Eclipse projects must follow the Eclipse Development Process.
Operating in a "single committer mode" is no excuse. The processes
exist for a reason, primarily one of protecting the developers, the
community, and adopters from IP exposures.
Eclipse projects are responsible for maintaining a log of all
contributions. How are the contributions of 15+ developers accounted
for? All of the project commits are attributed to you, and there
doesn't seem to be 15 developer's worth of contributions captured in
Bugzilla. Based on the three contribution CQs, I have the following
list of contributors:
Daniel Varro (GMT committer)
Istvan Rath
Andras Balogh,
Gergely Varro,
Akos Horvath,
Peter Pasztor,
Gabor Bergmann,
Andras Okros,
Andras Schmidt,
David Vago
Abel Hegedus
Zoltan Ujhelyi
Are there other contributors? Were all of these contributions
accepted in conformance with the IP Due Diligence process? [1]
The contribution attached to CQ 6703 represents, AFAIK, the entire
code base of VIATRA2. It lists four developers. If it's a revision
of the previoius contributions that includes all of the code,
shouldn't it list all of people who contributed to the previous
work? Should it list 15+ developers?
This is a potentially huge IP exposure. Who are these contributors?
What did they contribute? Do they have the rights to contribute? Do
their employers consent to the IP being distributed under the EPL?
This needs to be sorted out immediately.
Are you in a position to bring the project into conformance with the
Eclipse Development Process?
Wayne
[1] http://www.eclipse.org/legal/EclipseLegalProcessPoster.pdf
On 08/02/2012 03:02 PM, varro@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Dear Wayne and All,
Let me give some further information
about the background of this issue.
The VIATRA2 project has been an incubation
phase as part of the GMT Eclipse subproject since its start in
2005/2006.
It started as a purely academic initiative,
and slowly evolved into something more mature.
Since GMT was an umbrella project for
many different initiatives related to modeling and code
generation,
a single committer account was granted
for me - as VIATRA project lead. With 6-8 other projects,
GMT already had quite a high number
of committers in the very beginning.
After the birth of the Modeling project,
several subprojects of GMT (e.g ATL, oAW) gradually
moved to Modeling. VIATRA stayed in
GMT up to now - with a single committer - despite
the fact that 15+ people contributed
it during the last couple of years.
Due to this "single committer mode",
it was impossible for us to properly
follow the Eclipse processes as it caused
unrealistic overhead. Furthermore, GMT
has somehow become a "forgotten"
project in the last couple of years, so no one was really there to
help us avoid policy violations.
(In fact, our ad hoc release numbers
date back to a time when the current Eclipse policy
was not yet in effect - and several
other former GMT projects were renumbered)
Of course, I would be grateful for any
kind of assistance or mentorship we can get
to sort out non-conformance issues.
But it would be also great to get 5-6 additional
committer accounts first for the regular
VIATRA contributors to avoid my virtual "one-man-show".
Best regards,
Daniel
From:
Wayne Beaton <wayne@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To:
gmt-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx,
"'PMC members mailing list'" <modeling-pmc@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc:
varro@xxxxxxxxxx
Date:
2012.08.02 20:03
Subject:
VIATRA2 is not
operating as an Eclipse open source project
Greetings GMT project and Modeling PMC.
Daniel, if you have not already joined the GMT dev mailing list,
please
do so.
I am concerned that the VIATRA2 project is not operating as an
Eclipse
open source project
CQ 6703 was submitted today. That CQ is for a code contribution.
This appears
to be a significant contribution of code. It is the first
contribution
in more than two years to the project. In comments on that CQ, the
project
lead indicates that the contribution is "the newest combined
release
of the VIATRA2 model transformation framework" and that "In each
iteration, we compile the contributions from the developers and
push the
code to Eclipse.org."
This runs counter the open source rules of engagement set out in
the Eclipse
Development Process [1]. Specifically, the project is not
operating in
an open and transparent manner leaving little opportunity for
others to
join the project. The project has been established for some time,
and should
be operating fully at eclipse.org.
There are several developers listed in the contribution. Based on
the amount
of contribution, I believe that each of these developers should
become
committers and do all future work directly in the eclipse.org code
repository.
The project website [2] indicates that there have been numerous
releases
of the project, including statements like "The VIATRA2 Release 3.1
has been approved by Eclipse.org!". AFAICT, the project has not
undergone
a single release review as required by the Eclipse Development
Process.
The project must plan to undergo a formal release as soon as
possible.
Further, the 3.2 release indicates a third-party update site only
on the
downloads page [3]. It is okay to provide alternative download
sites, but
they must be *alternatives* to eclipse.org; the downloads for the
project
must be obtainable from eclipse.org. A third party site cannot be
the "official"
site.
The project is--according to my records--in incubation. Incubation
branding
must be provided on the download page and in downloads. I have
marked the
project as "incubation-non-conforming"; the project cannot benefit
from parallel IP until the incubation branding issues is resolved.
I believe that the project would benefit greatly from Architecture
Council
mentorship (I'm not sure why mentors weren't assigned in the first
place).
Can the modeling project suggest somebody who might be appropriate
in this
role?
Thanks,
Wayne
[1]
http://www.eclipse.org/projects/dev_process/development_process.php
[2]
http://www.eclipse.org/gmt/VIATRA2/
[3]
http://www.eclipse.org/gmt/VIATRA2/download/
--
Wayne Beaton
The Eclipse Foundation
Twitter: @waynebeaton
Explore Eclipse
Projects
--
Wayne Beaton
The Eclipse Foundation
Twitter: @waynebeaton
Explore Eclipse
Projects |
