Legal advice concerning contribution to ReactOS

Hi, I've a question concerning legal restrictions. As mentioned on this 
page

https://reactos.org/wiki/Subversion#Prerequisites

I'm not allowed to contribute to ReactOS when I'm an employee of 
Microsoft or of any subsidiary of Microsoft.

In the past, I worked for a German company which was a Certified Partner 
of Microsoft. As far as I know, it was not a subsidiary of Microsoft. 
It's not even listed here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Microsoft

(but I don't know if this list is complete).

Since a Certified Partner is not automatically a MS subsidiary or 
equivalent to it in a sense (as I think), there shouldn't be a problem 
for me contributing to ReactOS. Is there anybody who can confirm that?

Tobias

[David Quintana (gigaherz)]

Hello,

First of all, I'm not qualified to give you a definitive answer, and
anything I say is only my personal belief. I'm not a lawyer or anything
close to one. I'm jsut writing to give you an approximation of an answer
while you wait for the proper answer by someone who is qualified.

I believe that the idea of the restriction is to both prevent breaching of
"non-compete" clauses in contracts, and to prevent the situation in which
the contributions to ReactOS as seen as having been done by "abusing" the
knowledge obtained while you have direct access to Microsoft's internal
information.

The best ReactOS will be able to say about this, is if your contribution
would be legally welcome. You still may want to verify on your end if you
would have any troubles by providing such contributions.

I repeat that I'm just a lowly contributor and my words are not legal
advice.

Thanks for the interest. :)

On 18 March 2017 at 13:21, [e-mail] wrote:
> Hi, I've a question concerning legal restrictions. As mentioned on this
> page
>
> https://reactos.org/wiki/Subversion#Prerequisites
>
> I'm not allowed to contribute to ReactOS when I'm an employee of Microsoft
> or of any subsidiary of Microsoft.
>
> In the past, I worked for a German company which was a Certified Partner
> of Microsoft. As far as I know, it was not a subsidiary of Microsoft. It's
> not even listed here
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio
> ns_by_Microsoft
>
> (but I don't know if this list is complete).
>
> Since a Certified Partner is not automatically a MS subsidiary or
> equivalent to it in a sense (as I think), there shouldn't be a problem for
> me contributing to ReactOS. Is there anybody who can confirm that?
>
> Tobias
>
> Ros-dev mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev

[Matthias Kupfer]

Hello Tobias,

I think your situation is quite clear. The clause Microsoft or subsidiary 
focuses on the access to Microsoft source code or internal technology/research 
information. (David described that in more detail already.) As far as I know 
the Certified Partners are a kind of distributors classification only - it's 
for sales only and you'll not get in touch with any Microsoft internals. 
Partners are neither part of Microsoft nor subsidiaries. Having said this your 
contribution based on the facts you gave are safe.

Matthias Kupfer

Am Saturday 18 March 2017 13:21:13 schrieb [e-mail]:
> Hi, I've a question concerning legal restrictions. As mentioned on this
> page
>
> https://reactos.org/wiki/Subversion#Prerequisites
>
> I'm not allowed to contribute to ReactOS when I'm an employee of
> Microsoft or of any subsidiary of Microsoft.
>
> In the past, I worked for a German company which was a Certified Partner
> of Microsoft. As far as I know, it was not a subsidiary of Microsoft.
> It's not even listed here
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Microsoft
>
> (but I don't know if this list is complete).
>
> Since a Certified Partner is not automatically a MS subsidiary or
> equivalent to it in a sense (as I think), there shouldn't be a problem
> for me contributing to ReactOS. Is there anybody who can confirm that?
>
> Tobias
>
> Ros-dev mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev
-- 
Matthias Kupfer          phone [phone]
Wilhelm-Firl-Straße 21   mobile [phone]
09122 Chemnitz, Germany

[Colin Finck]

Am 18.03.2017 um 13:21 schrieb [e-mail]:
> Hi, I've a question concerning legal restrictions. As mentioned on this
> page
>
> https://reactos.org/wiki/Subversion#Prerequisites
>
> I'm not allowed to contribute to ReactOS when I'm an employee of
> Microsoft or of any subsidiary of Microsoft.

To put it in a nutshell: Our stance has always been that if you have
seen parts of proprietary, leaked or otherwise restricted Windows source
code, you may not contribute code for these parts to ReactOS.

The sentence in the Wiki is simply too broad and should be changed.

- Colin

Much thanks to all of you, David, Matthias and Colin! These are good 
news for me. :)

Colin Finck wrote:
> The sentence in the Wiki is simply too broad and should be changed.

I highly aggree with Colin to **specify the conditions more precisely**. 
It should be easy -even for a non-lawyer- to understand. Implications 
and explanations are also welcome. Is there a bold member (or even 
better a lawyer) with write access power?

I also suggest to put this legal advice onto its **own page** (maybe as 
the very first section on the Wiki's start page with its own icon) and 
to refer to that page where neccessary. Currently, it's very hard to 
find, because it's on a page describing building ReactOS, which, in 
contrast, should be legal anyway.

By the way, on the Wiki's start page, I would change the first link 
under "BUILDING" to "Getting the Source code (Subversion)" since it's 
title is "Subversion" (and for the case I want to find all the 
neccessary information about Subversion).

In addition, beside development, there exist other ways of contribution 
like **translating, writing documentation and testing**. Are these 
activities also **legally restricted?**

Tobias