All,
As I am sure you have heard, Java EE is migrating to the Eclipse
Foundation and we are about to begin hosting projects that are
explicitly intended to develop specifications. This is new step
for us, and we think it is a great evolution in our role of
stewardship of commercial open source initiatives.
As part of this migration from Java EE to Jakarta EE we are
replacing the JCP’s specification process for all future specs
versions related to enterprise Java. Our new vendor neutral
Eclipse Foundation Specification Process, or EFSP for short, is
different in many ways including that it takes a “code first”
approach. The EFSP is based on the Eclipse Development Process,
which has served as the defining process for all of our 350+
projects to date. For more information, feel free to follow the
jakarta.ee-community@xxxxxxxxxxx mailing list.
However, to support these new specification projects, it is
necessary that we update the agreements that govern contributions
and commits made to our projects. Specifically, we want to make
it clear that contributions to Eclipse projects could someday be
used to develop specifications. I assume that most folks would
have expected that this was already obvious when they contributed
to an open source project, however we decided that it was best
practice to make this explicit in all of our contributions
agreements.
To implement this change requires that we update each and every
agreement we have relating to contributions and commits. This is
a massive -- and disruptive -- undertaking, as it requires all of
these agreements get updated and re-signed. Since we need to
overhaul our contribution agreements, we are also taking this
opportunity to fix a few things. In particular, our committers
will know that up until now they’ve been required to be covered by
both a committer agreement and the ECA. We’re going to fix that in
both the ICA and MCA so committers will no longer have to
personally sign an ECA. We are also going to implementing
electronic signatures for ICAs and MCAs using HelloSign. So going
forward there is going to be a little less paper involved in being
a committer.
To make this happen, our staff will be reaching out personally to
those of you who need to update your agreement. This will take a
number of months, as this involves hundreds of agreements. We are
committed to make this update happen in as smooth a fashion as
possible and to have virtually no disruption to the flow of
contributions being made. We are hopeful that you will be
supportive of the change, and to react quickly and favorably when
we do contact you.
Below you will find details of the updates coming to the various
agreements. I encourage you to review these details, and to
support us in updating these agreements. I also encourage you to read
my recent blog, which has further details. Of course, we
would be happy to answer any questions or concerns you might have
that we haven’t thought of. Questions can be directed to
license@xxxxxxxxxxx.
Thank you in advance!
/mike
Updates are being made to each of the Member Committer Agreement,
the Individual Committer Agreement, and the Eclipse Contribution
Agreement. The updates and impact of each of these is listed
below.
Member Committer Agreements (MCA)
The contributions made by most committers in our community are
covered by a Member Committer Agreement. These are agreements
between a member company and Eclipse Foundation. We will be
reaching out to the Company Representative from each of these
companies to have them update the agreement. If you are the
Company Rep, please have the agreement reviewed and returned to us
to enable your employees who are committers to continue to
contribute to their projects.
To better serve our member companies, we are also modifying the
Member Committer Agreement to also cover contributions from all
employees of your company. This will streamline the process for
enabling employees to contribute to Eclipse projects, and avoid
you from having to complete paperwork to support each new
contributor. We think this is a significant improvement, and hope
you will be supportive.
For committers who work for companies with a Member Committer
Agreement, there is no action required by you. You will simply be
covered by the updated agreement once it is executed.
Finally, we encourage those companies that do not already have a
Member Committer Agreement in place to execute the Agreement.
It’s a much more efficient means to have the contributions made by
your employees be managed and recognized.
Individual Committer Agreement (ICA)
Many committers’ contributions are covered under an Individual
Committer Agreement. With these agreements, the committer has
entered into a direct agreement with the Foundation.
We will be reaching out to each committer who has previously
executed an ICA with us to have you update your agreement.
Eclipse Contributor Agreement (ECA)
All contributions made by non-committers to any Eclipse project
are done under the cover of an Eclipse Contributor Agreement.
Over the years, thousand of contributors have executed these
agreements to enable them to be a part of the vibrant Eclipse
community.
We will be reaching out to every contributor over the coming
months to have them update their contribution agreement.
![Avast logo]()
|
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
www.avast.com
|
