The Nautilus Cyberneering Contributor Agreement

[Version 2021-11-10]

Goal

We require that contributors to Nautilus (as defined below) agree to this Nautilus Cyberneering Contributor Agreement (NCCA) to ensure that contributions to Nautilus have acceptable licensing terms.

Non-Goals

The NCCA is not a copyright assignment agreement.

The NCCA does not somehow supersede the existing licensing terms that apply to Nautilus contributions. There are two important subpoints here. First, the NCCA does not apply to upstream code (or other material) that you didn't write; indeed, it would be preposterous for it to attempt to do so. Note the narrow way in which we have defined capital-c "Contribution".

Second, the main provision of the NCCA specifies that a default license will apply to code that you wrote, but only to the extent that you have not bothered to put an explicit license on it. Therefore, the NCCA is not some sort of special permissive license granted to any party, despite the explicit choice of a more restrictive license by you or by upstream developers.

Terms

Section 1 – Definitions

"Acceptable License For Nautilus" means a license selected from the appropriate categorical sublist of the full list of acceptable licenses for Nautilus, currently located at https://nautilus-cyberneering.de/licensing/, as that list may be revised from time to time by Nautilus Cyberneering GmbH. "Acceptable Licenses For Nautilus" means that full list.

"AGPLv3" means the license identified as "Affero General Public License 3.0", as published at https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html.

"CC-0" means the Creative Commons 1.0 Universal license, as published at https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode.

"CC-BY-SA" means the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, as published at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.

"Code" means (i) software code, (ii) any other functional material whose principal purpose is to control or facilitate the building of packages, such as an RPM spec file, (iii) font files, and (iv) other kinds of copyrightable material that the Nautilus Cyberneering GmbH has classified as "code" rather than "content".

"Content" means any copyrightable material that is not Code, such as, without limitation, (i) non-functional data sets, (ii) documentation, (iii) wiki edits, (iv) music files, (v) graphic image files, (vi) help files, and (vii) other kinds of copyrightable material that the Nautilus Council has classified as "content" rather than "code".

"Contribution" means a Work that You created, excluding any portion that was created by someone else. (For example, if You Submit a package to Nautilus, the spec file You write may be a Contribution, but all the upstream code in the associated Package that You did not write is not a Contribution for purposes of this NCCA.) A Contribution consists either of Code or of Content.

"Current Default License", with respect to a Contribution, means (i) if the Contribution is Code, the AGPLv3 License, and (ii) if the Contribution is Content, CC-BY-SA.

"Future Public Domain License", with respect to a Contribution, means (i) if the Contribution is Code, the MIT-0 License, and (ii) if the Contribution is Content, CC-0.

"Licensed" means covered by explicit licensing terms that are conspicuous and readily discernible to recipients. "Submit" means to use some mode of digital communication (for example, without limitation, mailing lists, bug tracking systems, and source code version control systems administered by Nautilus) to voluntarily provide a Contribution to Nautilus. "Unlicensed" means not Licensed.

"MIT-0" means the license identified as "MIT No Attribution", as published at https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT-0.

"Nautilus" means the community project led by the Nautilus Cyberneering GmbH https://nautilus-cyberneering.de/. "Nautilus Community" means (i) all Nautilus participants, and (ii) all persons receiving Contributions directly or indirectly from or through Nautilus.

"Work" means a copyrightable work of authorship. A Work may be a portion of a larger Work, and a Work may be a modification of or addition to another Work. "You" means the individual accepting this instance of the NCCA.

Section 2 – List of Acceptable Licenses for Nautilus

  • CC-BY-SA
  • CC-0
  • AGPLv3
  • MIT-0

If You are not the copyright holder of a given Contribution that You wish to Submit to Nautilus (for example, if Your employer or university holds copyright in it), it is Your responsibility to first obtain authorization from the copyright holder to Submit the Contribution under the terms of this NCCA on behalf of, or otherwise with the permission of, that copyright holder. One form of such authorization is for the copyright holder to place, or permit You to place, an Acceptable License For Nautilus on the Contribution.

Section 4 – Licensed Contributions

If Your Contribution is Licensed, Your Contribution will be governed by the terms under which it has been licensed.

Section 5 – Default Licensing of Unlicensed Contributions

If You Submit an Unlicensed Contribution to Nautilus, the license to the Nautilus Community for that Contribution shall be the Current Default License.

The Nautilus Cyberneering GmbH may, by public announcement, subsequently designate an additional or alternative default license for a given category of Contribution (a "Later Default License"). A Later Default License shall be chosen from the appropriate categorical sublist of Acceptable Licenses For Nautilus. Once a Later Default License has been designated, Your Unlicensed Contribution shall also be licensed to the Nautilus Community under that Later Default License. Such designation shall not affect the continuing applicability of the Current Default License to Your Contribution.

You consent to having Nautilus provide reasonable notice of Your licensing of Your Contribution under the Current Default License (and, if applicable, a Later Default License) in a manner determined by Nautilus.

Section 6 – Automatic Future Public Domain License

You consent that your contribution under the Current Default License is granted the Future Public Domain License automatically after 5 years of submission.

Section 7 – Public Domain United States Government Works

Sections 3 through 6 of this NCCA do not apply to any Contribution to the extent that it is a work of the United States Government for which copyright is unavailable under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Section 8 – Acceptance

You must signify Your assent to the terms of this NCCA through specific electronic means established by Nautilus.

You may also, at Your option, and without eliminating the requirement set forth in the preceding paragraph, send a copy of this NCCA, bearing Your written signature indicating Your acceptance of its terms, by email to legal@nautilus-cyberneering.de, or by postal mail to:

Nautilus Legal
c/o Nautilus Cyberneering GmbH
Oberhachingerstr. 46B
2031 Grünwald
Germany

Section 9 – Notes

This document is based upon:

The Fedora Project Contributor Agreement.
[Version 2021-05-04]