New OSGeo Contributor License

The GeoTools PSC is pleased to announce a new contribution license for the project. The contribution license is signed by authors in order to license their work to the OSGeo Foundation for distribution by the GeoTools project.

There are actually two licenses (one for individuals and one for corporate contributors) which are available in our developers guide or directly from the OSGeo Foundation licenses page:

• The Open Source Geospatial Foundation Individual Contributor License Agreement 
• The Open Source Geospatial Foundation Software Grant and Corporate Contributor License Agreement

This license arrangement is much easier to understand, and is based directly on the Apache Contributor License. This last point is important as it is much easier for your legal department to research and sign off on.

These licenses were approved at a recent board meeting and are the result of our request for change procedure (see Replace Contribution Agreement RFC).