COLLABORATION_AGREEMENT.md

Collaboration agreement

The CORSIKA project very much welcomes all collaboration and contributions. The aim of the CORSIKA project is to create a scientific software framework as a fundamental tool for research. The collaboration agreement and the licensing model are based on the guidelines layed out by HSF 1(https://hepsoftwarefoundation.org/activities/licensing.html) or CERN 2(https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwiLqKG00dXdAhUOZFAKHdIwAh4QFjAAegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Findico.cern.ch%2Fcategory%2F4251%2Fattachments%2F101%2F505%2FOSL-2012-01-Open_Source_Licences_at_CERN-Short_version.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1n4S0PQCSeE6wbdfdhKDqF), 3(http://legal.web.cern.ch/licensing/software), and follow the examples of other big scientific software projects.

The CORSIKA project consists of the contributions from the scientific community and individuals in a best effort to deliver the best possible computing performance and physics output. The MCnet guidelines developed by www.montecarlonet.org are copied in MCNET_GUIDELINES -- they provide a very good additional scope that contributors should read and follow.

All possible liability and licensing question are only handled by the adopted software license.

The software license of the CORSIKA project

The license adopted for the CORSIKA project is the explicit copyleft license GPLv3, as copied in full in the file LICENSE. Each source file of the CORSIKA project contains a short statement of the copyright and this license. Each binary or source code release of CORSIKA must contain the file LICENSE. The code, documentation and content in the folder ThirdParty is not integral part of the CORSIKA project and can be based on or include other licenses, which must be compatible with GPLv3. Check the content of this folder for details. It depends on the configuration of the build system to what extend this code is used to build CORSIKA.

Who is the "copyright holder"

For legal reasons and the ability to maintain the CORSIKA project effectively over a very long lifespan of several decades, all contributors are required to transfer their copyright to the CORSIKA Project. Of course you will be duly credited and your name will appear on the contributors page and in the AUTHORS file shipped with every binary and source distribution. The copyright transfer is necessary to be able to effectively defend the project in case of litigation. The copyright holder may change, if decided by the CORSIKA Project. The current copyright holder is the CORSIKA Project corsika-project@lists.kit.edu, with the current chair person Ralf Ulrich (KIT) ralf.ulrich@kit.edu.

Definition of a "contributor"

Contributor is a person of whom at least one merge request was accepted for the master branch of the CORSIKA project at https://gitlab.ikp.kit.edu/AirShowerPhysics/corsika. All contributors will be co-listed and credited as (software) authors of the CORSIKA project, as well as listed indefinitely in the AUTHORS file. Contributors should add their name and contact data to the AUTHORS file, as part of one of their merge requests. This file is always distributed together with all source and binary releases. If you contribute to any non-master branch, you can add your name to the AUTHORS file of this particular branch, but all official releases are normally performed via the master branch.