Protecting IPR. Enabling industry collaboration.
Open to contributions from the industry — you don't need to be a 5G-MAG member to contribute code.
At a glance:
- The main 5G-MAG repositories are covered by the 5G-MAG Public License v1.0: free for non-commercial study, testing and research; a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) patent licence applies for commercial use.
- Third-party forks keep their own licences; check each repository before contributing to it.
- A signed Contributor License Agreement (CLA) is required to contribute code.
The Reference Tools software makes use of various licenses to distribute and accept contributions from the community. This allows developers and organizations to choose the framework that works for them, given our main purpose is to build and put technology into action. The more the contributors, testers and developers, the better.
The Reference Tools may be used in validation, verification, demonstrations, trials and possibly even in commercial services. The details of each licence are described in the sections below.
Repositories covered by the 5G-MAG Public License v1.0
The main 5G-MAG repositories are covered by the 5G-MAG Public License v1.0. The 5G-MAG Public License v1.0, which is a modified version of the Apache 2.0 license, includes a patent clause which allows contributors to make patent license available to third parties under FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms for commercial exploitation. The Reference Tools code is free for non-commercial, study, testing and research purposes. This scheme is aligned with ETSI and 3GPP FRAND policy with respect to licensing. This aspect is key in particular to encourage companies which own significant portfolio of patents to be able to contribute code while keeping their essential IPR.
- Download the 5G-MAG Public License v1.0
Third-party dependencies
The 5G-MAG GitHub includes various third-party repositories that are either useful or strictly necessary for building the core components of the Reference Tools. Rather than starting from scratch, these repositories serve as forks of external projects, inheriting their own license without modifications.
Each repository typically maintains a dedicated branch that tracks the original upstream project to ensure a baseline of compatibility. Alongside these, 5G-MAG contributors maintain several other branches containing specific modifications and patches. These custom versions are designed to optimize the third-party code for the 5G-MAG architecture, ensuring seamless integration across the entire reference suite, and are just hosted there.
Please check each repository and learn about the Licenses and potential dependencies when contributing code to repositories hosting third-party dependencies.
How to contribute
- Sign an Individual or Corporate Contributor License Agreement (CLA).
- Anybody can become a contributor — no need to be a 5G-MAG member to contribute code.
- 5G-MAG members get priority support from the 5G-MAG Project Office, and additional development resources may be provided — members define priorities and where to dedicate resources.
- Membership of 5G-MAG remains open to the industry, to boost and scale your software project by joining forces.
In order to clarify the intellectual property license granted with contributions from any person or entity willing to contribute under the 5G-MAG Public License, a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) is required to be on file signed by each Contributor, indicating agreement to the license terms. We do this for your protection as a contributor as well as the protection of 5G-MAG and its users; and it does not change your rights to use your own contributions for any other purpose.
If you wish to contribute code to the projects please download the CLA or CCLA and send it signed to Eva Markvoort markvoort@5g-mag.com.
- Download the 5G-MAG Individual Contributor License Agreement (CLA)
- Download the 5G-MAG Corporate Contributor License Agreement (CCLA)
