Contributor license agreement

Draft Diaspora, Inc. Contributor Agreement

1. Introduction

This is an agreement between you (the contributor) and Diaspora, Inc. (Diaspora, Inc. or we or us) concerning your contributions to the Diaspora™ Software. The purpose of the agreement is to give us the rights we need to steward development of the Diaspora™ Software effectively, while providing you assurances that we will use your contributions in the interests of the community of Diaspora™ Software developers.
 The Diaspora™ Software is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL), version 3. We, however, operate within the larger Ruby community, which traditionally favors the MIT License. Thus, this agreement enables us to contribute back to that community by allowing us to license general-use components of the Diaspora™ Software (e.g., parsers for standard formats, libraries implementing standard protocols, etc.) under the MIT License, while still licensing the Diaspora™ Software under the AGPL.

This dual license scheme requires some flexibility—we won’t always know which components will be useful to the broader Ruby community when we start writing them or when you contribute to them, and some of the MIT- licensed components will be formed by refactoring code we previously distributed under the AGPL. So, to enable us to ensure that the Diaspora™ Software’s overall license remains compliant with the AGPL, this agreement necessarily puts limits on what we can do with your contributions– limits that curtail the permission you grant us under the MIT license just a bit. This agreement explains that we cannot license all of the Diaspora™ Software under the MIT License, but we can license discrete, general-use components. This agreement also prohibits us from making private deals that would give a special license to one individual or company that isn’t also given to the public. It also prohibits us from using the MIT License to distribute the Diaspora™ Software under any proprietary license.

2. Scope

This agreement governs your Contributions to the Diaspora™ Software, including Contributions of Code (including computer program source code and related scripts), Content (including images, audio and video files, documentation and other text, and any other copyrightable content other than code), or both. In this agreement, the word “Contribution” includes any part of a contribution, as well as the whole Contribution.

This agreement applies to Contributions you provide to Diaspora by any means, including Contributions you commit to a Diaspora™ Software repository, send to Diaspora, Inc. via email, or post to Diaspora, Inc. websites, forums, mailing lists, or other online facility.

3. Copyright License

You grant Diaspora, Inc. a license to your Code under the terms of the MIT License (as it appears in Exhibit A) and also under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL), version 3 (as published by the Free Software Foundation), including the following additional permission per AGPL v.3 Section 7:

You may combine the Program with non-software materials (e.g. images, audio, video, documentation) licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY- SA) 3.0 Unported license, or any later version of the CC-BY-SA license, forming a single work based on the Program, and propagate the combined work, regardless of whether such propagation would otherwise violate the terms of the AGPL. Except to the extent that the AGPL contradicts any term of the CC-BY-SA license, you must comply with the AGPL.

You grant Diaspora, Inc. a license to distribute your Code under any later version of the AGPL, and to provide the same option to recipients of the Code from the Diaspora™ Software.

You grant Diaspora, Inc. a license to your Content under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

4. Limitations on Diaspora, Inc.

Diaspora, Inc. will not distribute your Contribution to any third party under any license without also requiring that third party to also make your Contribution available to the public under the same license.

Diaspora, Inc. will distribute the Diaspora™ Software, as a whole, under version 3 or later of the AGPL. Diaspora, Inc. may distribute general-use components of the Diaspora™ Software under the MIT License. Diaspora, Inc. will distribute a component under the MIT License only if all of its functionality is of general utility (i.e. non-specific to the Diaspora™ Software) and the component does not depend on the Diaspora Software (i.e. it can be separated from the Diaspora™ Software and used in other applications without modification).

5. Authority to Contribute

You represent that you have authority to convey the rights granted in this agreement. If your Contribution includes material subject to a license of any third party, you represent that you have provided to Diaspora, Inc. complete details of any applicable license terms of which you are aware, including terms concerning any related patents, trademarks, or other claims of right. You represent that you have not created or licensed the Contribution to Diaspora, Inc. in breach of your employment or any other contract.

6. Warranty Disclaimer

IMPORTANT: Contributor provides the Contribution “AS IS” and makes NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. In particular, Contributor makes NO WARRANTY OF THE CONTRIBUTION’S QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY, SATISFACTORINESS, NONINFRINGEMENT, OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Contributor disclaims and Project accepts DISCLAIMER OF ANY INDEMNITY under this agreement or by operation of law.

7. Miscellaneous Terms

1. This agreement constitutes the entire understanding between you and Diaspora, Inc. with respect to the subject matter hereof, and there are no inducements, representations, warranties, or understandings that do not appear expressly in this agreement.

2. Each individual signing this agreement represents that he or she has the full authority and is duly authorized and empowered to execute this agreement on behalf of the party for which he or she signs.

3. This agreement may be modified only by express written agreement of both parties.

4. This agreement shall be governed by the laws of New York applicable to contracts deemed to be made within New York, without regard to choice of law or conflict of law provisions. Furthermore, the parties agree that any action or proceeding arising out of or relating to this agreement shall be instituted in a federal or state court located in New York, and the parties irrevocably submit to the jurisdiction of such court and waive any objection to the venue or the inconvenience of such forum.

5. This agreement shall not be subject to the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.


6. If any provision of this agreement shall be held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be illegal, invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect.

EXHIBIT A: MIT LICENSE

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the ”Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ”AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.