Synvael Contributor License Agreement

⚠️ DRAFT — NOT YET LEGALLY REVIEWED. This document has not been reviewed by legal counsel. It will be updated once a formal legal review is completed. The terms below represent the project's intent and will be finalized before contributions are accepted.

Purpose

This Contributor License Agreement ("Agreement") establishes the terms under which contributions are made to the Synvael project, owned and maintained by Cryoforge Nexus ("the Project Maintainer"). "Cryoforge Nexus" refers to the legal entity registered under that name. Until formal registration is completed, this Agreement represents the project's stated intent and will become binding upon the entity's incorporation.

This Agreement is required because the Synvael project uses a dual-license model (AGPLv3 for source code, CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 for assets) while also being commercially developed. Without this Agreement, contributed code and assets could not be included in a commercial release. The Agreement ensures that the Project Maintainer has the necessary rights to operate the project under both its open-source and commercial models, while contributors retain ownership of their work.

Definitions

"Contribution" means any original work of authorship — including source code, documentation, configuration, translations, textures, models, sounds, icons, shaders, and any other creative work — that is intentionally submitted by a Contributor to the Project for inclusion therein.
"Contributor" (also "You") means the individual who submits a Contribution to the Project.
"Project" means the Synvael software project and all associated repositories maintained by the Project Maintainer.
"Submit" means any form of communication sent to the Project, including but not limited to pull requests, patches, commits, issues, and comments on any of the above, but excluding communications conspicuously marked or otherwise designated in writing as "Not a Contribution."

1. Grant of Copyright License

You hereby grant to the Project Maintainer a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute your Contributions and any derivative works thereof.

This license includes the right to relicense the Contribution under different license terms, including proprietary and commercial licenses, without further permission from or compensation to the Contributor.

2. Grant of Patent License

You hereby grant to the Project Maintainer a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Contribution, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by You that are necessarily infringed by Your Contribution alone or by combination of Your Contribution with the Project to which such Contribution was submitted.

If any entity institutes patent litigation against You or any other entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that Your Contribution or the Project constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to that entity under this Agreement for that Contribution or Project terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.

3. Ownership

You represent that You are the original author of the Contribution and that You are legally entitled to grant the above licenses. You represent that Your Contribution does not include any third-party code, assets, or other material unless such material is clearly identified and licensed under terms compatible with this Agreement.

You retain all right, title, and interest in and to Your Contributions. This Agreement does not transfer copyright ownership. Apart from the licenses granted herein, You reserve all rights in Your Contributions.

4. Representations

You represent that:

(a) Each Contribution is Your original creation.

(b) You have the legal authority to enter into this Agreement and grant the licenses described herein. If Your employer has rights to intellectual property that You create, You represent that You have received permission to make Contributions on behalf of that employer, that Your employer has waived such rights for Your Contributions to the Project, or that Your employer has executed a separate agreement with the Project Maintainer.

5. No Obligation

You understand that the decision to include Your Contribution in the Project is entirely at the discretion of the Project Maintainer. The Project Maintainer is under no obligation to use, merge, or distribute any Contribution.

6. No Compensation

You acknowledge that contributions to the Project are made voluntarily and without expectation of compensation, equity, revenue share, or any other financial consideration. Recognition is provided as described in CONTRIBUTING.md.

7. Applicability

This Agreement applies to all Contributions submitted to the Project, whether those Contributions consist of source code (licensed under AGPLv3), assets (licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0), or any other form of creative work.

8. How to Sign

This Agreement is accepted by posting the following statement as a comment on a pull request to the Project:

I have read the CLA and I agree

By posting this statement, You acknowledge that You have read and understood this Agreement and that You agree to be bound by its terms for all current and future Contributions to the Project.

Signatures are recorded automatically by the Project's CLA enforcement bot and stored in the repository at .github/cla-signatures.json.

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