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OGSA-DAI Contributions

The OGSA-DAI team welcomes communications about possible patches, bug fixes and additional components you may wish to contribute to the OGSA-DAI product. This page summarises our contributions policy and process.

Contributions Policy

The OGSA-DAI project welcomes the contribution of patches and small modifications to the OGSA-DAI software. In these cases, assuming the contribution meets the criteria for inclusion based on licensing, quality and suitability, copyright transfer will be agreed. The contribution will then be ingested into the code base and the contribution acknowledged in the documentation and on the OGSA-DAI web site. Potential contributors are encouraged to contact us to enquire about our coding, testing and documentation guidelines. Contact details are at the foot of the page.

There is no expectation of ongoing support from the contributor for these types of contribution.

Contributions Procedure

  • A contributor proposes a donation of code.
  • An OGSA-DAI team member is assigned to do an initial internal evaluation of the code. This evaluation looks at:
    • Quality of code - the code is well-documented, well-presented, conforms to the OGSA-DAI coding standards (see below), efficient and, as far as is known, bug free.
    • Code functionality - does it do what the OGSA-DAI team wish to do or fix a problem of concern.
    • Potential copyright or IP problems with the code.
    • The estimated time and effort to assimilate the code into our CVS and test framework and to update our user documentation.
    • Estimate of likely support overhead (is this something the OGSA-DAI team has the knowledge to support).
  • The evaluation is not published outwith the OGSA-DAI team.
  • The evaluation is then discussed amongst the OGSA-DAI project leaders.
  • If the contribution is rejected, one of the following may occur:
    • It is suggested that the contributor improve code to sufficient quality (if quality is an issue).
    • The possibility of releasing the code separately as an unsupported patch (if code functionality does not align with OGSA-DAI's roadmap and the estimated support burden is high) is raised with the contributor.
    • The contributor is told that the code cannot be accepted because the OGSA-DAI project believe it may infringe someone's intellectual property rights (IPR).
  • If the contribution is accepted:
    • The contributor is emailed to start the process to transfer copyright of the contribution to the OGSA-DAI team.
    • An OGSA-DAI team member is assigned to shepherd the integration of the code into OGSA-DAI.
    • The OGSA-DAI team member ensures that code works across all relevant systems.
    • The OGSA-DAI team member ensures that code, tests and documentation is completed.
    • The OGSA-DAI project managers agree release schedule for addition.
  • Once copyright transfer has been completed and a release schedule agreed:
    • An OGSA-DAI team member adds the code and documentation to the CVS repository.
    • The contributor is added to the project web pages and documentation.
  • The code is released as part of next release.

Further Information

If you wish to propose a contribution, have any questions or are concerned about any aspect of this process then please e-mail OGSA-DAI at: info@ogsadai.org.uk.