Hi, I was about to edit a file and saw it was BSD licensed with Copyright to company and author which does not to appear to be an active commiter. What is the procedure to start asking for ICLAs/SGAs? Should I just email the author?
Relative to this is something I was thinking recently: shouldn't we start asking all current contributors (non-commiters) to submit ICLAs if they haven't done so? Moreover, instead of focusing on the big task of files, isn't it easier to focus on start sending these requests to authors of many files? In the meantime, if I need to move code from a file to a new file (split implementation) with BSD header, what header should appear on the new file? Same but with an added Apache header? The file in question is arch/arm/src/nrf52/nrf52_wdt.c Best, Matias On Wed, Oct 14, 2020, at 10:53, Matias N. wrote: > The scripts are still in a draft PR, they were not merged. I was waiting for > confirmation for others to test. > The remaining issue was about the ability to deal with files in submodules. > Right now it just errors out. > I will see I can add an option that could help with this or if the old > submodules can be used to retrieve the missing data. > Either way, I can also document it in Documentation/ > > After that I can remove the draft and you can merge it. > > Best, > Matias > > On Wed, Oct 14, 2020, at 10:47, Nathan Hartman wrote: >> On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 12:11 PM Matias N. <mat...@imap.cc> wrote: >> > I think that for any non-coding/boring task the best bet (barring a paid >> > employee) >> > is to crowdsource the effort. You could compare this to the task of >> > enforcing code style: >> > it would be a huge task to convert all NuttX files to follow the code >> > style and most likely >> > no one would ever offer to do it on their own. However, distributing the >> > load to every PR >> > author to adapt files they touch is a good way to make fair distribution >> > of the load. >> > >> > I think for IP clearance a CI check could be added by using the scripts I >> > made: each file touched >> > by a PR could be checked to see if it can be "Apachized" safely. If so, >> > the PR author would have to >> > include this change in the PR in a separate commit, with a commit message >> > holding relevant >> > output of the tool for tracing. If some files become problematic for this >> > process, they can be added >> > to an "ignored" list (or a "already converted" list). If that sounds >> > reasonable, I could look into it. >> > >> > Of course, that is the slow approach and can only considered a help (to >> > slowly reduce the problem >> > and avoid continuing to increase it), so for something more critical as IP >> > clearance I think >> > it should be possible to further distribute batches of files to >> > verify/clear to committers over some period >> > of time. From our website, I count ~15 non-mentor commiters. If each of >> > those would clear 50 files, >> > that gets us 1500 files cleared. That is ~15% of .c/.h files. That could >> > be repeated periodically (every couple >> > of months, for example) and it would get us much closer to compliance, not >> > counting the files cleared via the CI >> > procedure detailed before. >> > >> > A final point I would make is this: for such a large codebase, this kind >> > of non-coding tasks >> > (for example, documentation) will require the biggest effort and thus >> > require more help. In that >> > regard, growing the number of committers is very important. A call for >> > non-coders to help with CI >> > and documentation may attract some users interested in NuttX but not >> > confident yet with the codebase. >> > >> > Best, >> > Matias >> > >> > PS: similar the the "can be Apachized" CI check, I feel we should add a >> > "has the author signed an ICLA" >> > check eventually for non-Apache licensed files. Sometimes I see PRs from >> > authors who appear not to >> > be commiters and I wonder if we're not making the problem worse by further >> > introducing authors without >> > ICLAs. >> >> Do we have documentation how to use the tools you made to do a proper >> IP clearance? >> >> Instead of trying to set aside a huge block of time to do IP >> clearance, if there is a clear documentation, I could do one or two >> files each day, like I have been doing for nxstyle. >> >> I would encourage all our committers and anyone who would like to >> become a committer by contributing to the project, to do the same >> thing. Just spend a few minutes each day clearing 1 or 2 files, and >> with ~15 committers doing that, we could clear ~100 files per week and >> start making a dent in this boring but necessary task. >> >> Nathan >> >
