About COVESA

The Connected Vehicle Systems Alliance (COVESA) is an open, global community focused on developing common approaches and technologies that accelerate innovation, empowering its members and stakeholders to unlock the full potential of connected vehicles.

With over a decade of experience in collaboration and open software development, COVESA has delivered a broad base of technical innovations in infotainment and connected vehicles that benefit the automotive industry.

Membership in COVESA is open to all companies interested in contributing to the development of common approaches and technologies that accelerate innovation in connected vehicle systems. Organizations interested in joining the Alliance can learn more at www.covesa.global/join-covesa/.

The top benefits available to COVESA members are:

1. Full access and insight into all work in process, providing a head-start competitive advantage/li>
2. Influence on the technical direction of the alliance, including the maintenance of open source projects, development of specifications, reference architectures, implementation guidelines, and test suites
3. Use of released COVESA specifications and implementation guidelines to reduce development costs and shorten time to market
4. Opportunity to collaborate with members in creating joint platforms that allow seamless integration benefits for all members
5. Networking through the vast alliance membership community for key contacts, partnerships, and business opportunities
6. Opportunities to showcase your technology and competencies at COVESA global promotional events

Generally, COVESA projects are open, though COVESA has the option of requiring membership for certain specification development activities.  Many exploratory COVESA activities are a combination of member representatives and industry experts.  COVESA code is openly available on GitHub and more information on COVESA projects can be found on the COVESA Wiki.

Learn more on how to get involved in the COVESA Getting Started Guide.

COVESA members launch and contribute to a variety of collaborative groups and projects, such as the Data Expert Group and Automotive AOSP App Framework Expert Group, that advance the mobility ecosystem and connected vehicles. More information on COVESA projects can be found on the COVESA Wiki.

The COVESA community is also actively collaborating with various key automotive organizations, including AUTOSAR, W3C, Open Insurance, eSync Alliance, and most recently the SDV Alliance, a collaboration with AUTOSAR, Eclipse SDV, and SOAFEE with more than 500 automotive and software ecosystem partners represented.

Most technology deliverables are available publicly and are licensed with OSI-approved, open source licenses.

• News: Stay current on what’s happening with COVESA and sign up for our updates.
• Social Media: X @COVESAglobal and LinkedIn at Connected Vehicle Systems Alliance and LinkedIn Group
• Email: You can email questions to our help desk at help@covesa.global

Contributing code to COVESA can be done in two ways. Most commonly, code is contributed to a project hosted on GitHub. However, some organizations prefer to manage all contributions by means of an Entity Contribution License Agreement (CLA). This page discusses both options. If a prospective contributor has questions, please contact the COVESA Community Director (pboyes at covesa.global) for details.

In either contribution option, prospective contributors must understand the sign-off and Developers Certificate of Origin (DCO) as well as understand the guidelines for handling third-party IP in contributions (described below).

Sign-Off and DCO Acceptance

Every contribution must carry the following sign-off line with your real name and email address like the following example:

Signed-off-by: Firstname Lastname <you@example.com>

By supplying this sign-off line, you indicate your acceptance of the following COVESA Certificate of Origin (DCO):

• “By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:

a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I have the right to submit it under the open source license indicated in the file; or
b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source license and I have the right under that license to submit that work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part by me, under the same open source license (unless I am permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated in the file; or
c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other person who certified (a), (b), or (c), and I have not modified it.
d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution are public and that a record of the contribution (including all personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with this project or the open source license(s) involved.”

If you contribute on behalf of an organization (e.g. your employer), you acknowledge, by supplying the above sign-off line that, “I am authorized to submit this contribution on behalf of the organization holding the copyright.”

When you submit code for the first time, the project maintainer will contact you and make sure that you are familiar with the DCO and answer all the questions you might have regarding contributions.

Code contributions can be submitted to COVESA, if they are licensed under the project’s open source license. Most projects have a standard license and expect all contributions to be made according to that licensing model. The Project Maintainer may consider alternatives, but generally, COVESA requires consistency of licensing within a COVESA project. If a prospective contributor wishes to contribute by starting a new project, then the contributor should contact the COVESA Community Director to discuss this process. COVESA has published a Policy for Open Source Licensing to inform contributors which open source licenses are acceptable.

The COVESA Entity Contributors License Agreement (CLA) is a contractual framework between COVESA and an organization, which allows certain authorized submitters to contribute code to COVESA. If you are an authorized submitter, please clearly mark your contribution as Provided under the terms of the COVESA Entity Contributor License Agreement and indicate which OSS license you recommend COVESA to apply to your contribution. If you are not an authorized submitter, do not use this option, or your contribution will be rejected.

As a general rule, only original code should be contributed to COVESA. Third-party open source components which are available elsewhere (e.g., the Linux kernel or the C libraries) will be obtained by COVESA directly from the upstream open source project(s). Modifications/extensions to such components should be first provided to the upstream project in the form of patches. Only in case the upstream project has not yet reviewed or rejected a patch, it can be provided to COVESA.

You must include the exact location and version numbers for all upstream open source components that are required for the contribution to build and run.

If the contribution “reuses” code snippets from other open source projects that were directly incorporated in the contributed source code files, a disclosure document must be provided with the contribution, providing details about the incorporated code (e.g., project name, version) and the applicable open source license(s). The COVESA Third-Party Disclosure Document template can be found here.

• no disclosure document is provided
• the license(s) governing the non-original code are not compatible with the COVESA project license or licensing policy
• an automated code scan, optionally performed by COVESA during the acceptance process, produces results that differ from the information provided in the disclosure document

If you have questions about the handling of third-party IP, please contact the COVESA helpdesk at help@covesa.global.