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 without a CLA on file from you.
We offer two CLA templates for signature depending on who owns the copyright for the contribution: a Corporate CLA (CCLA) if you are contributing on behalf of an entity or organization, and an Individual CLA if you are contributing in your personal, individual capacity. If your organization owns the intellectual property you wish to contribute, then an authorized signer at your organization should execute a CCLA. Once your organization has an active CCLA on file, they must add you to the list of authorized contributors before your contributions will be accepted.
Corporate CLA
Preview the text of the Google Corporate CLA.
How does my organization sign the Google Corporate CLA?
Here's how it works:- First verify internally that your organization does not already have a CLA with Google. Only one CCLA agreement per organization is supported.
- A point of contact for your organization fills out the form, creates the group to hold email addresses for every authorized contributor covered by the CCLA, and enters the details of an Authorized Signer who will sign the agreement.
- The Authorized Signer receives the CCLA to sign via email from DocuSign. Barring any issues...
- The CCLA takes effect within an hour!
How do I create or manage the list of people covered by our CCLA?
Create a Google Group for the members of your organization who are authorized to submit contributions under the CCLA (e.g. acme-google-contributors@googlegroups.com). Each authorized contributor will need to be a member of the group you create. The Google group name does not need to be specific to any particular project (i.e. Android or Chromium) because it will be used for any contributions by your authorized contributors to all Google projects that require a CLA. This Google Group should have multiple administrators so you don't lose access to it if one person is unavailable.
If your organization is a Google Workspace customer, you can use a Group within your organization's domain (e.g. google-contributors@example.com).
What if my organization loses access to the contributor group or doesn't know the existing group for authorized contributors?
If you need help with your corporate contributor group, email cla-submissions@google.com. We will only respond to requests for assistance from someone listed as the Point of Contact (if a CCLA already exists) for the organization or to someone at the organization with executive authority. See #who-signs for more details.
Please note that Google cannot and does not manage Google group membership or otherwise provide admin support for corporate contributor groups on behalf of organizations. If your organization cannot recover access to the contributor group on its own, your organization will need to create a new contributor group and formally request, via the Point of Contact on file or an Authorized Signer, that we reassociate the existing CLA on file with the new group.
Please include the following information in your change request email to cla-submissions@google.com at minimum:
- The name of the organization
- The old contributor group email address (if known)
- The new contributor group email address
- The name and corporate title of the individual requesting the change for the organization
Once we have processed the change request, only those email addresses included as members of the new contributor group will be able to submit contributions covered by the CCLA, and the old contributor group will no longer be associated with the CCLA.
I'm not a lawyer. Can I fill out this form or sign the CCLA?
Although anyone in your organization may create the Google group for managing approved contributors and fill out our web form to initiate the CCLA process, 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. See the list of titles we will accept as an Authorized Signer here.
How soon can we start contributing?
After the agreement is electronically signed, the Authorized Signer will receive an email from DocuSign and the executed agreement will appear in the "Agreements you are covered by" section of the submitter's Agreements page.
How do I add authorized contributors for my organization?
First, add the contributor's email address to the Google group or Workspace group that is associated with your organization's active CCLA. 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, the contributor 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 authorized contributor group for their organization.
My organization signed the CCLA but this site says you don't have a corporate agreement on file for me.
Verify internally that you are a member of your organization's contributor group containing authorized contributor email addresses.
At the top of the CLA page, ensure you're signed in with the same email address listed in your organization's contributor group.
This page says my company signed the CCLA, 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 your organization's authorized contributor 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 alternate 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.