One of Mozilla's goals for this year is to increase the number of
active contributors by 10x. That means that many new people, both
employees and volunteers, will be joining the community, and we
want to make sure that they all have the positive experience of
being valued members of the community.
A few discussions have been had at various events and forums about
what it means to interact with volunteer contributors, but there's
never been widely-disseminated information that covers the nature
of paid contribution in general.
To help new paid contributors understand more about what they're
getting involved with, I'd like to propose a new Paid Contributor
Agreement.
First though, I'd like to be clear about a couple of points:
* This could be used as a document that new employees will sign.
(As a memorandum of understanding, not as a legal contract.)
* This should be something that applies to existing staff members,
not just to new employees who are joining the community.
After discussion of the text here, MoCo could add this text as a
new page in the MoCo handbook.
We could also recommend that MoCo add this form to its standard
offer packet, the entry point for most new paid contributors.
Please take a look at the text below and share your thoughts on
that and on how we would make this available to new employees
and contractors.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
DRAFT
Welcome to Mozilla! We're pleased that you will be working with us
to contribute your expertise, knowledge, and skills to our Project.
Before we begin, there are some basic principles and practices that
you should be aware of and agree to. The following is an agreement
between you and Mozilla that describes your work with the Project:
1. The Mozilla Project is an open, worldwide community comprised
of enthusiastic individual contributors, both paid and unpaid.
As a contributor to our Project, you will be working with other
contributors, including Mozilla employees, contractors, and
volunteers, from all parts of the globe.
2. We have policies at Mozilla to protect the Project and you. While
working with us, we want you to be creative and help us to grow
the Project, while observing the following rules:
a. As a contributor, you cannot bind Mozilla to any agreements or
sign any agreements on behalf of Mozilla unless you are so
authorized, but you can introduce Mozilla to different ideas,
processes and ways of doing things.
b. As an employee or contractor of Mozilla, you are not automatically
a spokesperson for the community or the company, and should not
represent yourself as such.
d. You agree to behave in a professional and respectable manner
when acting as a Mozilla contributor. Mozilla's Participation
Guidelines can be found at
http://www.mozilla.org/about/governance/policies/participation/
e. It's definitely okay to talk about your contributions to Mozilla,
but you should not use Mozilla's logo or trademarks except in
accordance with Mozilla's trademark policy at
https://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/policy/
3. Mozilla strives to allow equal participation from all contributors,
regardless of employment status, organizational membership,
citizenship, or location. Therefore, in your everyday interactions
with other Mozilla contributors, both when choosing your audience
and crafting your message, always ask yourself:
1. How can I be inclusive of relevant contributors outside my
team/office/city/country/timezone?
2. In this context, does it make sense to treat Mozilla staff
contributors differently than Mozilla volunteer contributors?
Or is it instead appropriate to discriminate based on
* whether the contributor is under NDA?
* whether the contributor has sufficient read/write access?
* whether the contributor has enough expertise?
* whether the contributor can commit the necessary time?
* nothing, actually! Let me rephrase that...
In some cases, employment status matters. For example, as
part of their responsibilities, the People and IT departments
at MoCo need to discriminate between Mozilla employees,
contractors, and volunteers and/or between citizens and
residents of various legal jurisdictions. However, in most
cases, organizational membership isn't what matters, the
contributor's level of involvement is.
4. As part of your role, you may be given responsibilities and
authority within your organization. This does not automatically
translate to authority within the relevant Mozilla activities.
For example, a manager on the Platform team at MoCo has
responsibilities and authority related to prioritizing work
performed by members of that organization. However, that manager
does not have technical authority over the relevant code, and
must defer to the module owner -- who could be a direct report,
or might not even be employed by Mozilla. Conversely, the module
owner can accept or reject contributions based on their technical
merits, and can offer informed opinions on what needs to be done
but cannot dictate the priorities of other Mozilla employees
working on the module.
5. You or Mozilla may end your employment/contractual relationship
in accordance with applicable laws and legal requirements.
If you wish to end your participation as a contributor, however,
please inform any directly-affected community members and help
them transition to your absence.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The goal of this agreement is to address, and hopefully prevent,
the problem of Mozilla staff members who were not recruited from
the community discriminating against volunteers in their interactions
with the Mozilla community, since this (in most cases) is due to
ignorance or negligence, and is otherwise not willful.
To be clear, this gross plagiarism of David Boswell's Volunteer
Agreement [1] is intended to fall under the "parody" aspect of the
Fair Use clause. However, I am, as usual, at least half-serious. :)
[1] https://groups.google.com/d/topic/mozilla.governance/yN4V-lYJH8c/discussion
~fantasai
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