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[eclipse.org-architecture-council] [URGENT] Channel for IP Discussions (was: Update - Backlog - Email Avoidance Week)

Hi Janet,
 
I appreciate especially option (2) - asking PMCs and Mentors to provide
guidance on IP questions - and I believe that this is a good route towards
getting more scalability in the future: offloading simpler IP related tasks
to educated people like PMCs and Mentors.
 
I understand that a critical resource to making this happen successfully
is very good documentation of IP related things on the Web (Like the
EPL FAQ, we might need more such kinds of FAQ). If such an authoritative
FAQ exists, then the PMC and the Mentors can answer questions by
pointing to the FAQ, saying like "In my understanding, the Foundation's
stance on your issue is clearly stated in that FAQ entry".
 
Talking as the Architecture Council, however, one thing seems to be
missing here: an official channel for us (mentors in this case) to
escalate or discuss IP related questions.
 
As it stands, it seems that people are very reluctant answering IP
related questions in public channels such as bugzilla. I'm thus
wondering whether we could install some kind of channel on which
we can discuss IP related topics without fear [1]. Some requirements
for this channel, from my point of view:
  • Visible to Mentors / IP staff only in order to ensure open discussions
  • Archived in some way to allow new Mentors look at previous
    discussions -- ideally, resolved discussions would go into the
    IP/Legal FAQ mentioned before, then the discussion medium
    doesn't necessarily nead archival
  • Be a kind of communication medium between the board (IP
    Advisory Council) and the AC, that is: allow the AC to ask for
    topic things to be discussed at the Board, and Board answers
    to be routed back to the AC
  • Timely discussion on both sides
What are your thoughts about such a channel? Would it make sense
to reinstate "IPBugs" for discussion on IPZilla? These would be visible
to all committers, but it seems better than Bugzilla which is open
to the public. Another option would be a bugzilla flag like the one
hiding Security related bugs from non-committers [2].
 
To be more concrete, two IP related questions currently under the
AC's custody are kind of awaiting your comments: Bug 246945 [3] -
Best practices for interfacing with libs that are not EPL compatible,
and bug 249959 [4] - Copyright headers for checked-in generated
sources.
 
[1] http://eclipse-projects.blogspot.com/2008/10/goldilocks-and-three-bears-of-openness.html
[2] http://dev.eclipse.org/mhonarc/lists/eclipse.org-committers/msg00511.html
[3] https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=246945
[4] https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=249959
 
Cheers,
--
Martin Oberhuber, Senior Member of Technical Staff, Wind River
Target Management Project Lead, DSDP PMC Member
http://www.eclipse.org/dsdp/tm
 
 


From: eclipse.org-committers-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:eclipse.org-committers-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Janet Campbell
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 3:19 PM
To: eclipse.org-committers@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [eclipse.org-committers] Update - Backlog - Email Avoidance Week

When I last wrote to you all it was to let you know that we had a particularly large package that was creating delays in reviewing the IP you have submitted for our review.  The good news is that we are 3/4 way there.  The bad news is that there's still 1/4 to go.  Replying to your questions and concerns is an important part of our jobs and we make every effort to respond as quickly as well can, increasingly at the expense of code review.   The cumulative effect is an increasing backlog.   There are two things we are going to do to help address this issue:
 
(1)  The entire IP Team is going to avoid all email/IPZilla discussion this week.  We will use the added time to finish the large package under review and clear some of the backlog.  If you have something truly urgent, send an email to me with "URGENT" in the subject line or feel free to give me a call. 
 
(2)  We are going to ask the PMCs and Mentors to the Projects to more actively provide guidance on the IP process, and encourage the Projects to seek out their support.  While we recognize that the PMCs and Mentors may not know all the answers, rest assured that we will be there to help.  Our hope is that in supporting the PMCs and Mentors in providing this guidance we will be better able to scale.
 
We appreciate your patience as we work to serve you better.
 
Regards,
Janet
 
Janet Campbell
Legal Counsel & Manager, Intellectual Property
Phone:  +1.613.224.9461, x.229 (GMT -5)
Fax:  +1.613.224.5172
janet.campbell@xxxxxxxxxxx
 

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