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I wrote an email in
January of 2007 (below) that reflected back on 2006 and set out my expectation
that we would continue to see a lot of change in 2007. Now looking back
2007, it’s hard to believe that the level of change has been even greater than
expected.
- We improved our
processes by: implementing parallel IP for incubating
projects; streamlining our IP Process and updating our IP Process
overview; introducing parallelism into the Board approval process;
modifying the Employer Consent form making it easier for Committers to
participate in additional projects at Eclipse; introducing a policy
to provide greater clarity and transparency on our approach to the review of
third party dependencies; using the Portal
to manage the legal checkpoint in the Committer provisioning process; and
implementing IPZilla
improvements to clarify the process and increase
automation.
- We improved our
services by: hiring Barb Cochrane thereby increasing our speed
of review; leveraging new functionality in Bugzilla 3.0 to give Committers a
view on our work-in-progress and project a milestone for completion for the
next two months on a running basis (see canned searches at the bottom of your
IPZilla screen); presenting at both EclipseCon and Eclipse Summit Europe to
help educate the community on the work we do and IP process at Eclipse;
creating an IP Working Group of Board and Planning Council members to foster
collaboration on how we can improve the IP process to improve Committers
experience with the process; and working a ton of overtime to get all of the
IP reviews done in time for Europa.
I firmly believe that
continued improvements in automation and process streamlining are of key
importance to scaling the organization. The changes we are
putting in place will help as we continue to grow. Once again, we
appreciate your support and patience as we continue to work to improve our
services to the community.
Cheers,
Janet
Janet
Campbell
Phone:
+1.613.224.9461, x.229 (GMT -5)
Fax:
+1.613.224.5172
janet.campbell@xxxxxxxxxxx
From: Janet
Campbell [mailto:janet.campbell@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 2:53
PM
To:
'eclipse.org-committers@xxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: IP at Eclipse - Looking back on
2006 and Forward to 2007
As I drove
into work this morning, I was reflecting back on the past year. A lot has
changed over the last year, a trend I expect to continue. I thought
I would take some time to share with you what the IP Group has been up to over
the last year and some of the activity already underway in
2007.
During 2006
we:
·
Created an IP Process
poster to help better communicate the steps involved in the IP Process and
updated it twice.
·
Added two full time resources to
improve our responsiveness (Sharon Corbett in March & Jihong Yang in
June);
·
Began using Black Duck’s software to
review code submissions;
·
Began using Palamida’s software to
review code submissions;
·
Upgraded our scan tool to allow us
to do differential analysis on submissions - meaning we can now review the
delta’s between versions of a package, rather than starting from scratch with
each review;
·
Implemented IPZilla to improve transparency in
the IP review process; and
·
Created a policy on Implementing the
IP Policy that allowed for expedited Board approval of non-EPL
content;
We are just
into 2007 and we have already seen the following
changes:
·
IPZilla enhancements have been
implemented to enable us to better serve the
community:
o
A new menu option in Committer
tools, called Initiate an IP
discussion using IPZilla has been created. Using this option,
committers can open new IPBugs to discuss IP
issues.
o
Historically approved non-EPL
content is now included in IPZilla’s records – If you want to know what non-EPL
content is already in use at Eclipse, it is now easy to
find;
o
Functionality has been enabled in
IPZilla that will enable us to “push” IPZilla information out to the PMCs and
Project Leads;
o
Project Leads are now automatically
copied on all IPBugs related to their project.
·
Many IPZilla bugs have been
resolved;
·
The IP Policy
has been changed (effective January 17, 2007) to enable incubating projects to
get up and running in parallel to the full due diligence review. See
Mike’s Blog for more on this: http://milinkovich.blogspot.com/2007/01/parallel-ip-approvals-for-incubating.html;
·
A new server has been ordered to
enable us to upgrade to the newer version of Black Duck which has significant
improvements in functionality;
More changes
are on the way:
·
Modifications to the Implementing
the IP Policy policy are now before the Board for consideration that would
introduce parallelism into the Board approval process so that post review we
would be in a position to immediately approve the submission rather than
awaiting Board approval – a process that typically takes an additional 15
days;
·
We are investigating code analyzers
that could be used by the community to identify nested jar files, a constant
challenge for both our team and the committer community. I’ve created an
IPBug to give us
all a place to exchange ideas and information on this topic. If you know
of a tool that would help the community with this, please contribute to the
bug.
·
Stay tuned for updates to the IP Process
poster to reflect IP process streamlining.
The IPZilla
enhancements and bug fixes will make a significant difference in our
productivity and ability or serve the community better. A big thank you
goes out to Denis for his efforts on this front. We will continue to
work with the Community and our Board to find opportunities to improve the
service that we provide. I want to thank you for your patience as we
continue to implement changes such as these.
Cheers,
Janet
------------------------------------
Janet
Campbell
Legal
Counsel & Manager, Intellectual Property
Eclipse
Foundation Inc.
Phone:
(613) 224-9461, x.229 (GMT -5)
Fax:
(613) 224-5172
Email:
janet.campbell@xxxxxxxxxxx
Alternate
email: janet@xxxxxxxxxxx
www.eclipse.org
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