[opensource-wg] Contribution and credits policy BCP draft

Hi all,

On Thu, May 23, 2024 at 4:19 PM Maria Matejka via opensource-wg
<opensource-wg at ripe.net> wrote:
>
> Dear fellow OSS WG participants,
>
> following up on my talk today, I’m sending here the BCP draft for further discussion.
>
> Open-source projects SHOULD publish their contribution and credits policy and be open about how (and if) people can contribute. Open-source project maintainers SHOULD adhere to the published policy and update it when circumstances change.
>
> To create such a policy, maintainers can use a policy guide as a starting point. Maintainers are advised to be as open and friendly as they can.

Thank you for the helpful talk and the well-written and concise BCP draft.

I have a suggestion to change the last sentence based on what we
learned writing this policy, which is that plenty of maintainers have
good reasons to not be open and friendly to new contributions. I think
it would help improve adoption to avoid any suggestions about how to
handle contributions. I suggest something like this instead:

"Maintainers are advised to describe the current reality of how
contributions are handled, rather than how they aspire to handle them,
so as to set expectations for contributors accurately."

Let me know what you all think!

Valerie