[OOTB-hive] Community contributions to Alfresco Software - Can OOTB make sure it is properly rewarded?

Thu Aug 21 23:30:31 BST 2014

Thank you for the clarification, and I agree that more information is useful 
for contributors.

It is a lot of fun when a project is more successful than you expected. PdfJS 
is a great project, and I am really glad that you worked on it and allowed it 
to be contributed. I don't think the project would have been as successful if 
you had chosen a different license. It would have been harder for you and Will 
to collaborate, and it would have been harder for the end result to be 
integrated into Alfresco.

Specific Thoughts:

* Contribution Agreement: Information on the contribution agreement is in the 
wiki:

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Source_Code#Signing_a_Contribution_Agreement

* Contributor List: The wiki was a quick way to make a list of contributions. 
I can look at creating an official page for contributors. I hadn't noticed that 
wiki links were nofollow. I guess that makes sense, but I agree it reduces the 
value of the reference.

* Community Stars: Jeff started this and I haven't done well at keeping it 
going. We have been doing it in the wiki because that requires so much less 
oversight compared to pages on the corporate site. It is a good idea to move 
it to the official site. Long term we want to make a public profile where people 
can show their Alfresco reputation.

* I agree that we need to have an updated and clear policy around our 
contribution process. It should address the issues Peter raised in order to 
set accurate expectations. Now that we have published our revised Open Source 
Commitment, I can make this a higher priority.

This was a useful conversation, and has resulted in more items for my post-
Summit todo list. <grin>

Thank you again for your contribution, and for raising this topic.

Richard

On Thursday, August 21, 2014 23:25:40 Peter Löfgren wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Thanks for the responses.
> To clear some things up, I was asked by Kevin Roast and did agree to the
> contribution and did not ask for a monetary reward. I have been attributed
> in the blog post and in the about box. Sorry for any confusion, did not
> mean to imply that Alfresco had done wrong. My question was if monetary
> reward may exist, and if so inform future contributors of their rights.
> 
> What Richard mentioned about the license is important. I did not think of
> it at the time (and had no idea that the add-on would turn out that well
> with the joint effort we had). So I think that the ootb can have some basic
> information on what the effect the choice of license can have if what you
> create later will be used by others (like Alfresco Software Inc.)
> 
> So a section on the ootb web about
> *Contributors rights*
> - Planning for the future, choose the right license
> - What to require in terms of attribution
> - Can you reasonably expect payment
> - Linking to Alfresco's contributor agreements/info (does that exist?)
> - If you are asked to Contribute, check with ootb first (can we do this, we
> are not lawyers)
> - And else that is relevant...
> 
> Wiki is semi-ok for attribution, but hoping for more since any links there
> get rel="nofollow" and does not help you in googla page rank. And yes, that
> is something that can be very valuable. So I'm looking for a listing of
> contributors on the official Alfresco site
> http://www.alfresco.com/community. And there can be a listing of Community
> Stars, for individuals that can be used for their CV.
> 
> Again, Alfresco have not wronged me, and I'm proud to be listed as
> contributor. My idea was to find an area where ootb could be of help for
> future contributors that find themselves having to make a decision if to
> agree on contributions. I kind of just said ok, cool, but then later got
> buyers remorse (for lack of better analogy, I was part seller here). It
> would have been nice to have some place to find some info on the topic
> related to Alfresco.
> 
> Peter
> 
> 2014-08-21 22:52 GMT+02:00 Richard Esplin <richard.esplin at alfresco.com>:
> > Rereading Peter's email, and doing some digging, I want to provide a brief
> > correction to my last post. Though I agree we can do better, I don't think
> > we
> > did awful.
> > 
> > I see that Peter's contribution was called out in Kevin Roast's blog.
> > 
> > http://blogs.alfresco.com/wp/kevinr/2014/06/27/alfresco-community-5-0-a/
> > 
> > And based on Peter's original email, it was correctly cited in the
> > contributor
> > list. (I haven't personally checked.)
> > 
> > I agree that we should have listed it in the release notes, but that has
> > not
> > been our habit in the past. I will propose we start doing that.
> > 
> > Is there some place where you feel we inappropriately took credit for
> > Peter's
> > work? How else do you think we should have given credit?
> > 
> > Thank you for the conversation. This feedback will help formulate our
> > policy
> > in the future.
> > 
> > Richard
> > 
> > On Thursday, August 21, 2014 14:23:54 Richard Esplin wrote:
> > > I completely agree with this feedback.
> > > 
> > > It should have been called out in the release notes and the blog post.
> > > 
> > > I do not yet know who made the decision to include PdfJS, or why it was
> > 
> > not
> > 
> > > communicated to have been a community contribution.
> > > 
> > > But it was likely one or two engineers working on their immediate task.
> > 
> > They
> > 
> > > were asked to improve the viewer, and they improved the viewer. If they
> > > communicated to their leader how it was improved (by leveraging a
> > > contribution), the leader didn't take the time to record it and pass
> > > that
> > > information to the documentation team who create the release notes.
> > > 
> > > That explanation is not meant as an excuse. I agree that we messed this
> > 
> > up.
> > 
> > > But hopefully it helps you understand how it happened.
> > > 
> > > Thank you Peter and Heiko for raising this concern. This is a really
> > 
> > clear
> > 
> > > example I can use with my team to educate them.
> > > 
> > > My apologies,
> > > 
> > > Richard
> > > 
> > > On Thursday, August 21, 2014 22:06:46 Heiko Robert wrote:
> > > > Hi Richard,
> > > > 
> > > > thanks a lot for your feedback and your engagement. I don't want to
> > > > speak for Peter but give you a feeling what customers think about
> > > > Alfresco already using this feature long time with the addon from
> > > > Peter
> > > > and Will. I'm sure he is pretty aware what he is doing when he chooses
> > > > Apache license. The first statement from one of our customers: "Wer
> > > > hat's erfunden? LOL (who has invented it)" - this is a funny quote
> > > > from
> > > > a german commercial for swiss cough candys convicting a poser saying
> > > > he
> > > > made the best drops. So it's not just the communication to the
> > > > contributor - this behavior is also bad marketing from Alfresco to the
> > > > enterprise customers.
> > > > 
> > > > It's more or less not what Alfresco mentions (or leaves out to
> > > > mention)
> > > > but the way you do it. Since we do not adorn ourselve with borrowed
> > > > plumes, we would like to get straight here:
> > > > If we did not develop the soup, we shouldn't announce it as ours... I
> > > > can't belive it was a descision of a single developer to integrate the
> > > > addon without any mention to the developer and to put it as a new
> > > > feature on the release note and blogs that way.
> > > > 
> > > > Let's work on it.
> > > > 
> > > > Heiko
> > > > 
> > > > Am 21.08.2014 20:06, schrieb Richard Esplin:
> > > > > For Alfresco to accept a contribution, we need rights to re-license
> > 
> > it
> > 
> > > > > for
> > > > > inclusion in Enterprise Edition. We either get those rights by
> > > > > making
> > > > > sure
> > > > > code we use is already licensed under a liberal license (Apache), or
> > 
> > by
> > 
> > > > > getting a contribution agreement.
> > > > > 
> > > > > When you release your code, you should make sure that the license
> > > > > you
> > > > > pick
> > > > > supports your goals.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I agree that our engineering team needs to get better at working
> > > > > with
> > > > > contributors. Our team often duplicates work that the community has
> > > > > already
> > > > > done. I hope I can help Alfresco to accept more contributions, and
> > > > > be
> > > > > more
> > > > > proactive in communicating with contributors. The way to achieve
> > > > > this
> > > > > goal
> > > > > is through education and cooperation.
> > > > 
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > OOTB-hive mailing list
> > > > OOTB-hive at xtreamlab.net
> > > > http://www.xtreamlab.net/mailman/listinfo/ootb-hive
> > > 
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > OOTB-hive mailing list
> > > OOTB-hive at xtreamlab.net
> > > http://www.xtreamlab.net/mailman/listinfo/ootb-hive
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > OOTB-hive mailing list
> > OOTB-hive at xtreamlab.net
> > http://www.xtreamlab.net/mailman/listinfo/ootb-hive