We’re always trying to make it easier to contribute to Cesium. Although many folks get the Contributor License Agreement (CLA) processed quickly, it is still a barrier for some developers who have code they want to contribute.
To reduce this barrier, Cesium now allows signing-off on a Developer Certificate Of Origin (DCO) as part of a pull request. Instead of having a CLA on file, you can sign-off on each commit by including text like:
Signed-off-by: First-name Last-name
which acknowledges that you agree to the DCO that basically states that you have the right to contribute the code to the project. This is the same process and DCO used by Linux and Git. The Eclipse Foundation, who is conservative with IP, also plans to start using DCOs.
For all the details, including how to use git to sign-off, see CONTRIBUTING.md.
We hope this lowers the barrier-to-entry since the DCO is shorter than the CLA, and only applies to the contributed code, it is “stateless” like a REST API. Please make sure to go through the necessary channels with your employer to ensure you are allowed to sign-off. We are not removing the CLA.; a contributor can either sign the CLA once, or sign-off on each pull request.
Regards,
Patrick