A Touch of Class

fantasai
2014-07-10

Creating a Paid Contributor Agreement

For those of you who missed it, David Boswell proposed a Volunteer Agreement for Mozilla contributors to mozilla.governance:

One of Mozilla's goals for this year is to increase the number of active contributors by 10x. That means that many new people will be joining the community and we want to make sure they have a positive experience.

A few teams have contributor agreements that provide details about what it means to volunteer in that specific area, but there's never been information that covers contributors in general.

To help new contributors understand more about what they're getting involved with, we've drafted a new volunteer agreement. I wanted to share the text of that and talk about how we would make this available.

First though, I'd like to be clear about a couple of points:

  • This is not intended to be a document that people will sign.
  • This is not something that applies to existing contributors, just to new people who are joining the community.

After sharing the text of this here, on Planet and at an upcoming Monday project call, we'd like to add this text as a new page on http://www.mozilla.org.

We would then link to that from the Get Involved page (mozilla.org/contribute), the entry point for most new contributors. We would add this to the existing opt-in on the form that references Mozilla's Privacy Policy.

Please take a look at the text below and share your thoughts on that and on how we would make this available to new contributors.

Thanks,

David

DRAFT Volunteer Agreement

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:

  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.
  2. As a volunteer for our Project, you will be working with Mozilla staff, employees and other volunteers.
  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:
    1. 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;
    2. You are not an employee or contractor of Mozilla and should not represent yourself as such;
    3. You cannot engage in any activities that violate the laws of your locale, Mozilla's policies, or the rights of any group or individual;
    4. 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/;
    5. 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
    6. This Agreement is about you and only you. You may not transfer or give this to any other person or group.
    7. If you violate any of these rules, Mozilla has the right to end this agreement and your volunteer activities.

This sparked a lively discussion with responses like “What existing problem are you trying to solve exactly?”, “Why are we making a distinction here between volunteers and paid staff?”, and “I don't think agreeing to such legalese is very welcoming.“

While further edits made the proposal less intimidating, I'm still not aware of any actual problem it's solving. However, we have occasionally had the opposite problem: paid staff that don't understand how to interact with the community, and seem to view volunteers as a sort of resourceful mob that must be managed (not the same as real coworkers that are paid by Mozilla and therefore are the core of the project).

Largely out of frustration, I proposed a Non-volunteer Agreement in response, using David Boswell's agreement as a template:

One of Mozilla's goals for this year is to increase the number of active contributors by 10x. That means that many new people, both employees and volunteers, will be joining the community, and we want to make sure that they all have the positive experience of being valued members of the community.

A few discussions have been had at various events and forums about what it means to interact with volunteer contributors, but there's never been widely-disseminated information that covers the nature of paid contribution in general.

To help new paid contributors understand more about what they're getting involved with, I'd like to propose a new Paid Contributor Agreement.

First though, I'd like to be clear about a couple of points:

  • This could be used as a document that new employees will sign. (As a memorandum of understanding, not as a legal contract.)
  • This should be something that applies to existing staff members, not just to new employees who are joining the community.

After discussion of the text here, MoCo could add this text as a new page in the MoCo handbook.

We could also recommend that MoCo add this form to its standard offer packet, the entry point for most new paid contributors.

Please take a look at the text below and share your thoughts on that and on how we would make this available to new employees and contractors.

DRAFT Non-Volunteer Agreement

Welcome to Mozilla! We're pleased that you will be working with us to contribute your expertise, knowledge, and skills to our Project.

Before we begin, there are some basic principles and practices that you should be aware of and agree to. The following is an agreement between you and Mozilla that describes your work with the Project:

  1. The Mozilla Project is an open, worldwide community comprised of enthusiastic individual contributors, both paid and unpaid. As a contributor to our Project, you will be working with other contributors, including Mozilla employees, contractors, and volunteers, from all parts of the globe.
  2. 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:
    1. As a contributor, you cannot bind Mozilla to any agreements or sign any agreements on behalf of Mozilla unless you are so authorized, but you can introduce Mozilla to different ideas, processes and ways of doing things.
    2. As an employee or contractor of Mozilla, you are not automatically a spokesperson for the community or the company, and should not represent yourself as such.
    3. You agree to behave in a professional and respectable manner when acting as a Mozilla contributor. Mozilla's Participation Guidelines can be found at http://www.mozilla.org/about/governance/policies/participation/
    4. It's definitely okay to talk about your contributions to Mozilla, but you should not use Mozilla's logo or trademarks except in accordance with Mozilla's trademark policy at https://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/policy/
  3. Mozilla strives to allow equal participation from all contributors, regardless of employment status, organizational membership, citizenship, or location. Therefore, in your everyday interactions with other Mozilla contributors, both when choosing your audience and crafting your message, always ask yourself:
    1. How can I be inclusive of relevant contributors outside my team/office/city/country/timezone?
    2. In this context, does it make sense to treat Mozilla staff contributors differently than Mozilla volunteer contributors? Or is it instead appropriate to discriminate based on
      • whether the contributor is under NDA?
      • whether the contributor has sufficient read/write access?
      • whether the contributor has enough expertise?
      • whether the contributor can commit the necessary time?
      • nothing, actually! Let me rephrase that...
      In some cases, employment status matters. For example, as part of their responsibilities, the People and IT departments at MoCo need to discriminate between Mozilla employees, contractors, and volunteers and/or between citizens and residents of various legal jurisdictions. However, in most cases, organizational membership isn't what matters, the contributor's level of involvement is.
  4. As part of your role, you may be given responsibilities and authority within your organization. This does not automatically translate to authority within the relevant Mozilla activities. For example, a manager on the Platform team at MoCo has responsibilities and authority related to prioritizing work performed by members of that organization. However, that manager does not have technical authority over the relevant code, and must defer to the module owner—who could be a direct report, or might not even be employed by Mozilla. Conversely, the module owner can accept or reject contributions based on their technical merits, and can offer informed opinions on what needs to be done but cannot dictate the priorities of other Mozilla employees working on the module.
  5. You or Mozilla may end your employment/contractual relationship in accordance with applicable laws and legal requirements. If you wish to end your participation as a contributor, however, please inform any directly-affected community members and help them transition to your absence.

The goal of this agreement is to address, and hopefully prevent, the problem of Mozilla staff members who were not recruited from the community discriminating against volunteers in their interactions with the Mozilla community, since this (in most cases) is due to ignorance or negligence, and is otherwise not willful.

To be clear, this gross plagiarism of David Boswell's Volunteer Agreement [1] is intended to fall under the "parody" aspect of the Fair Use clause. However, I am, as usual, at least half-serious. :)

[1] https://groups.google.com/d/topic/mozilla.governance/yN4V-lYJH8c/discussion

~fantasai

While the impetus for this post was parody, I think it is a serious issue. More serious, anyway, than the need for a Volunteer Agreement. There really is no on-boarding introduction to the Mozilla community for new employees at Mozilla, and we keep getting communciations (like the Volunteer Agreement proposal) that make some unnecessary distinction between employed and unemployed contributors. I want this distinction to go away. Wouldn't that be a better way of making volunteers feel welcome and appreciated than making them agree to a “Volunteer Agreement”?