Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-core] Re: Poll: Would you sign a Contributer License Agreement?

[Alec Warner]

On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 4:52 PM, Denis Dupeyron <calchan@g.o> wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 3:31 PM Alec Warner <antarus@g.o> wrote:
> > I think you paint a fairly black and white picture here. If there are
> *concrete* issues then I want to see them here (e.g. adopting a DCO means
> these 5 people cannot contribute without some additional work) because its
> up to Gentoo to work out these issues. Maybe that means accepting
> contributions on a contingent basis while we work out the issues. Maybe it
> means delaying making the DCO mandatory for everyone. Maybe it means
> talking to lawyers to discuss specific legal problems.
>
> I have no opinion of the document itself, whatever it is. I was just
> making you guys aware that if this did happen, I and a bunch of others
> will be asked to stop contributing in any form until the document,
> whether good or bad, was reviewed and us allowed to sign it. Again,
> you can make the document as suitable as possible to us, it would
> still have to be reviewed by our corporate lawyers. If somebody,
> somewhere, decides this has to go full corporate, i.e., to Japan where
> I'm suspecting lawyers are not very familiar with both US law and
> open-source matters, you're no longer counting in months. And again,
> we're talking about the maintenance and continued development of
> things like portage and OpenRc. I'm hoping I don't have to make the
> case to you that it's difficult if at all possible to replace paid
> developers with a loose bunch of volunteers.
>

So I would rather get some consensus on the wording of the DCO and send it
to $employer_legal_department for review, as opposed to just doing nothing.
Gentoo the organization decides when / if the DCO is mandatory. I'm
proposing we finalize the wording and get a review (to unblock the DCO,
which is nominally a thing Gentoo wants to do.)
I think it should be a goal to retain the volunteers who are paid; and if
we cannot do that then well, that is a problem for future us (e.g. we need
to ask and have the employer unable to say yes for whatever reason.) I feel
like you are suggesting just not asking..and I'm not really on board with
that.

-A


>
> > I'd rather do a DCO and see things like "well we tried to recruit 20 new
> people but 15 of them left because of a DCO" than be subject to
> unsubstantiated fear. At least on that basis we can decide that the DCO is
> 'too risky to staff' and stop requiring it. But that would be an experience
> based on actually trying something.
>
> You just won't get 20 recruits or candidates. You will get much fewer
> to none of them. Mark my words. Imagine the situation. Young software
> developer has to choose between living his/her life on one hand, and
> on the other going through our stupid recruitment system, wait for
> months, and then ask his manager to ask his manager to ask etc... that
> his/her employer reviews this document and clears him/her to sign it.
> This person will either do nothing or become an arch developer. We
> don't live in a vacuum.
>

I'm less convinced by theoretical problems than by practical ones that we
have experience with though.
Maybe we can collect data from other projects who require a DCO and see if
they lost contributors?

-A


>
> Again, I don't have any opinion on the document nor the process. I'm
> just trying to raise issues which I haven't seen being raised before
> it's too late. When our employer asks us to stop contributing we will
> have no choice but to comply.
>
>