All,
To properly protect the IP rights of our Wiki-based documentation, we
need to stop allowing unrestricted write access to our Wiki. Wiki
contributors should be required to have an ICLA on file with the ASF.
I also think that we need to hold a PMC vote before granting this
access.
I'll also take this opportunity to remind the community that Wiki
updates are sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] These updates need to be
reviewed by the community, just like all code updates.
IMO, we don't want this to be a heavy-weight process. We don't want
there to be a significant hurdle to contributing documentation. For
code updates, patch files attached to Jira's with the "Grant license
to ASF" button checked takes care of these IP concerns. To my
knowledge, there's no patch file equivalent for updates to a Wiki. We
could require that documentation updates be contributed in the form of
simple ascii text files that are attached to a Jira. This would
address our IP concerns, but is not ideal IMO.
To keep this as light-weight as possible, I propose we formalize the
concept of "contributor". A contributor would have write access to our
Wiki documentation as well as the ability to assign Jira's to him/
herself.
I think the process would go something like this...
0. Reset write access to our wiki to be only the current set of
committers on the project.
1. New documentation contributions from non-committers/contributors
must be submitted via a Jira, with the "Grant License to the ASF" box
checked. This is just like any code/bug-fix submission.
2. Once a new participant has expressed interest in contributing to
the project and/or has contributed documentation or bug fixes, a PMC
vote will be called to grant the new participant "contributor" rights.
As all PMC votes, this vote is a majority vote, require a minimum of 3
+1 votes, and will last for a minimum of 72 hours.
3. Once a vote has passed, the participant will be invited to join the
project as a 'contributor'. Assuming he/she accepts, the participant
must then submit an ICLA to the ASF.
Once the ICLA is on file, the new 'contributor' will give given write
access to our wiki and the ability to assign Jira's.
4. The new contributor will be announced to the community.
I've grouped Jira rights with wiki rights in the above. This is not
strictly necessary, but grouping the two seems like a reasonable step.
This is my first pass at a proposal. We can tweak this process in a
number of ways and there are alternatives. I think the hard
requirements are 1) the PMC must vote and 2) an ICLA must be filed
with the ASF.
Until we resolve this issue, we need to restrict Wiki write access to
be the current set of Geronimo committers.
--kevan
