http://incubator.apache.org/ip-clearance/index.html
makes it _almost clear to me. Two things remain cloudy to me (my original reading of that link assumed that did not apply to TLPs, thanks for clarifying Jacques!): 1) What is the lowest common denominator of when contributions should be utilizing the incubator's IP Clearance procedures? It would seem that many contributions already should have utilized such protocol (especially the additional notes section of that link for - multiple contributors, specifically). If many OFBiz contributions have already utilized such, is this a process transparent to the community or is it more internal to the ASF? Judging by the other links on that page, the former seems true. 2)The bug scenario Since a non-committing contributor can have no reasonable expectation that his contribution will get put into the project, the only intent that he can show (through individual, joint work or otherwise) is that he wished his local copy to be free of that bug and that he wanted others, not specifically the ASF, to benefit from his exercise. This would suggest the need for a greater use of the incubator's IP clearance procedures as nothing really qualifies as "created _for Apache OFBiz". In any event, absent posing questions regarding these topics to legal discuss, I guess the only way my fears can be alleviated is by seeing the PMC more frequently (or more transparently if it is already frequent) using the incubator IP clearance procedures. The rest can be left to the invisible hand of the open source market to balance the burdens of administrivia and the benefits of community cohesiveness. --- "David E. Jones" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Jan 28, 2007, at 11:46 PM, Jacques Le Roux wrote: > > > Jonathon, > > > > Just one word to be sure you understand your responsability by > > opening your "sandbox" to other users without contracts between you > > (hence creating a joint work as pointed out by Chris). You will > > have to get through this procedure > > http://incubator.apache.org/ip-clearance/index.html > > Not necessarily. It is up to the committers to review this, but the > general guideline is to distinguish (as explained on that page and in > > related documents) based on how and why it was developed. > > For example, if someone fixes a bug in OFBiz in almost any case if it > > is contributed back then the how and why is pretty clear. The amount > > of time that lapses between doing it an contributing it doesn't > really matter. > > > If you don't and don't tell us (commiters) you will be the sole > > responsable because of our good faith (not knowing that it comes > not > > only from you). > > This is a dangerous idea Jacques. It is the responsibility of all > committers to make sure the source of the code is clear, especially > where it may have been developed independently and not intended to go > > into OFBiz but someone else took it and contributed it. Under no > circumstances is it okay for that code to go into OFBiz, and it is > ultimately the responsibility of the PMC to take care of this, and > that responsibility is delegated to non-PMC committers (though PMC > members should still review commits and issues to check on this). > > > This is only my opininon and not commiters's or PMC's or even > > ASF's, of course. > > Hopefully what I wrote clears this up a bit. Again, the documents on > > www.apache.org/dev clarify a lot of these issues. > > -David > > >
