(mentors, mainly)
Suppose a JIRA has patch but it's a link to a file on a non-ASF machine
from someone who has not signed a xCLA. The "Apache can use it" check
box is checked.
Can this be accepted as-is, or should/must the contents be placed on the
JIRA?
The 2 issues I see are
1/ that the link does not provide a proper record of the contents of the
file (the contents may change or disappear)
2/ it's not so clear the submitter has the rights to contribute (could
be a link to someone's content; it's hard to verify the ownership of
link content)
When this happened to me, I asked the contributor to attach the patch,
which they kindly did (more a question to driving JIRA), but to be
prepared for next time, I wanted to check the situation.
Unless there established practice, I'd not accept linked contributions
because of 1 and 2 not leaving a trail in JIRA. The only exception
might be very large contributions - but if it's that large, then a
software grant would be clearer anyway.
Andy
