On 29 June 2015 at 11:09, Karsten Wade kwade@redhat.com wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Second, the only problem I've ever had with the FPCA is that it is written as a legal document, so causes people's eyes to glaze over.
I've got an alternative to consider, which is a bit easier to read and accomplishes the same thing. I wrote it with Richard Fontana, who was lead author and legal counsel on the FPCA.
http://www.theopensourceway.org/wiki/Contribution_policy
This policy is specifically written so that it can be reused -- it's released under the CC BY SA.
To make the goal clear for all -- if you have contributors to a project, it is a great boon to have a clear contribution policy.
These contributor agreements focus on what Richard terms "Inbound == Outbound" -- incoming contributions are licensed under the terms of the overall project contributed to. If there is no associated license or coverage, the agreement provides a default one for code and software.
It doesn't need to be a complicated policy (read the above, IMO it accomplishes what the FPCA does in fewer words.)
OK this was brought up in Fedoraland before and I remember Richard saying that the reason for the difference depended on what type of contributions and what they may need to do later on for the parties involved. However, I think it would be better to get Richard to directly comment than rely on my bad memory or my inability to parrot legal theory.
This project is now handling contributors more than before (x5 or more when you add the SIGs and other activity to the pre-existing Core, QA, Infra, etc. groups.) It makes sense to have an agreement in place for inbound contributions.
Especially in the wonderful world of mixed up copyright laws.