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Posted to legal-discuss@apache.org by "F C. Costero" <fj...@gmail.com> on 2011/09/16 05:19:16 UTC
OpenOffice.org user forums and the iCLA
Hello. I'm a member of the English and Spanish user forums at
http://user.services.openoffice.org/. We are discussing transferring all of
the forums to an Apache server and operating as an aspect of the Apache
OpenOffice.org podling. I have a question about the effect of the Individual
Contributor Legal Agreement (iCLA) on forum users.
I understand that some members of the forums, Admins with access to the
underlying forum software and Moderators who can move or delete posts and
ban users, must sign the iCLA and become official members of the podling.
Since many members of the non-English forums cannot understand the iCLA,
there is an understandable reluctance to sign a legal agreement. It is also
not understood what the iCLA does with respect to forum users that the Terms
of Use of the forum does not.
Question: Would the iCLA cover submissions to a user support forum that is
associated with an Apache podling (or project) or would the submissions only
be governed by the Terms of Use of the forum?
Some background on forum content
The forums contain:
1.
Questions posted by users and associated answers provided by other users.
2.
Tutorials written by users covering how to use either OpenOffice.org or
the forum itself.
3.
Macro code for automating OpenOffice.org tasks.
4.
A small number of posts concern forum operation (e. g. software upgrades)
and governance (e. g. questionable user behavior).
None of the forum content is intended to be part of the code or
documentation distributed as OpenOffice.org.. Whether a tutorial posted on
an Apache affiliated user forum is "Documentation" in the sense intended by
the iCLA is the sort of question that has forum volunteers confused.
A large fraction of the forum content is submitted by OpenOffice.org users
who post one or two questions and move on.
In case you care to see the Terms of Use of the forums, they can be found
through a link at the bottom of any forum page
Re: OpenOffice.org user forums and the iCLA
Posted by Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>.
On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 2:16 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton
<de...@acm.org> wrote:
> I am an Apache committer.
>
> I have a registration on the current OO.o Forums.
>
> That registration has no connection to my confirmable identity here as an Apache committer.
>
> When I post on the forum, I expect that post to be under the current terms of use.
Think of it this way:
When you post on an Apache mailing list, your ID there has no
relationship to your Apache ID.
When you attach a patch to a Bugzilla issue, your Bugzilla ID is
unrelated to your Apache ID.
But in both cases, your contributions are under the iCLA. And in both
cases, normal practice would be for us to not take a non-trivial
contribution from a user without first getting them to sign the iCLA.
>
> When the forum migrates, I consider that pre-existing post to be treated consistently with the terms of use that applied at the time.
>
> When the forum migrates, if the terms of use are changed, and I need to re-register or not, my subsequent posts there will be under the updated terms of use.
>
> At no time will I be making a contribution to the Apache project unless that is what the terms of use for all new forum posts entail.
>
> Ditto for edits on any wiki that is public editable and on any mailing list that on which I am a public subscriber.
>
> - Dennis
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rob Weir [mailto:robweir@apache.org]
> Sent: Friday, September 16, 2011 10:23
> To: legal-discuss@apache.org
> Subject: Re: OpenOffice.org user forums and the iCLA
>
> On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 11:19 PM, F C. Costero <fj...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello. I'm a member of the English and Spanish user forums at
>> http://user.services.openoffice.org/. We are discussing transferring all of
>> the forums to an Apache server and operating as an aspect of the Apache
>> OpenOffice.org podling. I have a question about the effect of the Individual
>> Contributor Legal Agreement (iCLA) on forum users.
>>
>
> The iCLA has no effect on those who do not sign the iCLA. So, to a
> user, I don't think this matters.
>
>> I understand that some members of the forums, Admins with access to the
>> underlying forum software and Moderators who can move or delete posts and
>> ban users, must sign the iCLA and become official members of the podling.
>> Since many members of the non-English forums cannot understand the iCLA,
>> there is an understandable reluctance to sign a legal agreement. It is also
>> not understood what the iCLA does with respect to forum users that the Terms
>> of Use of the forum does not.
>>
>
> The underlying issue is this: To work effectively with Apache Infra,
> on the sys admin side of the forums, and to check in changes to the
> site design, an admin must be a Committer and have an Apache ID. To
> be a Committer requires that you sign the iCLA and be elected by the
> Project Management Committee (PMC).
>
> Users are not required to sign the iCLA, so this has no impact on them.
>
> Oracle's Terms of Use on the legacy website are unlikely to remain.
> The OpenOffice podling has expressed interest in rewriting those
> terms.
>
>> Question: Would the iCLA cover submissions to a user support forum that is
>> associated with an Apache podling (or project) or would the submissions only
>> be governed by the Terms of Use of the forum?
>>
>
> This might be useful to think about as analogous to "dev" and
> "community" wikis at Apache. In this analog, forums are like a
> community wiki.
>
> The community wiki does not require an iCLA for a user to post.. But
> a PMC might require that a wiki admins be PMC members. That is a
> question of PMC policy, of oversight and delegation. It is not a
> legal-discuss question. But it does lead to the natural question of:
> what is the status of a contribution that a committer makes to a
> community wiki?
>
> My personal opinion: if a project committer submitted documentation
> in response to a support question on the forum, and did not mark it as
> "Not a Contribution" then I would tend to consider it a contribution
> under Apache 2.0. For example, such documentation could be copied
> into other parts of the project's website, combined with product
> documentation, included in releases, etc.
>
>> Some background on forum content
>>
>> The forums contain:
>>
>> Questions posted by users and associated answers provided by other users.
>>
>> Tutorials written by users covering how to use either OpenOffice.org or the
>> forum itself.
>>
>> Macro code for automating OpenOffice.org tasks.
>>
>> A small number of posts concern forum operation (e. g. software upgrades)
>> and governance (e. g. questionable user behavior).
>>
>> None of the forum content is intended to be part of the code or
>> documentation distributed as OpenOffice.org.. Whether a tutorial posted on
>> an Apache affiliated user forum is "Documentation" in the sense intended by
>> the iCLA is the sort of question that has forum volunteers confused.
>>
>
> Think if it this way: not every line of code that a Committer checks
> in necessarily becomes part of the release product. But every line
> that is contributed is made available for this project and for other
> projects, now and in the future, under the Apache 2.0 license.
>
>> A large fraction of the forum content is submitted by OpenOffice.org users
>> who post one or two questions and move on.
>>
>> In case you care to see the Terms of Use of the forums, they can be found
>> through a link at the bottom of any forum page
>>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>
>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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RE: OpenOffice.org user forums and the iCLA
Posted by "Dennis E. Hamilton" <de...@acm.org>.
I am an Apache committer.
I have a registration on the current OO.o Forums.
That registration has no connection to my confirmable identity here as an Apache committer.
When I post on the forum, I expect that post to be under the current terms of use.
When the forum migrates, I consider that pre-existing post to be treated consistently with the terms of use that applied at the time.
When the forum migrates, if the terms of use are changed, and I need to re-register or not, my subsequent posts there will be under the updated terms of use.
At no time will I be making a contribution to the Apache project unless that is what the terms of use for all new forum posts entail.
Ditto for edits on any wiki that is public editable and on any mailing list that on which I am a public subscriber.
- Dennis
-----Original Message-----
From: Rob Weir [mailto:robweir@apache.org]
Sent: Friday, September 16, 2011 10:23
To: legal-discuss@apache.org
Subject: Re: OpenOffice.org user forums and the iCLA
On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 11:19 PM, F C. Costero <fj...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello. I'm a member of the English and Spanish user forums at
> http://user.services.openoffice.org/. We are discussing transferring all of
> the forums to an Apache server and operating as an aspect of the Apache
> OpenOffice.org podling. I have a question about the effect of the Individual
> Contributor Legal Agreement (iCLA) on forum users.
>
The iCLA has no effect on those who do not sign the iCLA. So, to a
user, I don't think this matters.
> I understand that some members of the forums, Admins with access to the
> underlying forum software and Moderators who can move or delete posts and
> ban users, must sign the iCLA and become official members of the podling.
> Since many members of the non-English forums cannot understand the iCLA,
> there is an understandable reluctance to sign a legal agreement. It is also
> not understood what the iCLA does with respect to forum users that the Terms
> of Use of the forum does not.
>
The underlying issue is this: To work effectively with Apache Infra,
on the sys admin side of the forums, and to check in changes to the
site design, an admin must be a Committer and have an Apache ID. To
be a Committer requires that you sign the iCLA and be elected by the
Project Management Committee (PMC).
Users are not required to sign the iCLA, so this has no impact on them.
Oracle's Terms of Use on the legacy website are unlikely to remain.
The OpenOffice podling has expressed interest in rewriting those
terms.
> Question: Would the iCLA cover submissions to a user support forum that is
> associated with an Apache podling (or project) or would the submissions only
> be governed by the Terms of Use of the forum?
>
This might be useful to think about as analogous to "dev" and
"community" wikis at Apache. In this analog, forums are like a
community wiki.
The community wiki does not require an iCLA for a user to post.. But
a PMC might require that a wiki admins be PMC members. That is a
question of PMC policy, of oversight and delegation. It is not a
legal-discuss question. But it does lead to the natural question of:
what is the status of a contribution that a committer makes to a
community wiki?
My personal opinion: if a project committer submitted documentation
in response to a support question on the forum, and did not mark it as
"Not a Contribution" then I would tend to consider it a contribution
under Apache 2.0. For example, such documentation could be copied
into other parts of the project's website, combined with product
documentation, included in releases, etc.
> Some background on forum content
>
> The forums contain:
>
> Questions posted by users and associated answers provided by other users.
>
> Tutorials written by users covering how to use either OpenOffice.org or the
> forum itself.
>
> Macro code for automating OpenOffice.org tasks.
>
> A small number of posts concern forum operation (e. g. software upgrades)
> and governance (e. g. questionable user behavior).
>
> None of the forum content is intended to be part of the code or
> documentation distributed as OpenOffice.org.. Whether a tutorial posted on
> an Apache affiliated user forum is "Documentation" in the sense intended by
> the iCLA is the sort of question that has forum volunteers confused.
>
Think if it this way: not every line of code that a Committer checks
in necessarily becomes part of the release product. But every line
that is contributed is made available for this project and for other
projects, now and in the future, under the Apache 2.0 license.
> A large fraction of the forum content is submitted by OpenOffice.org users
> who post one or two questions and move on.
>
> In case you care to see the Terms of Use of the forums, they can be found
> through a link at the bottom of any forum page
>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
Re: OpenOffice.org user forums and the iCLA
Posted by Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>.
On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 11:19 PM, F C. Costero <fj...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello. I'm a member of the English and Spanish user forums at
> http://user.services.openoffice.org/. We are discussing transferring all of
> the forums to an Apache server and operating as an aspect of the Apache
> OpenOffice.org podling. I have a question about the effect of the Individual
> Contributor Legal Agreement (iCLA) on forum users.
>
The iCLA has no effect on those who do not sign the iCLA. So, to a
user, I don't think this matters.
> I understand that some members of the forums, Admins with access to the
> underlying forum software and Moderators who can move or delete posts and
> ban users, must sign the iCLA and become official members of the podling.
> Since many members of the non-English forums cannot understand the iCLA,
> there is an understandable reluctance to sign a legal agreement. It is also
> not understood what the iCLA does with respect to forum users that the Terms
> of Use of the forum does not.
>
The underlying issue is this: To work effectively with Apache Infra,
on the sys admin side of the forums, and to check in changes to the
site design, an admin must be a Committer and have an Apache ID. To
be a Committer requires that you sign the iCLA and be elected by the
Project Management Committee (PMC).
Users are not required to sign the iCLA, so this has no impact on them.
Oracle's Terms of Use on the legacy website are unlikely to remain.
The OpenOffice podling has expressed interest in rewriting those
terms.
> Question: Would the iCLA cover submissions to a user support forum that is
> associated with an Apache podling (or project) or would the submissions only
> be governed by the Terms of Use of the forum?
>
This might be useful to think about as analogous to "dev" and
"community" wikis at Apache. In this analog, forums are like a
community wiki.
The community wiki does not require an iCLA for a user to post.. But
a PMC might require that a wiki admins be PMC members. That is a
question of PMC policy, of oversight and delegation. It is not a
legal-discuss question. But it does lead to the natural question of:
what is the status of a contribution that a committer makes to a
community wiki?
My personal opinion: if a project committer submitted documentation
in response to a support question on the forum, and did not mark it as
"Not a Contribution" then I would tend to consider it a contribution
under Apache 2.0. For example, such documentation could be copied
into other parts of the project's website, combined with product
documentation, included in releases, etc.
> Some background on forum content
>
> The forums contain:
>
> Questions posted by users and associated answers provided by other users.
>
> Tutorials written by users covering how to use either OpenOffice.org or the
> forum itself.
>
> Macro code for automating OpenOffice.org tasks.
>
> A small number of posts concern forum operation (e. g. software upgrades)
> and governance (e. g. questionable user behavior).
>
> None of the forum content is intended to be part of the code or
> documentation distributed as OpenOffice.org.. Whether a tutorial posted on
> an Apache affiliated user forum is "Documentation" in the sense intended by
> the iCLA is the sort of question that has forum volunteers confused.
>
Think if it this way: not every line of code that a Committer checks
in necessarily becomes part of the release product. But every line
that is contributed is made available for this project and for other
projects, now and in the future, under the Apache 2.0 license.
> A large fraction of the forum content is submitted by OpenOffice.org users
> who post one or two questions and move on.
>
> In case you care to see the Terms of Use of the forums, they can be found
> through a link at the bottom of any forum page
>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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RE: OpenOffice.org user forums and the iCLA
Posted by "Dennis E. Hamilton" <de...@acm.org>.
Let me come at this another way.
Apache does not presently require an iCLA for contributions on mailing lists or wikis that allows public registration and submissions. That includes Issue trackers too.
I personally see no basis in Apache practices for forum contributions to be treated any differently.
That's it.
- Dennis
DETAILS
If a contribution is to an Apache release deliverable, and it is substantial enough to be considered a copyrightable work, then an iCLA is required. That does not apply to general contributions on user lists, other public mailing lists, or public wikis. It is not necessary to have signed an iCLA to open and submit an issue on an Apache issue tracker. (A substantial contribution to a release deliverable via an issue report or an e-mail list would raise the iCLA question before it could be accepted.)
As you mention, the iCLA is being discussed with regard to moderators and administrators of forums. This is because of governance and oversight requirements. How the iCLA is involved in that is a little tricky. Here is my personal short answer:
An iCLA is required for a substantial contribution (as I described).
Committers are individuals who have made such significant contribution and show the commitment that merits being appointed to committer. A committer can make substantial contributions directly without having to make them via another committer. A committer must have filed an iCLA.
The Apache OOo PPPMC (Podling Project Management Committee) consists of *committers* who have oversight responsibility for the project. So that the oversight requirements of the Foundation are satisfied, it is expected that some number of the moderators and administrators may need to be members of the PPMC. That is how the iCLA ties to governance.
- Dennis
PS: It is possible for there to be non-committers in the PPMC but that is very unusual and is probably left off the table in regard to the Forum administrators and moderators.
-----Original Message-----
From: F C. Costero [mailto:fjcc.apache@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2011 20:19
To: legal-discuss@apache.org
Subject: OpenOffice.org user forums and the iCLA
Hello. I'm a member of the English and Spanish user forums at http://user.services.openoffice.org/. We are discussing transferring all of the forums to an Apache server and operating as an aspect of the Apache OpenOffice.org podling. I have a question about the effect of the Individual Contributor Legal Agreement (iCLA) on forum users.
I understand that some members of the forums, Admins with access to the underlying forum software and Moderators who can move or delete posts and ban users, must sign the iCLA and become official members of the podling. Since many members of the non-English forums cannot understand the iCLA, there is an understandable reluctance to sign a legal agreement. It is also not understood what the iCLA does with respect to forum users that the Terms of Use of the forum does not.
Question: Would the iCLA cover submissions to a user support forum that is associated with an Apache podling (or project) or would the submissions only be governed by the Terms of Use of the forum?
Some background on forum content
The forums contain:
1. Questions posted by users and associated answers provided by other users.
2. Tutorials written by users covering how to use either OpenOffice.org or the forum itself.
3. Macro code for automating OpenOffice.org tasks.
4. A small number of posts concern forum operation (e. g. software upgrades) and governance (e. g. questionable user behavior).
None of the forum content is intended to be part of the code or documentation distributed as OpenOffice.org.. Whether a tutorial posted on an Apache affiliated user forum is "Documentation" in the sense intended by the iCLA is the sort of question that has forum volunteers confused.
A large fraction of the forum content is submitted by OpenOffice.org users who post one or two questions and move on.
In case you care to see the Terms of Use of the forums, they can be found through a link at the bottom of any forum page
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org