Re: [gentoo-project] call for agenda items -- council meeting 2019-04-14

[Gokturk Yuksek]

Ulrich Mueller:
>>>>>> On Tue, 09 Apr 2019, Gokturk Yuksek wrote:
>
>> I understand that but it creates problems with the consistent
>> enforcement of the policy. There are no clear guidelines as to how we
>> decide who requires identity validation and who doesn't. We don't even
>> know who is tasked with making the request and performing the
>> validation. If I work with a user and I am convinced that they provide
>> their real name, is that sufficient for the foundation? Can I
>> arbitrarily be suspicious of any user and demand them to provide their
>> identity?
>
>> [...]
>
>> I can't help but agree with the point that we are losing real
>> contributors and real community.
>
> So, "real" contributors, but they don't have a real name?
>

I think you're attributing malicious intent to using a pseudonym. There
are various social and legal reasons as to why someone would use a
pseudonym (that does not include infringing the copyright of an
employer). I was making the argument that people who contribute under a
pseudonym are just as "real" as the contributors who use their legal names.

>> And people whom I talked to didn't oppose the Foundation's attempt to
>> reduce legal liability. They were frustrated by the arbitrary
>> enforcement and not having their opinions heard. The fact that people
>> can get away with using a pseudonym as long as it reads like a normal
>> person name (for which there is no definition) is something we have to
>> address to the people who weren't as lucky with their choice of
>> pseudonym and lost their ability to contribute.
>
> Really, all these points had been raised before the copyright policy was
> approved, and I am sure that both the Council and the Board have
> considered them.
>
> Also, what would be the alternative? Signed-off-by lines without a real
> name would be meaningless, which basically means that we would accept
> any contribution without being able to track its origin.
>

I'd like to (informally) propose the following, for which I'm willing to
formulate as a GLEP proposal if there is interest:

The Foundation has an established practice of storing the legal names of
developers who join under a pseudonym. The infrastructure is already in
place for this. I think that allowing these developers to commit using
their pseudonyms as long as the Foundation is informed their real
identity does not exacerbate the legal risks they already pose. The
foundation may decide their arbitrary criteria on who is eligible for
this type of protection, including requiring sound legal reasons for
them to keep their identities hidden. I understand that the maintenance
of this could be a burden for the Foundation in theory, but in practice
I suspect this number is very low already.

Although it does not address the issue for user contributors who would
like to use a pseudonym, I believe it would still be a step in the right
direction by being more inclusive to existing developers who have been
helping Gentoo for years.

> Ulrich
>