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OpenJS Foundation CLA

The OpenJS Foundation IP policy specifies that projects should use the Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO) or, optionally, can adopt the OpenJS Foundation CLA. The OpenJS Foundation Board of Directors has adopted Individual and Corporate CLA derived from the commonly used Apache-style CLA template.

The OpenJS Foundation uses EasyCLA to ensure that all contributors have signed the appropriate documents when contributing to a project which requires a CLA. This tool was created and is maintained by the Linux Foundation, and has a number of features designed to support our open source project communities:

  • Once a contributor is authorized for one OpenJS Foundation project, the signature is recognized for any other OpenJS Foundation repos that use EasyCLA.
  • Contributors may sign as individuals, or their company can sign on their behalf.
  • Companies who sign the CLA can authorize employee usernames individually, add an entire email domain, or specify a GitHub organization containing their employees as members.

There is no cost to sign the OpenJS Foundation CLA. Please note that this is different from membership in the OpenJS Foundation. If your organization relies upon our projects, please become a member. Membership dues are an essential source of funding, and we rely upon them to support the OpenJS project ecosystem.

How to use EasyCLA

Who signs the documents?

You can sign the OpenJS Foundation CLA as an individual, or your company can sign and authorize you as a contributor.

The individual workflow is for people who can make CLA commitments on their own behalf (e.g., hobbyists, students, sole proprietors, etc). This workflow is fast and easy, but may not be appropriate for people who are doing work-for-hire. The corporate workflow involves more steps, but allows a company to sign one document one time for all of their contributors.

At a high level, the signature process works like this:

  1. Open a PR against a repo covered by EasyCLA (including this one).
  2. A bot will check whether your GitHub user is covered by a signed CLA.
  3. If you're already covered you will get a green checkmark, and your contribution can be merged.
  4. If you're not covered, you'll be prompted through the signature process.

Initiating the signature process against a test repo

The easiest way to initiate the process is to open a PR against any covered repo, including this one.

If you simply want to sign the documents in preparation for future contributions, you can open a trivial PR against this file (for example, to fix this spleling error) and you will be prompted through the process. PRs against this repo will be closed periodically.

Sign as an individual

If you are working on your own behalf and can make IP commitments about what you produce, you can sign as an individual contributor. (Preview the document)

  1. Open a PR against a repo that uses EasyCLA.
  2. When blocked by the bot, follow the prompts and choose Individual.
  3. Fill in the details and sign the DocuSign form.
  4. Wait a little while for the check to re-run.

That's all there is to it.

Have your company sign for you

If you are doing work for someone else (e.g., it's your job), the company might need to sign for you. The advantage here is that they can authorize other employees with a single signature. If your company has already signed the document but you're still blocked, you may just need to request your username be added to the list of authorized contributors. Once this is complete you'll just have to confirm you work for them by clicking through the process one final time.

Here are the steps to have your company sign the CLA. (Preview the document)

If your company hasn't yet signed the agreement

  1. Open a PR against a repo that uses EasyCLA.
  2. When blocked by the bot, follow the prompts and choose Corporate.
  3. Choose your company from the list. If it's not there, add it.
  4. Designate someone with signing authority (generally an officer or attorney, if in doubt ask your manager) to receive the DocuSign. This person is the CLA Manager.
  5. Follow up with the CLA Manager and ask them to sign the DocuSign form.
  6. The CLA Manager can now designate other CLA Managers who are allowed to manage your company's list of authorized contributors.

When your company has finished signing the agreement

  1. Once the agreement is signed, any CLA manager can log into the EasyCLA site (choose EasyCLA v2) and either:
  • Add your GitHub username individually to the list of authorized contributors, or
  • Add your corporate email domain, which authorizes anyone who has that email in their GitHub account, or
  • Add a corporate GitHub Organization, where any member of the org is covered by the CLA.
  1. Once this is done, you'll need to click the Details link in the PR (again) and click a button that acknowledges you want to be covered by the company.
  2. Wait a little while for the check to re-run.

At this point, your PRs will no longer be blocked by EasyCLA on any OpenJS Foundation repo.

Best practices

  • Ask the CLA Manager to add the corporate email domain to the list of authorized contributors, or ask them to add your corporate GitHub organization. This is much easier than adding contributors individually.

Getting help

If your company is in the system but you don't know who your CLA manager is, you can email [email protected].

If you run into issues, you can open a ticket in JIRA.

Adding EasyCLA to your project

Former JS Foundation projects were required to use a CLA. The legacy CLA infrastructure will be deprecated, and we recommend that any projects which plan to continue using a CLA transition over to EasyCLA.

Please note that the OpenJS Foundation CLA text is new (meaning contributors will sign it even if they signed the old JSF CLA) and is also optional. Projects which don't move to EasyCLA will need to adopt the DCO process when the legacy CLA infrastructure is decommissioned. If you have questions on this, please reach out to Brian Warner.

Here are the steps to add EasyCLA to your project.

1. Prepare your core contributors

The single most valuable thing you can do prior to adding EasyCLA is to ensure your core contributors have already been authorized. This minimizes the potential for disruption, and can be accomplished by them simply opening a trivial PR against this repo and following the steps. (Contributors who have already signed the OpenJS Foundation CLA in EasyCLA for another project do not need to do this.)

You may also want to open an issue letting others know that this will be happening.

2. Prepare your GitHub organization

You will need to add an OpenJS Foundation staff member to your org to set up EasyCLA for your organization. Reach out to Brian Warner to coordinate on the details.

3. Add instructions to your project

We recommend adding something like the following to your main README and/or CONTRIBUTING files, so that new contributors are not surprised. You may also consider updating your PR template to point to the instructions.

Here is some suggested text you can use:

This repository is managed by EasyCLA. Project participants must sign the free [OpenJS Foundation CLA](https://github.com/openjs-foundation/easycla) before making a contribution. You only need to do this one time, and it can be signed by [individual contributors](https://github.com/openjs-foundation/easycla#sign-as-an-individual) or their [employers](https://github.com/openjs-foundation/easycla#have-your-company-sign-for-you).

To initiate the signature process please open a PR against this repo. The EasyCLA bot will block the merge if we still need a CLA from you.

You can find [detailed instructions here](https://github.com/openjs-foundation/easycla). If you have issues, please email [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).

If your company benefits from this project and you would like to provide essential financial support for the systems and people that power our community, please also consider [membership in the OpenJS Foundation](https://openjsf.org/about/join).

4. Request that EasyCLA be enabled

When the above steps are complete, please reach out to Brian Warner and EasyCLA will be enabled for your repos.