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To: harmony-dev@incubator.apache.org
From: "Geir Magnusson Jr." <geirm@apache.org>
Subject: [Legal] Issue for Contribution Process
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 17:55:53 -0400

The standard Apache contribution process goes something like this :

   a) Any individual that is a committer must have
      on file an "Individual Contributor License Agreement"[1]
      This document is a statement from the individual that says
      that anything they contribute is their original work that
      they are free to license under the Apache License.

   b) Any other entity can make contributions to the project via
      a "Software Grant"[2] or through the modified "Corporate
      Contributor License Agreement"[3].  Through this, if accepted,
      the documentation is registered with the Apache Incubator, and
      the contribution goes into the SVN repository of the accepting  
project.

We will continue with these processes, but due to the extremely  
sensitive legal and political nature of our project, I'd like to  
discuss adding some additional constraints and processes in order to  
ensure that from the beginning, the codebase we maintain and develop  
has especially good tracking and oversight.

First, as part of the Apache Harmony project, we keep a registry of  
all 'bulk' contributions.  This doesn't replace the tracking the  
incubator does for these, but augments it - I think we would be well  
served if we internally tracked where code came from, and where we  
used it.  One of the lessons that I learned with Apache Geronimo is  
that for things like this, there never is too much information or  
careful oversight and screening, because even for things that are  
clean and clear, you want to avoid any confusion or FUD about  
materials later on.

Second, any contribution by an individual committer that is "bulk" -  
a quantity of code that is "re-purposed", "re-licensed" or "re- 
contributed", e.g. any bit of code that had been used elsewhere - be  
also registered as such.  We may or may not want to go as far as a  
software grant from that committer.  I'm not sure that there is any  
purpose to asking for one, but am interested in what others think.

For any bulk contribution, we could have a checklist like the  
following to help track where code is coming from, and help remind  
committers about our contribution rules.

Contribution Checklist for Individual Bulk Contribution
--------------------------------------------------------

1) Identification

   Please provide the following information

  - Name of the committer and apache ID
  - Names of all authors of the code or other material being submitted

2) Author's Permission

   If you did not write the material yourself, you would
   need to have a written agreement with those who did write
   the material that either gives you ownership of the material
   or otherwise provides you sufficient rights to submit this
   material to the project on their behalf?

   - If you do not have such an agreement, then do not submit
     this Contribution.

   - If you do have such an agreement, you should provide
     details of this agreement.

3) All Authors Are Committers

     If you did not write the material yourself, are all of
     the authors committers to Apache Harmony and authorized to
     participate in the related project component? If not,
     then you should not submit this Contribution, although the
     Corporate Contributor License Agreement may apply.

3) Re-purposed or Re-Licensed

    Did you submit this Contribution to another open
    source or proprietary project?

    - If so, then you should provide details with the submission.

Comments?

geir


[1] http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt
[2] http://www.apache.org/licenses/software-grant.txt
[3] http://www.apache.org/licenses/cla-corporate.txt


-- 
Geir Magnusson Jr                                  +1-203-665-6437
geirm@apache.org