[Opensim-dev] 6 month viewer code barrier dropped and Contributor's Agreement in place

[Justin Clark-Casey]

I forgot to say that the OpenSimulator wiki Contribution's Policy page at [4] has also been updated to reflect the new
policy.

[4] http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Contributions_Policy

On 30/09/11 21:36, Justin Clark-Casey wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> It has been a long time in coming since the announcement in late June [1], but today we are finally dropping the 6 month
> cooling off period between contributing to OpenSimulator and contributing/reviewing code in the GPL/LGPL licensed Linden
> Lab viewers and downstream viewer projects (e.g. Imprudence/Kokua, Firestorm, etc.).
>
> In other words, I (as an OpenSimulator developer) can now go read and submit patches to Imprudence or Firestorm and
> there's no issue if those developers want to submit patches to OpenSimulator. Indeed, potentially we could even become
> core members of each other's projects.
>
> However, as detailed in [1], in order to better deal with any future questions over code origin, we now need anybody
> submitting a significant code change to OpenSimulator to submit a Contributor's Agreement. This applies to all
> developers, including core. These agreements explicitly grant a copyright license over the contribution to the Overte
> Foundation, which is now the formal distributor of OpenSimulator. Note that this is copyright license only, not
> ownership. The agreement also requires the licensing of any patents that apply to the contribution which are owned by
> the contributor.
>
> A significant code change is defined as
>
> 1. A new feature of any size.
> 2. Any other code change of more than 100 lines.
>
> Bug fixes, implementations of existing LSL functions and patches that fill in missing parts of existing OpenSimulator
> features (for instance, persisting the no-fly attribute of parcels) will not count as new features, as long as the
> patches are under 100 lines. We're taking this approach so that we don't discourage one-time casual contributions. But
> if you are regularly contributing small changes then please seriously consider submitting an agreement. We may need to
> ask you at some stage anyway.
>
> The Mantis handles of people who have a CLA on file will probably be posted on the development team page of the wiki
> sometime soon, maybe in a new section. It will be up to you if you want to add any personal details.
>
> These requirements may quite possibly get adjusted and clarified in the future.
>
> The instructions for submitting a contributor's agreement are at [2]. There is an FAQ at [3]. Any further questions
> please ask on this mailing list.
>
> These changes do not apply to patches already in Mantis.
>
> [1] http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Foundation
> [2] http://www.overte.org/contribution-agreement.html
> [3] http://www.overte.org/faq.html
>
> Best Regards,
>