Contributor License Agreement FAQ

#Sitecore Experience Extractor Contribution Project Contributor License Agreement FAQ

##I want to contribute. Do I need to sign anything to get started?

Contributors to the Sitecore Experience Extractor Contribution Project will be asked to sign a Contributor License Agreement (CLA). The Sitecore Experience Extractor Contribution Project CLA is based on the CLA used by the Apache Software Foundation. The Apache CLA has been used by other software projects and is well-known within the open source community.

Contributions may include, but need not be limited to, code, documentation, or translations. Anyone who contributes non-trivial amounts of work (such as, for example, more than just a line or two of code) to the Sitecore Experience Extractor Contribution Project is required to sign a CLA. If somebody is unable or unwilling to sign the CLA, their contribution will not be accepted.

1. Download a copy of the CLA:

   Individual Contributor License Agreement (PDF). If you're working on the Project as an individual, this is the form you should use.

   Corporate Contributor License Agreement (PDF). If you're working on the Project in the course of your job, you and your employer will need to download and sign this form. More details are in this FAQ.

2. Print out the CLA and sign it.

3. Send the CLA to Sitecore by:

   Scanning and emailing the document to experience-extractor@sitecore.net; or

   If necessary, mailing a hardcopy to: Sitecore Experience Extractor Contribution Project, Sitecore Corporation, Vester Farigmagsgade 3, 5th floor, 1606 Copenhagen V, Denmark

##Why is a signed CLA required? Being able to make a clear statement about the origins of the Project is essential to ensuring the Project’s integrity and long-term viability. We would like to see the results of the Project used and distributed as widely as possible in the Sitecore community. In order to do this with confidence, we need to be certain about the origins of the code, the documentation, translations, and any other work included in the Project. The CLA ensures that once you have submitted a contribution, you cannot withdraw your consent to its use at a later date. People and companies, including Sitecore, can therefore use the results of the Project with the confidence that they will not be required to stop using portions of the code at a later date.

The CLA is a legal document in which you state your intent to contribute work to Sitecore and consent to its incorporation in distributions and derivative works. This means that should we be asked to provide information on, for example, the origins or ownership of any particular piece of code, we will have documentation from the contributor(s) saying that the contributor created the code, was authorized to submit it to the Project, and consented to its use by the Project.

Finally, consolidating licensing of contributions by contributors to Sitecore enables Sitecore to provide the software as a cohesive whole. Without the CLAs, Sitecore would have to contact and obtain permission from every single contributor before the software could be distributed.

##Can I submit contributions without having signed the CLA? No. All new contributors are required to sign a CLA before they submit anything substantial. Trivial contributions like spelling fixes may not require a signed CLA. However, anything of substance will require a signed CLA.

##Can I withdraw permission to use my contributions at a later date? No. The CLA protects the whole community, enabling both Sitecore and downstream users of the project to rely on it. Once you make a contribution, you are saying we can use your contribution forever. You cannot withdraw your prior contributions. You can, however, stop contributing to the Project at any time.

##If I sign, will my contributions be used? Not all contributions will be used or incorporated into the Project. The decision to incorporate the contribution or not is at the discretion of the Project leader(s) at Sitecore.

##Am I giving away the copyright to my contributions? No. This is a license agreement, not a copyright assignment. You still maintain the full copyright to your contributions. You are only providing a license to Sitecore to distribute your contributions within the Project.

##What if I do Sitecore development as part of my job? If any of your contributions to the Project are created in the course of your employment, they may be owned by your employer. In that case, your employer or a duly authorized representative of your employer (usually a VP or other official) needs to sign a corporate version of the CLA in order for that contribution to be accepted into the Project. Your employer will need to specify which employees (you and any others who may create contributions in the course of their employment) are authorized to submit contributions on behalf of the employer. The list can be updated as new people are employed or others leave.

You may still sign an individual CLA, whether or not your employer signs the corporate CLA. Not all the work you do will necessarily belong to your employer, and we still need your permission to use your individual contributions. If you have signed an individual CLA, but not a corporate one, please carefully consider what you choose to include in your contributions. We cannot accept contributions that you do not have the rights to license in the first place or anything that includes work that belongs to your employer. Similarly, if you are an independent contractor working on Sitecore solutions as part of a job, make sure you and your client understand who owns the rights to your work. Please only submit work to which you own the rights. The CLA is a legal declaration by you that you have the right to grant a license to your contributions. It is up to you to make sure that is true.

##Are Contributor Agreements like this common? Yes. Many open source communities and projects use Contributor License Agreements, including the Apache Software Foundation.