I think your assumption is fairly reasonable. The iithmus test would be; What if any contributions outside the sign-off ones, turn out to be not "clean"? Is it reasonable to remove such patch and do a rewrite of that section? If the answer is "yes, we can either re-write or remove that without too much impediment", then I think that is a reasonable cut-off point.
Niclas On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 3:13 AM, Jan Lehnardt <j...@apache.org> wrote: > Dear Incubator, > > (if this isn’t the right list to ask this, please direct be to the correct > place). > > The CouchDB community was approached by the lead developer of > https://github.com/dscape/nano to have the project become apart of Apache > CouchDB. The community has voiced some interest in pursuing this. There has > not been a vote on this yet, though, this is just to clear any preliminary > concerns. > > Is there a precedent for importing GitHub projects to the ASF? > > In particular, how do we handle the GitHub-usual main-dev-team + lots of > drive-by-contrbutors without a clear copyright assignment step in place? > > While the lead developer and copyright holder as per the projects > README.md has made the most significant contributions (412 commits / > 41,036++ / 39,540--), some of the other contributors have not-insignificant > (double negative alert!) contributions (17 commits / 613++ / 53--, e.g., > see https://github.com/dscape/nano/graphs/contributors for details). > > As per ASF requirements, is the lead developer in a position to donate the > project as a whole to the ASF? > > Which, if any, of the other contributors will have to co-sign the > donation? Or put their contributions under an ICLA of their own? Or what > other things need to be done? > > FWIW, the second most prolific contributor expressed interest in moving to > the ASF with the project, all legalities covered. The rest are pretty much > inactive at this point, or have only made insignificant contributions, that > were clearly meant to be included in the main project. > > * * * > > My understanding is that getting the main contributors / active > maintainers to do a software grant and/or ICLA will do the trick, as minor > contributions that were meant to be included in the project (as per regular > ASF contributions guidelines), don’t need the legal red tape. > > That said, where do we make the cut off for significant contributions? In > the given project, my gut feeling says contributors #1 and #2 ( > https://github.com/dscape/nano/graphs/contributors) will cover what we > need, but I’d like to get confirmation on this before proceeding. > > Assume all the other bits (license, dependencies, community vote) would be > sorted. > > Does the above sound reasonable or am I way off on any point? > > Thank you for your advice! > Best > Jan > -- > > -- Niclas Hedhman, Software Developer http://www.qi4j.org - New Energy for Java
