Hi folks, I wanted to follow up on this thread to let everyone know that we've taken the feedback from ASF community members across a variety of threads and updated our agreements accordingly. For context, I've attached a doc summarizing discussion as it stood back in February (including links to other relevant threads and docs).
The blocker that was identified was Tidelift's "public notice requirement" which in most projects would've required an action by the project as a whole, counter to the (rightful) prohibition of directed development within ASF-hosted projects. To fix that, we added language to all of our agreements that makes it clear: Tidelift will never ask maintainers to act in contravention with the policies of their fiscal sponsor. *> If your Project is formally part of a larger open source organization, such a fiscal sponsor or other non-profit that provides technical infrastructure to open source projects, Tidelift will not require you to perform Services that are in conflict with any written requirements of that organization.* The full text of our updated agreement can be found here: https://support.tidelift.com/hc/en-us/articles/4406309657876-Lifter-agreement Our hope is that this removes a barrier between maintainers of ASF-hosted projects and receiving income from downstream users through Tidelift to support work which might otherwise go uncompensated. If there are any other questions or concerns that folks have, please do let me know! My role these days is entirely focused on making sure we're addressing the needs of foundations like the Apache Software Foundation and its member projects. I've also included co-founder Jeremy Katz on this email, as doing right by foundations and the projects they host is a priority for all of Tidelift. Onward and upward, Josh Josh Simmons (he/they), Sr. Principal Foundations Advocate @ Tidelift <https://tidelift.com/> @joshsimmons <https://twitter.com/joshsimmons> | joshua.simm...@tidelift.com | bluesomewhere on IRC TZ: US/Pacific; UTC-07:00 Mar-Nov; UTC-08:00 Nov-Mar ad astra per aspera [image: 🚀] On 2022/01/11 21:49:59 Ralph Goers wrote: > Hello all, > > Recently the Logging Services PMC was approached by Tidelift offering to provide monetary support either to the project or individual committers. To obtain that sponsorship the project has to agree to the terms at https://support.tidelift.com/hc/en-us/articles/4406309657876-Lifter-agreement. It appears that Struts has accepted this already. > > Some PMC members are interested in pursuing this but I am questioning a) whether the agreement conflicts with ASF practices and b) whether the legal agreement is too ambiguous. Two ASF members commented on the Logging Services private list that they had concerns about the agreement. > > In response to these concerns I created https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LEGAL-593. The guidance there seemed to be that payment to the ASF by Tidelift would not be allowed but payment to individuals might be. No guidance on the agreement was provided. It was recommended I post here instead. > > In looking for more clarification from Tidelift about their agreement and who could receive payment we received this response: > > Great follow up question, you are spot on. Each of the individuals on the team page could become a lifter and the funds allocated for Log4j would be split between them. > > Additional pieces of information to add nuance: > > * For someone to _start_ lifting a project with Tidelift, the verification process involves us looking to official sources for confirmation–such as the team page. After a project is lifted, the verification process ultimately hinges on open communication between us and whichever lifter has been nominated to be the primary contact (in full view of all of the project's lifters so that we know there's shared agreement). > > * Funds can be split any way you see fit, evenly or otherwise. In most cases, we see an even split. In cases where the funds are directed back to a foundation, 100% of the funds go to the foundation and the share assigned to the lifters is 0%. > > * This approach has allowed us to decouple any individual project's governance from our own processes, and has proven to be effective in many different contexts. As we grow, it may well be that our processes need to evolve, so that's a conversation that I'm open to as we continue discussing :o) > > So it is clear to me that Tidelift requires the project as a whole to approve the agreement, even though only select individuals may choose to receive payment, especially since one of the requirements is a public acknowledgment of Tidelift on one of the project’s sites. > > I find this problematic as I cannot reconcile how it is OK for individuals to receive payment so that the ASF is not officially involved while at the same time the PMC must approve the agreement for individuals to be able to accept payment. Furthermore, I still have no idea whether the terms of the agreement would put a PMC in conflict with ASF policies or whether the ambiguities in the agreement would put the ASF in a bad place. I realize the ASF’s argument would be “We have nothing to do with this” but I suspect that wouldn’t fly since the PMC has to agree to it. > > To be clear, I have no idea if this is the correct place to discuss this. Personally, I was under the impression that a Legal Jira was where this kind of stuff got resolved. But here I am. > > Thoughts? > > Ralph > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@community.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@community.apache.org > >
2022-02-27 Tidelift + Apache Software Foundation.odt
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