Hello everyone, I would like to start a discussion on something I've been thinking and discussing with a number of people offline, before I brought it here for wider discussion.
I want to (eventually) propose to the board of the ASF to publish (formally among other ASF guidelines) a document that would make it clearer to both businesses and individuals what kind of business relations are "good" and "comply" with the Apache Way. The document is short, and follows - I think - the spirit of other guidelines and policies that the ASF publishes - in terms of being succinct, helpful and informative, but presenting the "spirit" of the guidelines rather than "precise implementation" of it. More context about the need is in the document - and I would really love people to take a close look at "whys" in the documentation. I opened the document for comments - so feel free to comment there if you have some concrete small proposals, but I think for the wider audience we should make "general" comments here in the comm devlist. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vp0eOeAHhRuTtps5I602MPduW7hYxtPORkkDtnlrIFo/edit Some more comments - more personal - why do I personally think we need it? I think sustainability and longevity of the Foundation and the PMCs it shepherds should be of uttermost importance. And I think in order to achieve that, we need more individuals at different stages of their professional career.- younger, more experienced, seasoned to be able to make the contribution to Apache Projects independently from their Employer funding, an important factor in the sustainability and longevity - strengthening vendor neutrality and other Apache Way approach. I am an example of an individual who established relationships with 5 different businesses for my OSS contributions, and thanks to that I can "make a living" from being an open-source contributor. I even get enough "living" that I can afford to spend (exclusively) my own money to go (as I did last week) to be a panelist and represent Open-Source practitioners at the EU commission in Brussels at the workshops https://swforum.eu/sustainability, together with Roman, Dirk and Geertjan (and maybe there were others I am not aware of). For me the workshops were very interesting, not only because we were able to pass a message to those who later will be participating in creating the laws and regulations, but also because I found that there are also others who have the same struggles I want to address in the document. Among other, undoubtedly important topics, I felt there were many voices on how individuals are struggling with establishing relations with businesses that are stakeholders in the open software they contribute to - procurement, contracts, expectations were all present in the voices I've heard. I could be biased of course, and hear only what I wanted to hear stronger than other voices, but still I think I've heard enough of the very same topics I raised in the document. But coming back to why I think it is needed? I had pretty unique experience, drive and capabilities (and quite a persistence) to get where I got now with being full-time open-source contributor. But it was far from easy. I got a number of bits and pieces together from various conversations and documents in order to be able to negotiate proper contracts, know what I can expect and also I had to convince the business partners of mine (yes - partners as I treat them and they treat me) that what I want in the contracts (and needs to be present due to the nature of cooperation and ASF expectations) is OK for them. I WISH I had such a document handy when I was negotiating my contract with Some companies (8 months was the longest). That would have cut many discussions and off-tracks - mostly because both parties would know for sure that the expectations of OSS contributions are different and that they are very different from the "standard" service contracts. I think not many of the people who would like to be full-time contributors will have enough financial stability, persistence, experience in contract negotiations and sometimes just the stamina and be bold enough to go through that without any guidelines and help. A good example was when I was not aware that I should really publicly state that my contributions will continue regardless if I am paid or not - I only learned that from a comment in one of the discussions with "longtimers" on one of the devlists. And I think just raising awareness to both - individual and businesses that such cooperation is not only possible but also perfectly OK with the ASF as long as it follows certain guidelines I also think (and I have some discussions that confirm that) that having such guidelines published by the ASF, would enable 3rd party companies to start providing services that would make it even easier: payments, contract negotiations and signing, legal responsibilities, lead generation - having such guidelines in place would remove the need of discussion "Are we ok with ASF guidelines or not" ? And those 3rd parties will even be able to use the "we are compliant with the ASF guidelines" message when talking to the contributors which will make them more trustworthy. I would love to hear what others think about it. Any constructive comments? Do you also find such guidelines useful and helpful ? Have I gone too far (or not too far in trying to describe what I understand is important? Eager to hear your thoughts. J. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@community.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@community.apache.org
