#1219 Contributor nationality
Closed None Opened 10 years ago by lkundrak.

= phenomenon =

It has come to my attention that a sponsor suspecting contributor's residence due to his nationality might exclude him from participating in the project.

I'm wondering whether it's encouraged, discouraged, mandatory or forbidden that sponsors try to determine contributor's nationality and area of residence.

If it's not discouraged or forbidden, I'd like to be aware what reliable means of determining the location and nationality should we use.

I'd like to find out a reliable way to find out whether a piece of third party open-source code can be included in Fedora, taking the country of origin restrictions into account.

= background analysis =

The ticket and comment in question is here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1052040#c2

  • The applicant does not have a FAS account.
  • A packager sponsor did his own research on packager group applicant's nationality.
  • He determined the area of residence purely by guessing.
  • I suspect we do ship code with uncertain area of origin or originating from a country embargoed by US (afaik Linux kernel code contains code from University of Teheran)

= implementation recommendation =

I'd like to ask FESCo to make or suggest changes to contributor's documentation so that next time we know in advance and make no mistakes.


CC'ing spot as this is likely a legal question. it might be something that should be discussed on the board-private list instead of in fesco as well -- I'll leave that up to spot to decide.

I am completely against any basing any decisions on the suspected contributor's nationality unless we are required to do that by law.

I'm going to forward it to board-private list. Yeah, it's legal question mostly but personally I don't like this attitude of wild guessing any ones nationality/residence...

Let me state, as the said reviewer/sponsor, I was more interested in the project rather than the person (who happens to be the project upstream). The guess was about the residence and where the project is being developed, which is, probably, the important bit in this issue. Then again, I'm no lawyer, hence the question for Fedora Legal.

Related links:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Export?rd=Legal/Export
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/pages/sudan.aspx
* https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/legal/2014-January/002355.html

I guess we wait with this ticket for spot (legal). Fee free to add to agenda if you feel otherwise.

Apologies, I've been on PTO in Australia.

I've asked Red Hat for guidance on this specific issue, please hold. ;)

Just noting that we're waiting on RH Guidance therefore not going to be discussed in the FESCo Meeting this week.

Okay, in the specific case of this individual (from bz1052040), Red Hat has reviewed his specific details and confirmed that he is not restricted from contributing to Fedora in any way.

Export rules are very hard and very complicated (and they change from time to time). I'm in the process of clarifying things with Red Hat, specifically around Iran (the most complicated area and the most likely to be encountered in Fedora). That said, this is the guidance for all contributors as requested in this ticket:

Sponsors (or any other contributors) in Fedora should not make any effort to determine a contributor's nationality, country of origin, or area of residence. If a potential contributor independently (and explicitly) reveals their nationality, country of origin, or area of residence, and that nationality, country of origin, or area of residence is in one of the export restricted countries (currently: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan & Syria), then they are required to bring that information to the attention of Fedora Legal.

Thanks spot!

@lkundrak: Do you have specific documentation that you'd like to see updated with this information?

At the 2014-03-05 FESCo meeting, FESCo reiterated Fedora Legal's comment #8.

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