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Sovereign Contributor License Agreement (CLA)

version 1.0 — 2025-11-06

This Contributor License Agreement (“Agreement”) is between the contributor identified below (“You”) and Commons Engine (“Maintainer”), steward of the Sovereign Platform. By submitting a “Contribution” (defined below) You agree to the terms of this Agreement.

1. Definitions

  • Contribution means any original work of authorship, including any modifications or additions to an existing work, that You intentionally submit to the Sovereign repositories.
  • Core means the Sovereign platform codebase (currently the repository root and the platform/ directory).
  • Plugin means a module intended to extend the Core via the plugin APIs.
  • Project means the Core, official plugins, documentation, and related materials stewarded by Maintainer.

2. Copyright License Grant

You grant Maintainer a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and any resulting derivative works:

  1. under the AGPLv3, so the Contributions can be released as part of the Core; and
  2. under any other license terms Maintainer selects, including proprietary or commercial licenses, to enable dual-licensing.

3. Patent License Grant

You grant Maintainer and recipients of the Project a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free patent license to make, have made, use, sell, offer for sale, import, and otherwise transfer Your Contribution, to the extent that such license is required to exercise the rights granted in Section 2.

4. Moral Rights

To the extent permitted by law, You waive and agree not to assert moral rights in Your Contributions, or where waiver is not possible, You agree to provide reasonable assistance to allow Maintainer to exercise the rights granted in this Agreement.

5. Representations

You represent that:

  • You are legally entitled to grant the licenses above;
  • each Contribution is an original work authored by You (or You have identified third-party components and their applicable license terms in the submission);
  • Your Contribution includes no known encumbrances, confidential information, or export-controlled materials; and
  • if You are making the Contribution within the scope of employment, You have permission from Your employer (attach evidence if requested).

6. Third-Party Code

If a Contribution includes third-party code, You must identify all third-party materials in writing at submission and include the applicable license notice. Maintainer may reject Contributions that create licensing conflicts.

7. Outbound Licensing Notice

Maintainer will continue to distribute the Core under AGPLv3 and may, at Maintainer’s discretion, also offer it under alternative licenses to accommodate commercial or private deployments. Contributions to plugins may be distributed under the license declared for that plugin (e.g., MIT, AGPLv3, proprietary) provided they remain compatible with the Terms of Service.

8. Submission Process

You agree to follow the Project contribution guidelines, including sign-offs or Developer Certificate of Origin attestations that reference this Agreement.

9. Termination

Maintainer may terminate this Agreement if You breach it and fail to cure the breach within 30 days of notice. Licenses granted for prior Contributions remain in effect. You may terminate Your future grant obligations by ceasing Contributions; past Contributions remain licensed.

10. Governing Law

This Agreement is governed by the laws of the State of [insert jurisdiction], excluding its conflict-of-laws principles.

Contributor Signature

Name: ******___******

Email: ******___******

GitHub / Handle: ******_******

Date: ******___******

If you are signing on behalf of a company or other entity, add:
Entity Name: ********_********
Title: ******___******