Erik B. Craig wrote:
I agree that we definitely need to address IP issues around
documentation/the wiki... but isn't there any way to accomplish this
without adding barriers to users editing content?
Can we do something like wikipedia does for editing content where there
is a checkbox or a notice or something saying
"You agree to license your contributions under the Apache Software
License" (similar to how JIRA is currently)
We mention on the wiki front page, see second paragraph on
http://cwiki.apache.org/geronimo
"...Contributions to this wiki are managed the same way as code contributions, that
means all content on this site (see Geronimo cwiki documentation architecture for a list
of conforming spaces) is Apache Software Foundation copyrighted and available under the
Apache License..."
In addition, every single page autoexported as HTML (the version we should all consume)
has the following footer "Copyright © 2003-2008, The Apache Software Foundation"
But I also understand we want something more than just a disclaimer, some
additional step requiring a specific user action. An ICLA would do the trick,
file it once and is good for all your contributions. The process for filing it
and getting the appropriate access rights is the tricky one.
Cheers!
Hernan
--
Erik B. Craig
On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 9:00 AM, Kevan Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
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]
<mailto:[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
