[PATCH] Developer policy amendment re. non-disclosure

Fri Oct 18 02:11:46 PDT 2013

Hi,

a personal comment: while I can understand the sentiment, I think the
wording might be a bit ambiguous. I'm tempted to read "... may result in your
contribution being excluded" as "If you send a patch in a mail with an
objectionable footer, that patch may end up being excluded from being
committed to LLVM forever". I'm sure the meaning is supposed to be more
like " If you send a patch in a mail with an
objectionable footer, that patch may be deemed ineligible for committing
until this is resolved". In language for documentation that (rare though
it is!) a possible contributor might read and take-as-gospel, it
seems unwise to have language which could be misinterpreted as being more
strict than the project intends to be.

(Incidentally, I'm sometimes guilty of posting stuff with default company
footers just because some ways of using my email account don't offer the
facility to turn it off, and I tend to think that sending meaningful messages
with annoying footers in a timely manners outweighs a footerless message that
is delayed several days until I've access to the right mail client.)

Cheers,
Dave

-----Original Message-----
From: llvm-commits-bounces at cs.uiuc.edu [mailto:llvm-commits-bounces at cs.uiuc.edu] On Behalf Of Daniel Berlin
Sent: 18 October 2013 08:25
To: Alp Toker
Cc: llvm-commits
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Developer policy amendment re. non-disclosure

On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 11:02 AM, Alp Toker <alp at nuanti.com> wrote:
> I've incorporated Daniel's suggested changes with line spacing and a
> typo fixed, plus the internal link in the original patch restored.
>
> Am not particularly keen on the "to the patches themselves"
> qualification but I understand Nadav feels strongly about this so have
> kept it in the final patch as a compromise.
>
Ignoring any optional "policy-based requirements" (that in practice,
nobody contributing to LLVM can possibly control), the reality is
there are sometimes fairly immutable requirements around certain
disclaimers/etc depending on job function and country.  They should
never appear on patches, however.

Honestly, if it was reasonable to blanket ban disclaimers on the
mailing list, i'd be first in line (on principle alone).  But it's
really not clear what it will achieve past making it more difficult
for some people to contribute.   If the concern is the possible effect
they have, the wording i proposed should take care of that[1].  If the
concern is just that they are annoying, I don't think they reach that
level yet.  Maybe someday they will (try joining a mailing list with
lawyers sometime), and we should deal with it then.  If there is some
other concern here i'm missing, I'd certainly like to hear what it is
:)

> Will appreciate one further review of the final patch from a third party
> and explicit OK-to-commit before landing this.

LGTM.

>
> Alp.
>

[1] Caselaw in the US is a little mixed, but basically "unenforceable"
in general, maybe helpful when it comes to preserving attorney-client
privilege. They also have interesting side effects.  As one lawyer
wrote, "it's very hard to argue to a judge you have an appropriate
system for marking only privileged communications in place when you
are marking your late night pizza orders with 500 word privilege
notices".

>
> On 17/10/2013 18:31, Nadav Rotem wrote:
>> LGTM.  Thank you :)
>>
>> On Oct 17, 2013, at 10:30 AM, Daniel Berlin <dberlin at dberlin.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Here is an updated patch, which also takes into account an issue Nadav
>>> kindly pointed out offline.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 10:11 AM, Daniel Berlin <dberlin at dberlin.org> wrote:
>>>> How about this wording for patches:
>>>>
>>>> When submitting patches, please do not add confidentiality or
>>>> non-disclosure notices.  These notices conflict
>>>> with the LLVM license, and may result in your contribution being excluded.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> and this for mailing lists:
>>>>
>>>> Please be aware that all public LLVM mailing lists are public and
>>>> archived, and that notices of confidentially or non-disclosure cannot
>>>> be respected.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 10:06 AM, Nadav Rotem <nrotem at apple.com> wrote:
>>>>> Alp,
>>>>>
>>>>> I am against it. Your email does not match the clause that you want to add to the LLVM docs.  In your email you mentioned patches (which is fine), but in your patch you mentioned email clients, etc.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Nadav
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Oct 17, 2013, at 9:57 AM, Alp Toker <alp at nuanti.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> This patch amends the developer policy to discourage corporate
>>>>>> non-disclosure or confidentiality signatures on patches intended for
>>>>>> review, which would be at odds with the LLVM license.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> OK to commit?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> http://www.nuanti.com
>>>>>> the browser experts
>>>>>>
>>>>>> <llvm-signature-policy.patch>_______________________________________________
>>>>>> llvm-commits mailing list
>>>>>> llvm-commits at cs.uiuc.edu
>>>>>> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvm-commits
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> llvm-commits mailing list
>>>>> llvm-commits at cs.uiuc.edu
>>>>> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvm-commits
>>> <llvm-signature-policy.patch>
>
> --
> http://www.nuanti.com
> the browser experts
>
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