Samvera no longer requires Contributor License Agreements from individuals or organizations

[Heather Greer Klein]

Hello Samverans,

I'm happy to announce that this past Friday the Samvera Board unanimously passed a proposal to eliminate the requirement that all code contributors to Samvera technologies, and their organizations, file a signed Contributor License Agreement (CLA). I presented this proposal after consulting with Samvera volunteer developers, Product Owners, Partners, other open source communities, and the legal counsel for our fiscal sponsor OASIS Open. 

Pursuing this proposal revealed that while these agreements were important in the first decade of the project, a number of changes mean that they are no longer as necessary as they once were. Eliminating a process that was often a barrier to new contributors and community participation is in alignment with Samvera's vision of a welcoming, vibrant, and global community with contributions from many participants in many roles.

What does this change mean for you?

• If you would like to contribute to Samvera technologies, you can simply make a pull request. 
• If you approve pull requests, you no longer need to check that the contributor has a CLA on file.

Thanks to everyone who contributed their thoughts to this proposal and especially to Danny Bernstein at LYRASIS whose initial research was invaluable.

Cheers,

Heather

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Heather Greer Klein (she/her/hers)

Samvera Community Manager

Schedule time with me

hea...@samvera.org

https://samvera.org/

Working from Durham, NC (US Eastern Time Zone), on land traditionally cared for by the Shakori and Eno peoples.