[Buildbot-devel] Discussion of the Fiscal Sponsorship Agreement with Conservancy (was Re: Offer of membership to Buildbot into Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc.)

[Dustin J. Mitchell]

On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 2:01 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn at sfconservancy.org> wrote:
> This potential outcome is why it's important from Conservancy's
> perspective to make sure everyone who is involved with a project in a
> serious way signs the FSA, and that at least those who are nominally
> involved (or are previous heavy contributors) give an email "ok" to the
> idea that BuildBot is joining Conservancy.
...
> Thus, if there is a major contributor to BuildBot who feels
> uncomfortable signing the FSA, Tony and I want to investigate why in
> great detail.  I can tell you vaguely that there *have* been projects
> who wanted to join Conservancy, but we didn't take them ultimately
> because some major contributor simply refused to sign the FSA (primarily
> for reason (a) above).  We couldn't sort out the issue, so the project
> just didn't join.

That clarifies it quite well - thanks!  The Buildbot community is
currently only defined by a rough consensus among the bunch of us, and
signing the FSA is a way of saying "yes, I agree that this is what
Buildbot is, and that I'm OK with it becoming a sponsored project of
Conservancy, and with recognizing that the PLC has the right to make
decisions on behalf of the community."

The main thing we need to know ASAP, then, is if anyone out there in
the Buildbot community who feels they cannot sign the agreement.
Please get in touch soon - either on-list or privately - so we can try
to work things out or (hopefully not!) call off the party.

> Anyway, Tony and I did some drafting on the one issue of your concern at
> the PyCon meeting: the Termination without a Successor provision.
> Here's our proposed text on that (as a diff against the default
> template):
...
> Does that address the concern that you were raising at the meeting at
> PyCon?

I'm happy with that, but it was Tom's concern, in particular, so I'll
await his answer.

> The main drafting action, though, is to write the Representation
> section.  Tony would be glad to make a first draft, or you can make it
> if you prefer that.  Which do you prefer?

I'll take care of that.

> Actually, I'd prefer these sorted the other way around: i.e., it would
> be ideal if the initial PLC is known at the time of signing the FSA.
> However, that's not mandatory if there's a good reason to figure out who
> the signatories should be, and then finalize the PLC after the FSA is
> signed.

That sounds like a good plan.  Revising my earlier actions, then:
 * Start a thread asking for nominations for the PLC
 * Draft the agreement based on the LaTeX document in the OP

As far as signatures, when the time comes I will make a good effort to
contact everyone who's been involved with the project - basically the
git shortlog, posters to the mailing list, and everyone in
MAINTAINERS.txt.  Your email seemed to distinguish "signatures" and
"email 'ok'".  What form do the signatures need to take, then?

Dustin