[PATCH] Developer policy amendment re. non-disclosure

[Tobias Grosser]

On 10/18/2013 06:05 PM, Daniel Berlin wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 18, 2013 at 7:38 AM, Rafael Espíndola <
>
> If everyone really feels they are annoying as all get out, the general
> consensus is that this calculus comes out the other way, fine by me :)

They are not really annoying to me, but I have a practical problem with 
them. As I am not a lawyer, I have no idea how to handle such emails. 
Can I use information mentioned in them, can I use code snippets 
discussed in those mails, can I commit contained patches? I currently 
judge this by myself in a very conservative way (no patches, no code 
snippets, no ideas). I basically ignore these mails to not get into trouble.

The example given by David where he sends patch reviews with 
non-disclosure agreement is a great example. I would be personally very 
concerned, as I have no idea if I can include those in my commit.

So, for me having reliably defined how to handle such emails in the 
developer policy is important. Right now, I understand this such as that 
we can not commit patches, but that in-line code snippets and reviews 
with non-disclosure statements are OK to commit? Up to which size of 
code snippets? I have just the feeling this is again a judgement call I 
would not like to take by myself. Just completely forbidding those 
footers would make it a lot clearer for me.

Given the small amount of non-disclosure patches, it we probably do not
loose that many contributions if we ask people to remove those footers.
In fact, if an official statement is part of the developer policy, such
people could internally make a case why they need to be able to send 
emails without such a footer. If a company is interested in committing 
their patches upstream, removing an email footer that should not be 
enforced anyway does not seem to much to be asked.

Cheers,
Tobias