From:
eclipse.org-architecture-council-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:eclipse.org-architecture-council-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Oberhuber,
Martin
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 10:52 AM
To: Janet Campbell; eclipse.org-architecture-council
Subject: [eclipse.org-architecture-council] [URGENT] Channel for IP
Discussions (was: Update - Backlog - Email Avoidance Week)
Importance: High
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.
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.
Janet
Campbell
Legal
Counsel & Manager, Intellectual Property
Phone:
+1.613.224.9461, x.229 (GMT -5)
Fax:
+1.613.224.5172
janet.campbell@xxxxxxxxxxx
