Re: [Discuss] Attributing contributions to commercial vendors investing in projects

[Alex Harui]

From the peanut gallery:

IMO, big corporations have enough money to get their names out there and 
influence projects if they want to.  So, it might be the best use of time to 
find ways to limit the impact on the projects instead of trying to prevent them 
from using their names.  The ASF tends to like transparency, so hiding 
corporate affiliation seems wrong.

The part-time volunteer is always going to have an uphill battle against 
influencing a project against a bunch of full-time paid committers whether you 
know their employers or not.  The full timers will be able to influence the 
project.

Isn't the real key to independence from corporations things like:
1) your committer rights move from job to job with you.
2) a commit should not be rejected based on business priorities, only technical.
Are there more?

Branding could dictate some policy to prevent a NASCAR uniform look to the 
project's landing page, but since corporations are effectively contributing 
significant money to the ASF by paying folks to commit code, why shouldn't they 
deserve recognition?  Could projects have their own Thanks page?

Lots of NOTICE files give attribution to the pre-Apache project owner.  Why not 
let other companies add their logo to NOTICE if it is important to them?

Maybe allow these two things and see if that makes the corporations happy.

Thanks,
-Alex

On 4/18/19, 4:06 PM, "Mark Thomas"  wrote:

This is a tricky one.

If everything is working as it should, corporate affiliation is irrelevant.

However, employment is a factor in a number of different ways a project
can start to head in the wrong direction. For example, employees of a
company always giving priority to reviewing and committing the work of
colleagues to the disadvantage - and discouragement - of other
contributors/committers.

This sort of thing can be very hard to spot from the mailing list unless
you are closely following a project over an extended period of time.
Something that those providing oversight - the directors - do not have
the bandwidth to do for all 200+ projects. Even if an issue is raised by
someone familiar with the project it remains hard to spot for any
external person trying to review the situation.

It would be a lot easier to pick up on behaviours like the one I
described above if corporate affiliation was readily available. However,
making that information readily available has many downsides which have
been articulated by others in this thread already.

If feels a bit catch-22. If all is well, we don't need it. Having it
makes it easier to spot when things go wrong but also increases the
chances of things going wrong.

I don't have a solution to this. Possible options include:
a) adding current employer(s) to the private information we hold for
   each committer so it is available to look up if there are concerns
b) asking for current employer(s) as part of investigating a concern
   raised with the way a project was operating
c) leaving things as they are on the basis that the risk of harm exceeds
   the benefit (I think it does for a and b)

Mark




On 18/04/2019 15:40, Jim Jagielski wrote:
> Yes. Corporate affiliation is really immaterial, and should be. Another 
reason for this is that one's job may, and often does, change. Who you are, and 
what you do, and how you provide "value" to a project, should not and does not. 
To associate one's merit with one's employment means that every time one 
changes jobs, it would/could have a major disastrous side-affect on one's place 
in the project. For example, if the only reason why Zap Foobarski has merit was 
because she was employed by Oracle, for example, and she was no longer employed 
there, then it places an undue and unfair disadvantage on her and unfair 
advantages on others. It is all about personal self-involved, self-motivated 
interest. If that is supported or enhanced by one's employer, that is great. 
But it is not a determining factor.
> 
>> On Apr 17, 2019, at 9:49 PM, Phil Steitz mailto:phil.ste...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 4/17/19 6:05 PM, Sam Ruby wrote:
>>> On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 6:04 PM Joan Touzet mailto:jo...@apache.org>> wrote:
 I'm generally in agreement with Rich, Jim, Shane, Sam and the other
 "grey beards" who have responded on this thread already. We recognize
 the individual, not the company, and the individual gets the merit.
>>> Meta comment: looking at the "grey beard" comments (including my own),
>>> I'm not impressed with how we collectively communicated (though Rich
>>> comes closest).
>>>
>>> This was a perfect opportunity to practice 

Re: [Discuss] Attributing contributions to commercial vendors investing in projects

[Mark Thomas]

This is a tricky one.

If everything is working as it should, corporate affiliation is irrelevant.

However, employment is a factor in a number of different ways a project
can start to head in the wrong direction. For example, employees of a
company always giving priority to reviewing and committing the work of
colleagues to the disadvantage - and discouragement - of other
contributors/committers.

This sort of thing can be very hard to spot from the mailing list unless
you are closely following a project over an extended period of time.
Something that those providing oversight - the directors - do not have
the bandwidth to do for all 200+ projects. Even if an issue is raised by
someone familiar with the project it remains hard to spot for any
external person trying to review the situation.

It would be a lot easier to pick up on behaviours like the one I
described above if corporate affiliation was readily available. However,
making that information readily available has many downsides which have
been articulated by others in this thread already.

If feels a bit catch-22. If all is well, we don't need it. Having it
makes it easier to spot when things go wrong but also increases the
chances of things going wrong.

I don't have a solution to this. Possible options include:
a) adding current employer(s) to the private information we hold for
   each committer so it is available to look up if there are concerns
b) asking for current employer(s) as part of investigating a concern
   raised with the way a project was operating
c) leaving things as they are on the basis that the risk of harm exceeds
   the benefit (I think it does for a and b)

Mark




On 18/04/2019 15:40, Jim Jagielski wrote:
> Yes. Corporate affiliation is really immaterial, and should be. Another 
> reason for this is that one's job may, and often does, change. Who you are, 
> and what you do, and how you provide "value" to a project, should not and 
> does not. To associate one's merit with one's employment means that every 
> time one changes jobs, it would/could have a major disastrous side-affect on 
> one's place in the project. For example, if the only reason why Zap Foobarski 
> has merit was because she was employed by Oracle, for example, and she was no 
> longer employed there, then it places an undue and unfair disadvantage on her 
> and unfair advantages on others. It is all about personal self-involved, 
> self-motivated interest. If that is supported or enhanced by one's employer, 
> that is great. But it is not a determining factor.
> 
>> On Apr 17, 2019, at 9:49 PM, Phil Steitz > > wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 4/17/19 6:05 PM, Sam Ruby wrote:
>>> On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 6:04 PM Joan Touzet >> > wrote:
 I'm generally in agreement with Rich, Jim, Shane, Sam and the other
 "grey beards" who have responded on this thread already. We recognize
 the individual, not the company, and the individual gets the merit.
>>> Meta comment: looking at the "grey beard" comments (including my own),
>>> I'm not impressed with how we collectively communicated (though Rich
>>> comes closest).
>>>
>>> This was a perfect opportunity to practice https://xkcd.com/1053/ 
>>> .
>>> Instead many of the responses (again, including my own, and all
>>> presumably entirely unintentionally) could be taken along the lines of
>>> "you should have known" instead of "you're one of today's lucky
>>> 10,000".
>>>
>>> I'll try to do better with my response to this email.  It won't
>>> contain WOO HOO levels of excitement, but hopefully a few people will
>>> feel like one of today's lucky 10,000.
>>>
>>> One of the things that makes the ASF different than other foundations:
>>> if many other foundations, a corporation can literally buy a seat on
>>> the board, and therefore get a say in the technical direction of
>>> foundation projects.  I'm proud to say that that is not remotely a
>>> possibility here at the ASF.  Corporations don't get a say in how we
>>> operate.  Heck, board members (and Presidents) don't get to set
>>> technical direction.
>>>
 That said, there are always rumours and scuttlebutt floating around of
 this sort: "If company Q wasn't supporting Project X, Project X would
 have died by now." Or: "Company J went out of business, so Project F is
 basically abandoned." While industry insiders and project members
 themselves are largely aware of these special situations, others outside
 of the community may not be.
>>> When I talk to people about incubation, what I typically say is that
>>> the goal of incubation is to ensure that the project survives should
>>> any company lose interest.  Often times I am talking to people who
>>> work for my employer (IBM) who come in saying that of course it
>>> couldn't happen to the project we are talking about because it is
>>> /strategic/.  I then point out any number of previously /strategic/
>>> projects 

Re: [Discuss] Attributing contributions to commercial vendors investing in projects

[Patricia Shanahan]

On 4/17/2019 11:27 AM, Griselda Cuevas wrote:


It brings clarity to project roadmap and dependencies.
Knowing what companies are investing in a given area, allows users &
contributors know who to contact to move their own contributions faster and
gives companies the ability to accept user suggestions.


Back when I was working in the computer industry, having to contact a 
competitor to expedite my ideas and to feed them suggestions would have 
been a very serious negative on contributing to a project.


Even now, I would prefer my ideas to get full consideration by a 
project, without having to work through a third party.


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Re: [Discuss] Attributing contributions to commercial vendors investing in projects

[Jim Jagielski]

Another item about the below is that I think it reflects, on many many levels, 
the current "understanding" or "interpretation" of open source that is being 
perpetuated by such entities as the Linux Foundation and believed by several 
companies as well. I see on almost a daily basis companies that simply cannot 
understand why they cannot control a project, why they cannot determine the 
roadmap, why they can't get a list of users or scan the developers mailing list 
for business opportunities and scam business offerings. This is especially bad 
when, if they have large enough wallets, they simply can do all of the above 
that they want simply by creating a "foundation" at LF.

So I don't agree w/ Sam when he says the responses could be "taken along the 
lines of 'you should have known'" because this is something that the so-called 
graybeards have been telling lots of people all the time... it is, in fact, one 
of the major challenges for the ASF to ensure that people grok how we work. 
Heck, it's why we have the Incubator for crying out loud, why we do "What Is 
The Apache Way" talks: because this stuff is NOT implicitly clear. When, at the 
same time, you are "fighting" much larger players, with much deeper pockets and 
much louder voices and significant financial reasons to maintain this 
"confusion", then it is even harder and more vital that we take these 
opportunities and answer them with all the passion, honesty and vigor that we 
can.

And we do all this for non-financially motivated reasons!

> On Apr 17, 2019, at 2:27 PM, Griselda Cuevas  wrote:
> 
> Hi ComDev,
> 
> What are your opinions/best practices on attributing contributions to
> commercial vendors who support an Apache project. I recently had a few
> discussions with folks in OSS and they convinced me on this being a good
> idea because it has a two-fold purpose:
> 
> 
>   1.
> 
>   It brings clarity to project roadmap and dependencies.
>   Knowing what companies are investing in a given area, allows users &
>   contributors know who to contact to move their own contributions faster and
>   gives companies the ability to accept user suggestions.
> 
> 
> 
>   1.
> 
>   Gives recognition to the companies (or individuals) who are investing in
>   Airflow.
>   This in the long term adds value to the project brand itself as it’s
>   easy to demonstrate who is using/contributing to the project.
> 
> 
> So my question is: Have you seen this done in a project? If yes, how they
> do it? Would you support this?
> 
> I want to clarify that I understand that Open Source is about the
> individuals and not the companies, however I also see the need for
> transparency for the sake of project agility.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> G


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Re: [Discuss] Attributing contributions to commercial vendors investing in projects

[Jim Jagielski]

Yes. Corporate affiliation is really immaterial, and should be. Another reason 
for this is that one's job may, and often does, change. Who you are, and what 
you do, and how you provide "value" to a project, should not and does not. To 
associate one's merit with one's employment means that every time one changes 
jobs, it would/could have a major disastrous side-affect on one's place in the 
project. For example, if the only reason why Zap Foobarski has merit was 
because she was employed by Oracle, for example, and she was no longer employed 
there, then it places an undue and unfair disadvantage on her and unfair 
advantages on others. It is all about personal self-involved, self-motivated 
interest. If that is supported or enhanced by one's employer, that is great. 
But it is not a determining factor.

> On Apr 17, 2019, at 9:49 PM, Phil Steitz  > wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 4/17/19 6:05 PM, Sam Ruby wrote:
>> On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 6:04 PM Joan Touzet > > wrote:
>>> I'm generally in agreement with Rich, Jim, Shane, Sam and the other
>>> "grey beards" who have responded on this thread already. We recognize
>>> the individual, not the company, and the individual gets the merit.
>> Meta comment: looking at the "grey beard" comments (including my own),
>> I'm not impressed with how we collectively communicated (though Rich
>> comes closest).
>> 
>> This was a perfect opportunity to practice https://xkcd.com/1053/ 
>> .
>> Instead many of the responses (again, including my own, and all
>> presumably entirely unintentionally) could be taken along the lines of
>> "you should have known" instead of "you're one of today's lucky
>> 10,000".
>> 
>> I'll try to do better with my response to this email.  It won't
>> contain WOO HOO levels of excitement, but hopefully a few people will
>> feel like one of today's lucky 10,000.
>> 
>> One of the things that makes the ASF different than other foundations:
>> if many other foundations, a corporation can literally buy a seat on
>> the board, and therefore get a say in the technical direction of
>> foundation projects.  I'm proud to say that that is not remotely a
>> possibility here at the ASF.  Corporations don't get a say in how we
>> operate.  Heck, board members (and Presidents) don't get to set
>> technical direction.
>> 
>>> That said, there are always rumours and scuttlebutt floating around of
>>> this sort: "If company Q wasn't supporting Project X, Project X would
>>> have died by now." Or: "Company J went out of business, so Project F is
>>> basically abandoned." While industry insiders and project members
>>> themselves are largely aware of these special situations, others outside
>>> of the community may not be.
>> When I talk to people about incubation, what I typically say is that
>> the goal of incubation is to ensure that the project survives should
>> any company lose interest.  Often times I am talking to people who
>> work for my employer (IBM) who come in saying that of course it
>> couldn't happen to the project we are talking about because it is
>> /strategic/.  I then point out any number of previously /strategic/
>> projects that IBM once championed and later abandoned.
>> 
>>> Gris, this is the flip-side of what you are proposing: making this
>>> implicit knowledge more explicit. The danger in writing it down is that
>>> it will change people's opinions of . By making these (sometimes
>>> intentionally) nebulous relationships more concrete by putting them on
>>> project home pages, you will necessarily impact how the project is
>>> perceived, likely reducing its autonomy. Do we want to do this? I think
>>> perhaps not.
>> I will challenge this, using the flip side of the argument.  Making a
>> project homepage look like a NASCAR driver will, in the long run,
>> embarrass a number of companies that once were backers of a project,
>> but found that their priorities change.  This is not theoretical.  I
>> often have meetings with some of those same people I talked to years
>> ago about the purpose of incubation who want do things to set things
>> right when their priorities inevitably change.  The last thing we want
>> to do is to embarrass them by pointing out that they are no longer
>> active committers.  I once was an active committer to Ant.  Over time,
>> I became less so.  There was no single point in time when I stopped.
>> And despite my departure, the project is still thriving.  And in that
>> case, neither my involvement or changing interests had anything to do
>> with my employer.
>> 
>>> One thing that's occurred to me in the past is: wouldn't it be nice to
>>> know exactly who everyone on a given PMC works for, in the event of
>>> "blocs" of voters banding together smelling fishy in terms of 
>>> projecthttps://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/>
>>> independence?
>> This comes up frequently, and the end result of the discussion
>> generally is along the 

Re: help with Wikipedia task

[Rich Bowen]

Bob Marley? Really?

I'm increasingly coming to believe that everything coming through on the 
"help wanted" thing is spam, and it may be time to shut it down. 
Discouraging, given our high hopes going in.


On 4/16/19 3:49 PM, Bob Marley wrote:

Hi,

I could help with the task:

https://helpwanted.apache.org/task.html?0b349bee48c7e47a20fb29222b8217fa61b11d31
Task #0b349bee: Ensure all Apache TLPs have Wikipedia pages

What would be the first step?

Thanks!



--
Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com
http://rcbowen.com/
@rbowen

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Re: [Discuss] Attributing contributions to commercial vendors investing in projects

[Eric Covener]

>Knowing what companies are investing in a given area, allows users &
>contributors know who to contact to move their own contributions faster and
>gives companies the ability to accept user suggestions.

I am not a purist by any stretch, but I don't see this benefiting even
the prospective contributor and it's at the expense of community
development.

>Gives recognition to the companies (or individuals) who are investing in
>Airflow.
>This in the long term adds value to the project brand itself as it’s
>easy to demonstrate who is using/contributing to the project.

Some associations might add, some might detract.But it seems to me
that corporations already have little trouble in advertising their
relationships with open source projects when they want to.

I don't know what exists today, but one thing I would consider
positive is making sure there's good consensus/guidance on surfacing
individuals' affiliations (when they want to, of course)
For example, some people might think it's taboo to telegraph it even
though they're not concealing it.

> So my question is: Have you seen this done in a project? If yes, how they
> do it? Would you support this?

No, I wouldn't personally support anything that encouraged
users/contributors to expedite their contributions by finding some
corporate association and working outside the normal community
channels.

> I want to clarify that I understand that Open Source is about the
> individuals and not the companies, however I also see the need for
> transparency for the sake of project agility.

I don't follow the agility part.  If a corporation is so engaged that
they'd be able to expedite something, why wouldn't they have the same
attention on the community channels?

To be frank this strikes me as more for the benefit for companies that
don't like community development than the communities themselves.

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Re: [Discuss] Attributing contributions to commercial vendors investing in projects

[Sam Ruby]

On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 9:54 PM Joan Touzet  wrote:
>
> On 2019-04-17 9:04 p.m., Griselda Cuevas wrote:
[snip]
>
> > Thank you!
>
> And thank you for raising something that I've been too nervous to bring
> up on my own.

Yes, thank you Gris for bringing this up.  And also thank you Joan for
being willing to say out loud "And thank you for raising something
that I've been too nervous to bring up on my own."  That takes
courage.

I still very much feel that "there be dragons" down the path of
acknowledging corporate involvement; but at the end of the day, I
would much rather give you, Gris, and others a chance to prove me
wrong than to discourage you or even worse - drive any of you away.

The people here who proudly are grey beards here got where we are by
proving others that came before us wrong.  Sometimes we forget that
fact.

- Sam Ruby

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