CONTRIBUTING

<<<=== OVERVIEW ===>>>

All RPerl Family software and documentation is legally copyrighted by original RPerl creator William N. Braswell, Jr.

To maintain the legal integrity and defensibility of the RPerl Family of software and documentation, all contributors to the RPerl Family must assign copyright ownership to Mr. Braswell, thereby empowering him to pursue legal action against those who attempt to violate any RPerl Family copyright, license, or other intellectual property rights.

This is the same strategy used by the Free Software Foundation for many GNU software projects, as explained below:

Why The FSF Gets Copyright Assignments From Contributors
By Professor Eben Moglen, Columbia University Law School
Copyright © 2001, 2008, 2009, 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
The quoted text below is not modified, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/

"Under US copyright law, which is the law under which most free software programs have historically been first published, there are very substantial procedural advantages to registration of copyright.  And despite the broad right of distribution conveyed by the GPL, enforcement of copyright is generally not possible for distributors: only the copyright holder or someone having assignment of the copyright can enforce the license.  If there are multiple authors of a copyrighted work, successful enforcement depends on having the cooperation of all authors.

In order to make sure that all of our copyrights can meet the recordkeeping and other requirements of registration, and in order to be able to enforce the GPL most effectively, FSF requires that each author of code incorporated in FSF projects provide a copyright assignment, and, where appropriate, a disclaimer of any work-for-hire ownership claims by the programmer's employer.  That way we can be sure that all the code in FSF projects is free code, whose freedom we can most effectively protect, and therefore on which other developers can completely rely."

<<<=== COMMITMENT TO FREE & OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE ===>>>

Mr. Braswell is committed to maintaining the free-and-open-source software (FOSS) basis of the RPerl Family.

If your RPerl Family contribution is accepted and merged into an official RPerl Family source repository, then your contribution is automatically published on Github with FOSS licensing, currently the same terms as Perl itself (your choice of Artistic or GNU GPL licenses).  

<<<=== ASSIGNMENT AGREEMENT ===>>>

The file named ASSIGNMENT.pdf contains the copyright assignment agreement.  Please print the file on one page of paper, then use blue ink to clearly write your full legal name twice (both at the top and bottom), write the date, and sign your signature.  You may then submit the fully-executed ASSIGNMENT document either in original paper form via snail mail, or a high-resolution digital scanned copy via e-mail.  If possible, please execute (sign) the ASSIGNMENT document in the presence of an official Notary Public, and have them notarize the appropriate area at the bottom of the document.

<<<=== EMPLOYER DISCLAIMER ===>>>

The file named EMPLOYERS.pdf contains the employer disclaimer agreement.  If you are employed, and either your job involves computer programming or you have executed an agreement giving your employer rights to the software you create, then we must also receive a fully-executed copy of the EMPLOYERS agreement, using the same blue-ink signing and notarization method as the ASSIGNMENT document described above.  Please have the EMPLOYERS agreement signed by a vice president or general manager in your organization.  

<<<=== OTHER CONTRIBUTORS ===>>>

If any other people have written software source code or documentation as part of your RPerl contribution, then they and their respective employers must also all sign and submit their own copies of the ASSIGNMENT and EMPLOYERS agreements.

Please be sure you DO NOT STUDY OR INCLUDE any 3rd-party or public-domain intellectual property as part of your RPerl contribution, including but not limited to: source code; documentation; copyrighted, trademarked, or patented components; or technical concepts.  In other words, don't copy someone else's work and don't study someone else's work while doing your own.  All your work must be 100% original.

<<<=== RECOGNITION ===>>>

Once we have received all necessary assignment agreements and employer disclaimer agreements, then we will begin the process of reviewing any software pull requests you have submitted through the official RPerl repository on Github.  Upon merging of your pull request(s), you will automatically be listed by Github as one of the official RPerl contributors, and you will also be manually added to the AUTHORS file.

<<<=== SUBMISSION ===>>>

When you are ready to submit the signed agreement(s), please answer the following 12 questions about yourself and your RPerl contribution, then include your answers in the body of your e-mail or on a separate sheet of paper in snail mail, and send it all to one of the addresses below.

1.  Full Legal Name
2.  Preferred Pseudonym (or "none")
3.  Country of Citizenship
4.  Date of Birth (spell full month name)
5.  Snail Mail Address (include country)
6.  E-Mail Address
7.  Names of RPerl Files Modified (or "none")
8.  Names of RPerl Files Created (or "none")
9.  Current Employer (or "none")
10. Does Your Job Involve Computer Programming? (or "not applicable")
11. Does Your Job Involve an IP Ownership Agreement? (or "not applicable")
12. Name(s) & Employer(s) of Additional Contributors (or "none")

Snail Mail Address:

RPerl Project
c/o William Braswell
608 S. Cougar Ave.
Cedar Park, TX, USA, 78613

E-Mail Address (Remove "NOSPAM." Before Sending):

william.braswell at NOSPAM.autoparallel.com

THANKS FOR CONTRIBUTING!  :-)