs and whose pull
requests are getting merged so I will be pinging the list to remind them
about this regardless. I've seen that there are several people who've
made considerable sustained contributions which in any other ASF project
I've been involved in would have earned them sufficient merit to be
offered at least committership (if not PMC membership) by now.
Regards,
Rob
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
Re: When is an ICLA needed?
Posted by "John D. Ament" <jo...@apache.org>.
Rob,
I recommend projects to request ICLAs whenever accepting a contribution.
Signing an ICLA has no correlation to being accepted as a committer.
John
On Tue Jan 20 2015 at 6:04:25 AM Rob Vesse <rv...@dotnetrdf.org> wrote:
> All
>
> I keep an eye on the Lucene.Net TLP since I use it in some of my other
> projects and after a long hiatus the activity in that community has picked
> up considerably. However there is one thing that has caught my eye that
> they've been doing recently which I'm not sure is strictly necessary. I
> noticed that as they've been recruiting new contributors (not committers)
> for their porting efforts they've been asking these contributors to sign
> the ICLA before they will accept a pull request.
>
> My understanding was always that the ICLA is only required if you are a
> committer though may still be desirable for larger contributions, quoting
> from http://www.apache.org/licenses/#clas -
>
> "The ASF desires that all contributors of ideas, code, or documentation to
> the Apache projects complete, sign, and submit (via postal mail, fax or
> email) an Individual Contributor License Agreement
> <http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt> (1) (CLA) [ PDF form
> <http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.pdf> ]. The purpose of this agreement
> is to clearly define the terms under which intellectual property has been
> contributed to the ASF and thereby allow us to defend the project should
> there be a legal dispute regarding the software at some future time. A
> signed CLA is required to be on file before an individual is given commit
> rights to an ASF project."
>
> Note the use of the word "desires" here, only committers are required to
> have an agreement on file. Contributors can always make contributions
> without one since the Apache License explicitly has a clause that covers
> this (http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0#contributions).
>
> Actual committers still have to merge and push the pull requests made by
> contributors to the ASF repos so from an ASF perspective the provenance of
> the contributions is OK since we know they were pushed by a committer
> (though obviously committers still need to be reviewing the contributions
> to check for any possible IP violations)
>
> Is my understanding on this right?
>
> If so I shall be pinging their dev list to remind them of this since IMO
> they are putting a potentially unnecessary hurdle in front of new
> contributors.
>
> Additionally they don't appear to have offered committership/PMC
> membership to any of these new people who have signed ICLAs and whose pull
> requests are getting merged so I will be pinging the list to remind them
> about this regardless. I've seen that there are several people who've
> made considerable sustained contributions which in any other ASF project
> I've been involved in would have earned them sufficient merit to be
> offered at least committership (if not PMC membership) by now.
>
> Regards,
>
> Rob
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
>
>
RE: When is an ICLA needed?
Posted by "Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)" <Ro...@microsoft.com>.
Benson is correct:
Section 4 of the ICLA states "You represent that you are legally entitled to grant the above license."
It doesn't say you own copyright, only that you have the permission to grant the license on the copyrighted material (which the copyright owners indicates by making the patch available in JIRA, the pull request on GitHub or whatever process the project uses).
As for the original author being shown that is culturally important (merit) and legally important (traceability). The committer is also recorded.
Ross
Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.
A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation
-----Original Message-----
From: John D. Ament [mailto:johndament@apache.org]
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2015 10:56 AM
To: general@incubator.apache.org
Subject: Re: When is an ICLA needed?
On Tue Jan 20 2015 at 1:54:32 PM Benson Margulies <bi...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 1:40 PM, Branko Čibej <br...@apache.org> wrote:
> > On 20.01.2015 17:16, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) wrote:
> >> I agree with Bertrand. Note whoever commits the patch is doing so
> >> under
> their ICLA.
> >
> > Really? That can't be right: one can't become the author of a change
> > (and therefore can't license it to the ASF) merely by having
> > committed it. That's why we require an audit trail to the original author, right?
>
> It has to be 'right', but you're reading too much into Ross' remark.
> When you signed the ICLA, you agreed to abide by its terms. That
> doesn't make you the author of everything you commit.
>
No, but it makes it odd when you start merging github pull requests. The original author is the one shown.
John
>
> >
> >> In other words if someone feels it does not contain significant IP
> then they can commit.
> >>
> >> Paperwork is a barrier to entry which is simply not necessary for
> trivial contributions.
> >
> > That's a different matter, and I agree.
> >
> > -- Brane
> >
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
> >
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
>
>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
Re: When is an ICLA needed?
Posted by "John D. Ament" <jo...@apache.org>.
On Tue Jan 20 2015 at 1:54:32 PM Benson Margulies <bi...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 1:40 PM, Branko Čibej <br...@apache.org> wrote:
> > On 20.01.2015 17:16, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) wrote:
> >> I agree with Bertrand. Note whoever commits the patch is doing so under
> their ICLA.
> >
> > Really? That can't be right: one can't become the author of a change
> > (and therefore can't license it to the ASF) merely by having committed
> > it. That's why we require an audit trail to the original author, right?
>
> It has to be 'right', but you're reading too much into Ross' remark.
> When you signed the ICLA, you agreed to abide by its terms. That
> doesn't make you the author of everything you commit.
>
No, but it makes it odd when you start merging github pull requests. The
original author is the one shown.
John
>
> >
> >> In other words if someone feels it does not contain significant IP
> then they can commit.
> >>
> >> Paperwork is a barrier to entry which is simply not necessary for
> trivial contributions.
> >
> > That's a different matter, and I agree.
> >
> > -- Brane
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
> >
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
>
>
Re: When is an ICLA needed?
Posted by Benson Margulies <bi...@gmail.com>.
On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 1:40 PM, Branko Čibej <br...@apache.org> wrote:
> On 20.01.2015 17:16, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) wrote:
>> I agree with Bertrand. Note whoever commits the patch is doing so under their ICLA.
>
> Really? That can't be right: one can't become the author of a change
> (and therefore can't license it to the ASF) merely by having committed
> it. That's why we require an audit trail to the original author, right?
It has to be 'right', but you're reading too much into Ross' remark.
When you signed the ICLA, you agreed to abide by its terms. That
doesn't make you the author of everything you commit.
>
>> In other words if someone feels it does not contain significant IP then they can commit.
>>
>> Paperwork is a barrier to entry which is simply not necessary for trivial contributions.
>
> That's a different matter, and I agree.
>
> -- Brane
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
Re: When is an ICLA needed?
Posted by Branko Čibej <br...@apache.org>.
On 20.01.2015 17:16, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) wrote:
> I agree with Bertrand. Note whoever commits the patch is doing so under their ICLA.
Really? That can't be right: one can't become the author of a change
(and therefore can't license it to the ASF) merely by having committed
it. That's why we require an audit trail to the original author, right?
> In other words if someone feels it does not contain significant IP then they can commit.
>
> Paperwork is a barrier to entry which is simply not necessary for trivial contributions.
That's a different matter, and I agree.
-- Brane
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
RE: When is an ICLA needed?
Posted by "Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)" <Ro...@microsoft.com>.
I agree with Bertrand. Note whoever commits the patch is doing so under their ICLA. In other words if someone feels it does not contain significant IP then they can commit.
Paperwork is a barrier to entry which is simply not necessary for trivial contributions.
Sent from my Windows Phone
________________________________
From: Bertrand Delacretaz<ma...@apache.org>
Sent: 1/20/2015 3:39 AM
To: Incubator General<ma...@incubator.apache.org>
Subject: Re: When is an ICLA needed?
Hi,
On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:57 AM, Rob Vesse <rv...@dotnetrdf.org> wrote:
> ...My understanding was always that the ICLA is only required if you are a
> committer though may still be desirable for larger contributions,...
That's my understanding, requiring an iCLA for minor contributions is
not needed.
What's important for all contributions IMO is to have documented
evidence (dev list, jira, bugzilla) that the contribution is
voluntary, and to indicate when committing where the contribution
comes from.
-Bertrand
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
Re: When is an ICLA needed?
Posted by Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>.
Hi,
On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:57 AM, Rob Vesse <rv...@dotnetrdf.org> wrote:
> ...My understanding was always that the ICLA is only required if you are a
> committer though may still be desirable for larger contributions,...
That's my understanding, requiring an iCLA for minor contributions is
not needed.
What's important for all contributions IMO is to have documented
evidence (dev list, jira, bugzilla) that the contribution is
voluntary, and to indicate when committing where the contribution
comes from.
-Bertrand
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
Re: When is an ICLA needed?
Posted by jan i <ja...@apache.org>.
On 20 January 2015 at 11:57, Rob Vesse <rv...@dotnetrdf.org> wrote:
> All
>
> I keep an eye on the Lucene.Net TLP since I use it in some of my other
> projects and after a long hiatus the activity in that community has picked
> up considerably. However there is one thing that has caught my eye that
> they've been doing recently which I'm not sure is strictly necessary. I
> noticed that as they've been recruiting new contributors (not committers)
> for their porting efforts they've been asking these contributors to sign
> the ICLA before they will accept a pull request.
>
> My understanding was always that the ICLA is only required if you are a
> committer though may still be desirable for larger contributions, quoting
> from http://www.apache.org/licenses/#clas -
>
> "The ASF desires that all contributors of ideas, code, or documentation to
> the Apache projects complete, sign, and submit (via postal mail, fax or
> email) an Individual Contributor License Agreement
> <http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt> (1) (CLA) [ PDF form
> <http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.pdf> ]. The purpose of this agreement
> is to clearly define the terms under which intellectual property has been
> contributed to the ASF and thereby allow us to defend the project should
> there be a legal dispute regarding the software at some future time. A
> signed CLA is required to be on file before an individual is given commit
> rights to an ASF project."
>
> Note the use of the word "desires" here, only committers are required to
> have an agreement on file. Contributors can always make contributions
> without one since the Apache License explicitly has a clause that covers
> this (http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0#contributions).
>
> Actual committers still have to merge and push the pull requests made by
> contributors to the ASF repos so from an ASF perspective the provenance of
> the contributions is OK since we know they were pushed by a committer
> (though obviously committers still need to be reviewing the contributions
> to check for any possible IP violations)
>
> Is my understanding on this right?
>
In my opinion your understanding is correct, an ICLA is only needed to
become committer, but can also be signed before such an invitaion.
I too try to have contributors sign an ICLA if they are active, because
then we have less license problems. When the contributor have not signed an
ICLA the
committer needs to more carefully examine the license state of the code
(e.g. the contributor included the false header info, compared to what the
project uses).
There is also a marketing aspect, having people sign a ICLA is a way to
test their interest before running DISCUSS/VOTE on making them committers.
rgds
jan i
>
> If so I shall be pinging their dev list to remind them of this since IMO
> they are putting a potentially unnecessary hurdle in front of new
> contributors.
>
> Additionally they don't appear to have offered committership/PMC
> membership to any of these new people who have signed ICLAs and whose pull
> requests are getting merged so I will be pinging the list to remind them
> about this regardless. I've seen that there are several people who've
> made considerable sustained contributions which in any other ASF project
> I've been involved in would have earned them sufficient merit to be
> offered at least committership (if not PMC membership) by now.
>
> Regards,
>
> Rob
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
>
>