opensource.html

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title: Getting Involved in the CGAL Project
header: Getting Involved in the CGAL Project
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<p>Since release 3.0, CGAL is available under an Open Source License.
More than a simple license switch, we opened up the project and
invite you to join. The CGAL project was founded by seven research institutes in 1996,
and since, people at other institutions started developing
software based on the design ideas of CGAL.</p>


<h3>CGAL User Community</h3>

<p>
The first step in getting involved is probably to use CGAL.  The project provides
several <a href="mailing_list.html">mailing lists</a> in order to support
discussion within the community.  There is also a 
<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups?viewMembers=&amp;gid=1742497&amp;sik=1232440138990">CGAL Users group</a> on the <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a> social network, which you may find useful.
</p>

<h3>CGAL Developer Community</h3>

<p>The next step is to develop patches or new packages for CGAL.  In
order to do so, you can take a look at the <a
 href="http://doc.cgal.org/latest/Manual/dev_manual.html">Developer Manual</a> in order to familiarize
yourself with the internal details.  You are encouraged to contact us
as early as possible when you envision to make a significant
contribution to CGAL.  Please read carefully the page <a
 href="./review_process_rules.html">Contributing to CGAL</a>,
which describes precisely the CGAL submission and review process.
</p>

<p>
You can then become a <a href="people.html">CGAL developer</a>, which grants
you access to the internal ressources such as the developers wiki, the git repository, the
<tt>cgal-develop</tt> mailing list, the internal test-suite, the bug-tracking
system, the biannual CGAL developer meetings, etc.
</p>

<p>
Many of the current developers work for the institutes who started the project, but others are
welcome to join and participate.  There is also a <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups?viewMembers=&amp;gid=55838&amp;sik=1235510244042">CGAL Contributors group</a> on <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a>.
</p>

<h4>Google Summer of Code</h4>

<p>
The CGAL project participates in
the <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/">Google Summer of Code</a>
since 2010. Have a look at the page <a href="https://github.com/CGAL/cgal/wiki/Project-Ideas">Project Ideas</a>
to discover the topics that we have proposed each year since 2010 for the Google Summer of Code.
</p>

<H3>Legal Issues</H3>

<p>The CGAL project can only consider the integration of the software
you wrote if you accept that it is part of the distribution, and if
it follows the <a href="license.html">license</a> scheme chosen by the project.
In fact, it is the owner of your code (your employer) who has to
agree on this officially.  Note that the CGAL project does not require
any transfer of intellectual property rights for the contribution of
new independant packages, although the situation may be different
for a modification to existing code.  Moreover,
you may choose to have your code also available in the commercial offer
of <a href="http://geometryfactory.com/">GeometryFactory</a>,
which offers various services to customers around CGAL.</p>

<h3>Open Source Project Rules and Procedures</h3>

<p>To help users and developers to understand the decision processes
behind CGAL and how one can get involved, we have written and
published the <a href="project_rules.html">CGAL Open Source Project 
Rules and Procedures.</a></p>