Glossary

Approved List

Approved Lists are lists of domain names, email addresses of individuals, GitHub usernames, or GitHub organization names who are authorized to contribute under a signed CCLA. CLA Managers create and manage the approved list.

Approval Criteria

Approval Criteria is the category under which a contributor is added to the approved list. There are four approval criteria currently available in EasyCLA: Domain, Email Address, GitHub Username, and GitHub Organization.

CLA

A Contributor License Agreement (CLA) defines the terms under which content is contributed to a project. Typically, the content is software which the project makes available under an open source license.

A project's intellectual property policy will define whether or not it uses a CLA. Frequently, if a project does use a CLA, it will have different templates to be signed by a company (CCLA) or by an individual (ICLA).

CCLA

A Corporate Contributor License Agreement (CCLA) defines terms and conditions under which employees contribute code on behalf of the company.

CLA Template

A CLA template is a form of CCLA or ICLA used by a Project Manager to configure the CLA Group for a project.

CLA Group

A CLA group defines CLA details, such as which CLA types (ICLA and/or CCLA) a project requires for pull requests or push submissions, which GitHub repositories and/or Gerrit instances are checked against those CLAs, and which projects are linked to those CLAs. One CLA group is used under a unique CLA template.

ICLA

An Individual Contributor License Agreement (ICLA) defines terms and conditions under which individuals contribute code on their own behalf.

CLA Manager

CLA Managers are authorized by their company to manage the list of approved contributors under the company’s CCLA for a project. They use the EasyCLA Corporate Console to add and manage contributors and other CLA Managers.

Before a CCLA is signed, there is not an official CLA Manager. The person who will become the initial CLA Manager is responsible for coordinating the CCLA signing process. This may involve them signing the CCLA themselves if they are authorized by their company to do so, or designating someone else as the CLA Signatory if they are not authorized. After the CCLA is signed, they become the initial CLA Manager under that CCLA.

CLA Signatory

A CLA Signatory signs a CCLA on behalf of the company. CLA Signatories can be any person who is authorized by their company to sign the CCLA on its behalf.

EasyCLA Corporate Console

Corporate employees and CLA Managers use the EasyCLA Corporate Console to view and (in the case of CLA Managers) manage their company’s CCLA information.

Contributor Console

After creating a PR and being flagged by the EasyCLA check, corporate and individual contributors navigate to the contributor console to become authorized under a signed CLA before their contribution is accepted.

Individual Contributor

Individual contributors contribute code on their own behalf (not on behalf of an employer). Their CLA status is verified after creating a PR, and they must sign an ICLA via the Contributor Consoler before they can contribute to the project.

Project Console

Also known as Project Control Center. Project managers use the project console to create CLA groups, add and manage projects, repositories, and so on for the CLA group.

Project Manager

Project managers are authorized by The Linux Foundation to configure the EasyCLA settings for a project. They use the LFX Project Control Center (PCC), also known as Project Console, where they have access to specific projects as per the permission provided by The Linux Foundation. They add and manage projects and repositories on PCC.