IPZilla hurting community contributions?

August 28, 2009 | 1 min Read

Here are two ways the Eclipse IP process is discouraging community contributions:

1. IPZilla is private (“committer only”).

Why? I find this intransparent and discouraging towards contributors. At a minimum it should be open to committers and contributors.

2. IPZilla round-trip times for small contributions are way too long.

I think a speedy round-trip-time for small contributions (i.e. few days) is paramount in making it worthwhile for the community to contribute AND for us committers to shepherd these contributions.

To illustrate my point: I’m waiting more than two weeks for a CQ to be approved, which I could write myself 2-3 times in those two weeks. Should I turn the next contributor away? (“Thanks, but it’s faster if I write it”)

I wonder why can’t non-incubation projects in good standing have parallel ip for their milestones?  This would speed-up acceptance of community contributions. The review could be completed in the ramp down time between freeze and final release.

What do you think?

PS: kudos to the Eclipse legal team for doing a great  job making Eclipse technology commercially consumable.