FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions
We have assembled a set of FAQs to provide an overview of the OpenNTF Alliance. We would be happy to hear from you if you have additional questions – both to provide you with the answers if we can, and to flesh out our FAQs. Please send any questions to IP-Manager@OpenNTF.org. Click on the section below to go directly to the appropriate questions: General questions

Q: What is the OpenNTF Alliance?


A: The OpenNTF Alliance is a development community devoted to getting groups of individuals all over the world to collaborate on Lotus Notes Domino applications and release them as open source. The OpenNTF Alliance also provides a framework for the community so that open source applications may be freely distributed, using widely accepted licensing terms. The mission of the OpenNTF Alliance is to increase the quality and quantity of templates, applications and samples that are shared by the community.

The OpenNTF Alliance provides source code building blocks, templates and running examples that facilitate rapid application development for the Notes and Domino platform. By making code assets on the OpenNTF website available under the Apache License V2 and the GPL 3 licenses, individuals are able to create derivative works with worldwide re-distribution rights that are royalty free.

Q: What is OpenNTF’s Vision?
A: The following mission statement demonstrates the resolve of the community and dedication to excellence for the OpenNTF Alliance as a member-driven alliance.

The OpenNTF Alliance is devoted to:
  • Enabling groups of individuals all over the world to collaborate on IBM Lotus Notes & Domino applications and release them as open source;
  • Providing a framework for the community so that open source applications may be freely distributed, using widely accepted licensing terms;
  • Increasing the quality and quantity of templates, applications and samples that are shared by the community.

Q: What kinds of organizations have joined the OpenNTF Alliance?
A: Any company can join the OpenNTF.org Alliance. The inaugural steering committee members were chosen from the founding Members – who are all thought and market leaders in the Notes and Domino development community. A complete list of the current members can be found here.

Q: How are you organized?
A: The OpenNTF Alliance is an organization of software vendors, consultants and others with an interest in collaborating on Notes/Domino applications. The relationship among the members is defined in a Members Agreement executed by each of the Members. The OpenNTF Alliance is governed by a steering committee. A technical committee owns the technical infrastructure and other technical aspects of OpenNTF. More committees may be created as needed.

Q: Can you describe the Steering Committee in more detail?
A: The steering committee is responsible for the strategy of OpenNTF and its finances. It has nine members who are elected by all members for two year terms. No family of companies may have more than one representative on the steering committee. Every year approximately half the committee members are elected. The chair is elected by the members of this committee.

Membership Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How much does it cost to become a member of the OpenNTF Alliance?
A: There is no fee for joining the OpenNTF Alliance. However, all prospective members are expected to indicate their willingness to make a contribution to the efforts of the organization. These contributions could be assets, existing software or other IP, participation in software development, or other services. Our goal here is to be inclusive – and keep barriers to membership low.

Q: What if, for some reason, we can’t make good on our promised contribution?
A: We do not require a legal commitment that binds you to making the contributions.

Q: What are the benefits of membership?
A: Organizations who are members of the OpenNTF Alliance are eligible for to be represented on the Steering Committee, elect the Steering Committee, can be listed in the OpenNTF site, and may contribute to the direction and policies of the Alliance. Members’s name and logos are also displayed on the OpenNTF Membership Page.

Q: How do I actually become a member?
It is quite simple.
  • Simply execute the Members Agreement and send the executed copy to IPManager@OpenNTF.org or fax to +1 845-491-7347.
  • We will process your application. If there are any questions, we will get back to you. All membership applications are voted for approval by the Steering Committee at the next scheduled meeting. Meetings take place once or twice a month, so the approval process may take as much as a month.

Q: Do I need to be a member to download the software?
A: No. Anyone who agrees to the OpenNTF website Terms of Use may download any software. The software on OpenNTF.org is organized into Projects and the Catalogs. The projects sections contains all of the software and also acts as the working location. Software that has gone thru a review process and approved by a Committer appears in the Catalogs. There is a catalog for each license type; Apache License Version 2.0 and GNU GPL.

Submitting Code

Q: How can I submit code:
A: First register on the OpenNTF.org website as a user. Second, you need to become a Contributor. To do this you can either:
  • Print out and execute the Individual Contributor License Agreement, and send us a copy.
  • Or, have your employer print out and execute a Corporate Contributor License Agreement and send us a copy. The corporate version of this agreement can cover several employees at one.
  • Third, create a new project or contact an existing project owner to add code to their project.

Q: What are the Catalogs
A: The Catalogs contain code from the Projects that have been through OpenNTF’s release process.

Q: Why do you have a release process – and what is it.
A: Open Source organizations (and indeed any proprietary software company) often have a mechanism whereby certain checks are done before code is “released”. This includes making sure that third party code is handled according to the licenses under which it was received, that the licensing info is packaged properly and that we are following appropriate export control laws. The actual steps that we take are described in the OpenNTF Contribution Document. Note that although we do follow a certain process, the code is still being provided without warranty of any kind, and is subject to the disclaimers in the Terms of Use and the licenses associated with the code.

Q: What is a Committer – what do they do?
A: Committers are the only Contributors allowed to write into the Catalogs. They are people who are quite involved with OpenNTF – and have the trust and respect of the community.

Q: How do I become a Committer
A: Committers are normally elected by a vote of the existing Committers (although the Steering Committee may appoint them as well.) So, to become a Committer, simply send a request to the IP Manager – who will then arrange an electronic vote of the existing Committer community.

Q: How do I get my code released?
A: The Project Lead should send a request to ip-manager at openntf.org requesting that the project be put through the Release process. OpenNTF will then assign a Committer to help with the release. There are more details on this in the OpenNTF Contribution Process.

Q: How can I get more information?
A: Read through the OpenNTF Contribution Process document. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the IP-Manager at openntf.org.

IP / Licensing

Q: Why have we changed the IP Policy, wasn’t it OK the way it was?
A: OpenNTF’s previous policy was to accept contributions made under any license whatsoever, including contributions with no specified license. So, this meant that anyone using the code would have to have the license analyzed to ensure that he or she was getting the required rights to use the code. And code without licenses meant, from a legal point of view, that the downloader had no clear right to use the code at all.
So, what we are trying to do is to simplify the licensing under OpenNTF – and limit ourselves to the following commonly-used OSI-approved open source licenses:
Q: Why not stick to a single license?
A: There are two reasons for this. First, some submissions include pre-existing components that are under one license or another, which prevent those submissions from being licensed under a non-compatible license. So, if we had only permitted Apache, for example, we would have excluded any submission that included GPL-licensed software. Second, there were segments of the OpenNTF community that specifically favored Apache and other segments that favored the GPL family.

Q: Why were these licenses chosen?
A: These licenses are all well known, OSI approved, and widely accepted. Apache tends to be preferred by the corporate community, while GPL has followers in the Open Source community. GPL has certain provisions that impedes the use of GPL-licensed code in proprietary software products.

Q: What about other licenses?
A: OpenNTF is willing to entertain requests for including software under another license. But there needs to be a good reason, such as:
  • there is a component that came with a specific license, and you don’t have the rights to change it:
  • for some reason, you may only license the software under a specific license.
In these situations, please email IP-Manager at openNTF to request advice.

Q: My submission includes a component that I got from Eclipse.org, under the EPL. What do I do.
A: EPL-licensed source must always be licensed under the EPL. So, we would recommend that you license your submission under the Apache License Version 2.0, but that the EPL-licensed component remain under the EPL. To do this, you must include a copy of the EPL in your zip file, and a note in your Notice file that mentions the name of the EPL-licensed component and the fact that it is under the EPL.

Q: Why do I have to sign the Individual Contributor License Agreement (ICLA)? We didn’t have to do this before.
A: We want to be sure that everyone contributing to OpenNTF provides us the rights that we need to make the software available – and we need to ensure that the contributors do indeed have the rights to provide the code to us. There is no requirement for the employer to execute any document, but the ICLA serves to remind everyone that software copyright and intellectual properties issues are important and must be take seriously.

This form is a standard open source approach – the agreement itself is a modified version of the one that the Apache Foundation uses.

Q: What is the purpose of the Corporate Contribution License Agreement (CCLA)?
A: When employees are making contributions to OpenNTF on behalf of their employer, the employer can sign the CCLA and list all the contributing employees. This means that those employees do not have to sign an ICLA.

Migration of Heritage to the new OpenNTF IP Approach


This set of FAQs has been written to help OpenNTF Contributors update their contributions so that they can be included in the new OpenNTF code repositories. We encourage you to first read the IP Policy FAQ’s – which explain some of the underlying issues about OpenNTF’s approach to IP and open source licensing.

Q: Why should I migrate to the new OpenNTF software repositories?
A: The new OpenNTF repositories have a clear and consistent IP Policy – which we expect will make OpenNTF submissions more appealing to users, and certainly more acceptable to their employers’ IP attorneys. Also, only code that has been migrated can be released to the Catalogs.

Q: What happens if I don’t migrate my code?
A: Nothing. However, we expect that over time, most of the interesting submissions will migrate.

Q: How do I migrate my code?
A: In many cases, it is as easy as becoming a Contributor, and editing the project document to select a license (ensuring that you have the right to license all the code under that license). We also recommend that you delete older releases that use unsupported licenses.

Q: I have been a Contributor to OpenNTF for some time. Do I still have to sign an Individual Contributor License Agreement before I can resubmit the code?
A: Yes – we need to ensure that we do have the necessary IP rights to all the code that is submitted to the Project and Catalog repositories.

Q: My earlier submission was made under the Academic Free License – which is no longer permitted. What should I do?
A: This depends on whether your code is 100% your own or not.
  • If the code was 100% your own, which means that you wrote every single line, and did not include anyone else’s contributions or code fixes, and did not include any other component (open source or not), then you can simply resubmit the submission under one of the OpenNTF-approved licenses.
  • Otherwise, you will require the written permission of each contributor to your submission to resubmit under one of the four recommended licenses.

Q: My submission includes a component that has a BSD License.
A: The BSD license is compatible under the Apache license by following these rules:
  • License your submission under Apache License Version 2
  • Include the license text for both the Apache and BSD licenses in your zip file
  • Include a reference to the BSD-licensed component in the Notice file, indicating that it is licensed under BSD.
If you wish to use a GPL license rather than Apache, it is a little more complicated due to the requirement of applying both the BSD and GPL license to the BSD component, as described in Section 7 of the GPLv3.

Q: I have a problem. My software includes a GPLv2 licensed component from an open source process which had too many contributors to get all the permission's required to move it to GPLv3. And, since GPLv2 code cannot be released in a GPLv3 project (see http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AllCompatibility) what do I do?
A: We do not want to let these licensing issues get in the way of releasing good code. Please get in touch with the IP-Manager-GPL at openntf.org – so that we can work out what to do.