When you sign a Contributor License Agreement (CLA), you give Google the
legal permission to use and distribute your contribution. You do not surrender
ownership of your contribution, and you do not give up any of your rights to
use your contribution elsewhere.
When you submit a contribution to one of Google's open source projects, we
will verify that your contribution is covered by a CLA. If we find that the submission
is not covered by a CLA, you'll be notified and we will not accept the
submission unless you sign the CLA.
Depending on who owns the copyright for the contribution, we will need
either a Corporate CLA or an Individual CLA. If your company owns the
intellectual property you wish to contribute, then we must have a Corporate
CLA on file for your company,
even if you were the only person who worked
on that contribution
. You must also be on your company's list of
authorized contributors.
Corporate CLA
Preview the text of the Google Corporate CLA.
How does my company sign the Google Corporate CLA?
Here's how it works:
-
First verify that your company does not already have a CLA with Google.
Only one CLA agreement per company is supported.
-
A point of contact for your company fills out
the form
,
creates the group
to hold email addresses covered by the CLA,
and enters the details of an
Authorized Signer
who will sign the
agreement.
- The Authorized Signer receives the CLA to sign via Docusign. After they sign it...
- Google verifies the agreement and counter-signs.
-
If there is an issue, the agreement will be revoked via Docusign and the primary contact
and Authorized Signer will receive the rejection reason via email. To resubmit,
start at the beginning of the process.
- The CLA takes effect!
How do I create or manage the list of people covered by
our Corporate CLA?
Create a Google
Group
for the members of your organization who are authorized to submit
contributions under the CLA (e.g. acme-google-contributors@googlegroups.com).
Each authorized contributor will need to be a member of this group. This name should not be
specific to any particular project (i.e. android or chromium) as it will be used for contributions
to all Google projects, and the name should reflect that. You should have multiple owners of this
group to ensure you don't lose access to it if one person is unavailable.
If you are a
Google Workspace
customer, you can use a Group within your own domain (e.g.
google-contributors@example.com).
What if I lose access to my contributor group or don't know
the group for my company?
If you need help with your corporate contributor group, email
cla-submissions@google.com.
I'm not a lawyer. Can I fill out this form?
Although anyone in your organization may create the Google Group for
managing approved contributors and fill out our web form, you must include
contact information for an
Authorized
Signer
who is authorized to sign legal
agreements. (Even if you are that person.) This might be a particular attorney
at a large company or the CEO of a small company. After submitting the form,
they will receive an email asking them to sign the agreement electronically.
How soon can we start contributing?
After the agreement is electronically signed, it will need to be reviewed by
someone at Google. We check to make sure that there isn't already an agreement
on file for your company and that it was signed by
someone
with necessary authority
. This normally takes a few days. Once it's been
accepted, you will receive an email and it will appear in the "Agreements you
are covered by" section of the
Agreements page
.
How do I add authorized contributors for my
company?
First, add their email address to the Google Group that you submitted with the
corporate CLA. This is most commonly their company address.
Instruct contributors to use that same email address for any contributions
to Google projects that are made on behalf of the company. For example, for
projects that use git for source control, they may need to use the
git config
command to set
their email address.
Additionally, if contributing to a project that is hosted on GitHub,
contributors should
add
that email address to their GitHub account
. This will allow us to map
their GitHub username to the Corporate CLA that their contribution is covered
by.
My company signed the CLA but this site says
you don't have a corporate agreement on file for me.
Verify that you are a member of the Google Group containing authorized
contributors.
At the top of the CLA page, ensure you're signed in with the same email
address listed in the Google Group.
This page says my company signed the
CLA, but I was notified that a CLA couldn't be found.
Make sure you're submitting the contribution using the same email address
that is a member of the Google Group.
Individual CLAs
Preview the text of the Google Individual CLA.
I know I signed the CLA, but this site says
you don't have an individual agreement on file for me.
At the top of the page, verify that you are signed in with the same
Google Account you previously used to sign the CLA.
This page says I signed the CLA, but
I was notified that a CLA couldn't be found.
Your contribution (commit) must be associated with at least one of:
- The primary email on your Google Account associated with the signed CLA.
- An
Alternate email
on your Google Account associated with the
signed CLA. See and modify your aternate emails at
https://myaccount.google.com/alternateemail
.
- The GitHub username associated with the signed CLA.
Can I sign the Google CLA without a Google account?
A Google account is required to sign the CLA. Google accounts are used to link individual and
corporate CLAs to covered contributors and provide authentication for CLA management.
Manage your agreements