Contributing a Connector implementation from out of Airbyte

Connector Development
1

Hi, wanted to confirm a couple of points about contributing a new Connector implementation from out of Airbyte.

Q1. Looking in other Connectors under GitHub - airbytehq/airbyte: Airbyte is an open-source EL(T) platform that helps you replicate your data in your warehouses, lakes and databases., most (or all?) of them are boilerplated like Copyright (c) 20XX Airbyte, Inc., all rights reserved. Are they all developed by Airbyte?

Q2. When a developer wanted to publish a Connector from out of Airbyte, where it should be? Under the Airbyte git repo, or their own repository + Dockerhub?

Q3. If a developer wanted to contribute a new Connector in the Airbyte git repo, but cannot provide any credential for testing the Connector (at least in a public manner), how should the developer do?

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3

Hey @dmikurube,

Thanks for the thoughtful questions. Here are some possible answers:

  1. All of the connectors are either developed by Airbyte initially or submitted by community members. We encourage all contributions to all parts of our product.

  2. If you plan on developing your own custom connector, how you choose to publish it depends on your use case. If it is for an external API, we encourage you to merge it to Airbyte (but you don’t have to). If it is for an internal API, your connector probably shouldn’t be public. You can find more info about custom connectors and how to deploy them here: https://docs.airbyte.com/operator-guides/using-custom-connectors/.

  3. At the moment, we allow new connectors to be published and merged into Airbyte as long as there is proof that our suite of acceptance tests are passing successfully on the contributor’s local branch. You should always feel free to contribute new connectors to Airbyte!

Hope this answers all of your questions. Thanks for using AIrbyte. Feel free to post more questions here in the forums.

4

Thanks for your response, @sajarin!

Then, even connectors that were originally submitted by community members now have the boilerplates with Copyright (c) 20XX Airbyte, Inc., all rights reserved? Are they copyrighted by Airbyte?

In other words, do contributors have to present its “copyright” to Airbyte?

Yeah, my connector would use a public API, but I wondered if it could be merged into the Airbyte repo because of the questsion 3 below.

Then, IIUC, it would be acceptable to merge if my connector is tested only on my airbyte fork with my secret credential (stored only on my private GitHub Secrets), right?

5

Hey @dmikurube,

Regarding your question about copyright, I would direct your attention to our License page, which explains our policy better than I can. Read more here: https://docs.airbyte.com/project-overview/licenses/license-faq/

And yes, it would be acceptable for us to merge your connector as long as we have proof that tests are passing with your secret credentials. Please feel free to contribute.

6

Thanks, @sajarin.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that page describe about copyright well. The page is about licensing, not copyright which is my question.

Let me try rephrasing my question:

“Is any new code from me to be accepted in the airbyte repo if the code is boilerplated as // Copyright (c) 2022 Dai Mikurube. ?”

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Hey @dmikurube,

According to our Contributor License Agreement (which you sign on Github when submitting your first contribution) you have to sign over your copyright license to Airbyte and the rest of the community:

“Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, You hereby grant to the Project and to recipients of software distributed by the Project a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative works.”

Airbyte connectors are generally licensed using the MIT license but we remain the copyright holders of the contributions. Does this make sense?

1 Like
8

Hi @sajarin,

I see. By the CLA, the authors would “grant irrevocable copyright license” to the Project (and recipients).

Okay, everything is clear to me. Let me think how my one would be published. Thanks!