Rob Weir wrote:
The problem: Many (most?) open source contributors are not opposed to AOO or LO. They are just interested in helping out. If they produce a patch, or documentation, fix a bug or add a translation, they want to maximize the public good that comes from that work.
You are writing this from the point of view of an individual contributor, but, as Day 3 of the ApacheCon http://s.apache.org/openoffice-aceu2012-day-3 showed, a huge opportunity is sponsored development. In that case, contributions are often more significant and the sponsor gets to choose the contractual details. Whatever policy (or set of instructions) we establish, we must make sure this case is included too.
A contributor merely needs to state that they are making their patch available to AOO under ALv2. There are various ways to record this fact publicly. One is to make the statement in the source system (git or BZ). But that is extra work. Another way might be submit an iCLA to Apache. Another way might be to publicly record an intention on our dev@ list
An ICLA is likely the safest way for large contributions. But this merely shifts the problem to defining the meaning of "large"...
Regards, Andrea.
