One of Mozilla’s goals for this year is to increase the number of active contributors by 10x. That means that many new people will be joining the community and we want to make sure they have a positive experience.

A few teams have contributor agreements that provide details about what it means to volunteer in that specific area, but there’s never been information that covers contributors in general.

To help new contributors understand more about what they’re getting involved with, we’ve drafted a new volunteer agreement. I wanted to share the text of that and talk about how we would make this available.

First though, I’d like to be clear about a couple of points:

• This is not intended to be a document that people will sign.
• This is not something that applies to existing contributors, just to new people who are joining the community.

After sharing the text of this here, on the Governance list and at an upcoming Monday project call, we’d like to add this text as a new page on http://www.mozilla.org.

We would then link to that from the Get Involved page, the entry point for most new contributors. We would add this to the existing opt-in on the form that references Mozilla’s Privacy Policy.

Please take a look at the text below and share your thoughts on that and on how we would make this available to new contributors.

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DRAFT Volunteer Agreement

Welcome to Mozilla! We’re pleased that you will be working with us to volunteer your expertise, knowledge, and skills to our Project.

Before we begin, there are some basic terms you should be aware of and agree to. The following is an agreement between you and Mozilla that describes your volunteer work with the Project:

1. You or Mozilla may end this Agreement at any time for any reason on immediate notice. If you wish to end the Agreement, simply email a Mozilla staff member to let us know.

2. As a volunteer for our Project, you will be working with Mozilla staff, employees and other volunteers.

3. We have policies at Mozilla to protect the Project and you. While working with us, we want you to be creative and help us to grow the Project, while observing the following rules:

a. As a volunteer, you cannot bind Mozilla to any agreements or sign any agreements on behalf of Mozilla, but you can introduce Mozilla to different ideas, processes and ways of doing things;

b. You are not an employee or contractor of Mozilla and should not represent yourself as such;

c. You cannot engage in any activities that violate the laws of your locale, Mozilla’s policies, or the rights of any group or individual;

d. You agree to behave in a professional and respectable manner when acting as a Mozilla volunteer. Mozilla’s Participation Guidelines can be found at http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/participation/;

e. It’s definitely okay to talk about your contributions to Mozilla, but you should not use Mozilla’s logo or trademarks without Mozilla’s prior written consent. Mozilla’s trademark policy can be found at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/trademarks/policy/; and

f. This Agreement is about you and only you. You may not transfer or give this to any other person or group.

g. If you violate any of these rules, Mozilla has the right to end this agreement and your volunteer activities.

http://davidwboswell.wordpress.com/2014/05/30/creating-a-volunteer-agreement/