[Harmony-Drafting] Harmony DCO
Allison Randal
allison at lohutok.net
Sat Aug 6 15:52:13 UTC 2011
On 08/06/2011 04:34 PM, James Bottomley wrote:
> On Sat, 2011-08-06 at 10:14 -0400, Richard Fontana wrote:
>>
>> While that's true, if you look at the DCO -- the 'certification'
>> itself, that is -- it is not specific to the Linux kernel at all. It
>> could be used by any open source project. In fact, I have recommended
>> to a couple of projects that they use, or consider using, the DCO,
>> without modification. So it's already reusable, and in fact it may
>> have been the first (non-FLOSS-license) contribution policy document
>> not worded for any specific project (though I doubt that was a
>> conscious design of its drafters).
>
> Actually, it was. I thought we still had the history on the Linux
> Foundation web site, since it was created by the OSDL general counsel
> (Diane Peters) in collaboration with others, but it appears to have been
> lost. The original thought was that SCO type allegations could happen
> to any open source project, so the DCO was designed to be
> non-specific ... although the implementation (signoffs in the bitkeeper
> logs) was crafted to the kernel.
The phrase "including my sign-off" is the main point of variation I saw on a
quick read. For the Linux Kernel, this is a technical aspect of git, that
each contribution can be (and for the kernel is required to be) signed off
by the contributor, which forever associates their information, and the
information of whoever approves their contribution with their patch, and
attests their agreement to the DCO. This is an incredibly powerful legal
tool, made quite simple through a technical process.
Is this technical solution essential for adopting a DCO as project policy?
If so, are there other technologies than git that work equally well? If not,
what are the alternatives for signoff that projects might adopt? Would the
Linux Kernel DCO be usable by projects that want to take one (signed or
digitally signed) affirmation from a contributor as they become a committer,
and no signoff process on commits?
I also wondered about the Mozilla Committer's Agreement, which is
philosophically inbound=outbound. The phrasing is more complex, and I
haven't sat down to do a comparison to see if it could be boiled down to the
beautifully simple phrasing of the Linux Kernel DCO, or whether it includes
some significant legal variations. (And, I have no opinion yet whether it's
worth accommodating legal variations it might have, if it has them.)
Are there other inbound=outbound agreements currently used by free software
projects that we should review? Or, projects with an inbound=outbound
philosophy, but no explicit declaration of it, where it's worth reviewing
their contribution policy or conventions?
On the whole, I hope the final result will be pretty similar to (nearly
identical to?) the Linux DCO, with additional help and guidance on how to
adopt it. But, I'm interested to think it through.
Allison
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