CABF: Contributions on GitHub by individuals that have not signed the IPR Agreement

[Dimitris Zacharopoulos (HARICA)]

Dear Members,

We repeatedly see contributions submitted on GitHub issues or PRs in the CA/B Forum repositories from individuals who have not signed the IPR Agreement. We recently saw a lot of comments from non CABF Members in https://github.com/cabforum/servercert/pull/553.

In the past, the Forum has reacted to such contributions by asking that the IPR agreement is signed. I did a quick search in the closed issues:

1. https://github.com/cabforum/servercert/issues/97
2. https://github.com/cabforum/servercert/issues/116
   
3. https://github.com/cabforum/servercert/issues/255

I assume there are more issues and PRs with similar reactions. 

The Forum should agree on a practice to react to contributions on GitHub from non-Members, third-parties, and apply this practice consistently. After some discussion with Ben Wilson, the Chair of the IPR Subcommittee, a possible way forward is for the IPR Subcommittee to decide on specific text that should be used to reply to contributions on GitHub from individuals that have not signed the IPR agreement. Are there any objections to this approach?

The Forum has discussed adding access control rules so that only Members and Interested Parties who have signed the IPR agreement can post/comment on GitHub similarly to what we do to the Public Mail List. I'm not sure if the IPR subcommittee should prioritize on this, getting some input from the larger group would be helpful.

Please note that it is not my intent to shutdown any public discussion but to ensure the CA/B Forum Bylaws and IPR Policy are adhered to.

Thoughts?

Thank you,

Dimitris
CA/B Forum Chair