On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 8:11 PM, <
davidweld...@gmail.com> wrote:
> One of Mozilla's goals for this year is to increase the number of active contributors by 10x.
It is not clear to me how you expect presenting an "agreement" to
would-be contributors to make people more inclined to contribute. Back
when I started, I'd probably have reacted negatively to having to
agree to a one-sided agreement (even if it's just a collection of
statements of the obvious) in order to contribute.
Also, while this is not actually a CLA (Contributor License
Agreement), the name you've chosen is so close that it going to be a
problem. CLAs are bad for Free Software projects, because they put
some entity above the constitution (the Free Software license) of the
project (usually to enable a proprietary relicensing business model
for that entity). Usually in debates about CLAs, it's pointed out that
Mozilla doesn't have one and, therefore, you can have a large
important Free Software project without one. So in the CLA debate, so
far Mozilla has had the reputation of being the good example without a
CLA.
Now, what you are proposing isn't a CLA, but since it's named so
similarly, people who don't read beyond the title will start believing
that Mozilla has a CLA, which will hurt our reputation. Please don't
hurt our reputation by making people believe that Mozilla requires a
CLA.
> That means that many new people will be joining the community and we want to make sure they have a positive experience.
Getting presented legalese to agree to is not a positive experience
even if you will be getting compensation. Getting presented one-sided
obligations that you have to take on in order to do some work out of
the goodness of your heart without compensation is particularly not a
positive experience!
> * This is not intended to be a document that people will sign.
Then, please don't call it an agreement. Please title it something
like "Stuff you should know when you contribute".
> Welcome to Mozilla! We're pleased that you will be working with us to volunteer your expertise, knowledge, and skills to our Project.
>
> Before we begin, there are some basic terms you should be aware of and agree to. The following is an agreement between you and Mozilla that describes your volunteer work with the Project:
I observe that Mozilla doesn't agree to anything as part of this
agreement. This is like those
> 1. You or Mozilla may end this Agreement at any time for any reason on immediate notice. If you wish to end the Agreement, simply email a Mozilla staff member to let us know.
OK, so this can at least be terminated.
> 2. As a volunteer for our Project, you will be working with Mozilla staff, employees and other volunteers.
This is a statement of obvious.
> 3. We have policies at Mozilla to protect the Project and you. While working with us, we want you to be creative and help us to grow the Project, while observing the following rules:
>
> a. As a volunteer, you cannot bind Mozilla to any agreements or sign any agreements on behalf of Mozilla, but you can introduce Mozilla to different ideas, processes and ways of doing things;
This should already be clear to reasonable people. Is there actually
precedent of people not having understood this or is this a
pre-emptive concern from a lawyer?
> b. You are not an employee or contractor of Mozilla and should not represent yourself as such;
Again, this should be clear to reasonable people. Has this actually
been a real problem that needs addressing or is this just a
pre-emptive concern from a lawyer?
> c. You cannot engage in any activities that violate the laws of your locale, Mozilla's policies, or the rights of any group or individual;
Well, of course you aren't allowed to violate the laws that you are
subject to or anyone's rights.
The "Mozilla's policies" bit is not cool. It's a contract drafting
anti-pattern to include unenumerating things by reference by not
actually making a specific reference a potentially unbounded body of
policy that the person agreeing to the agreement can't realistically
review. It's sad to see Mozilla engaging in this agreement drafting
anti-pattern.
> d. You agree to behave in a professional and respectable manner when acting as a Mozilla volunteer. Mozilla's Participation Guidelines can be found at
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/participation/;
>
> e. It's definitely okay to talk about your contributions to Mozilla, but you should not use Mozilla's logo or trademarks without Mozilla's prior written consent. Mozilla's trademark policy can be found at
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/trademarks/policy/; and
Again, stating what reasonable people should understand already.
> f. This Agreement is about you and only you. You may not transfer or give this to any other person or group.
Isn't this rather pointless, because the person agreeing to this
doesn't get any commitments from Mozilla, so there's really no reason
to try to reassign this. (Also, since the option to terminate
immediately is available, there's no point in trying to transfer the
agreement in order to dispose of the duties under it.)
> g. If you violate any of these rules, Mozilla has the right to end this agreement and your volunteer activities.
Frankly, this all reads like it exists in order to sooth the worries
of a lawyer who started worrying about the possibility that an
unreasonable contributor would show up, think of themselves as an
employee and start making trouble. Since the stuff here is from the
"master of the obvious" department, I think it would be best to
optimize for not offending would-be contributors with legalese that
mostly restates facts of law and not to optimize for minimizing the
concerns of a concerned lawyer.
I suggest:
1) Burying this agreement idea
2) On some kind of "How to get involved" page, mention something
minimally lawyer-soothig that could actually work to clue-in naive
people who aren't seriously unreasonable. E.g.: "Note that as a
volunteer contributor, you are not an empoyee or contractor of Mozilla
and should not represent yourself as such. Please be sure to adhere to
Mozilla's trademark policy
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/trademarks/policy/ and
Participation Guidelines
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/participation/
." And leave it at that without calling it an agreement.
--
Henri Sivonen
hsiv...@hsivonen.fi
https://hsivonen.fi/