In the context of the Open eCard Project, industrial as well as academic experts have decided to work together on providing an open source and cross platform implementation of the eCard-API-Framework (BSI-TR-03112), through which arbitrary applications can utilize authentication and signatures with arbitrary chip cards.

The artifacts of the project consist of modularized, and to some extent extensible, libraries as well as client implementations such as a Desktop application (richclient), an Android app and a Java Applet.

Detailed build instructions can be found in the INSTALL.md file bundled with this source package.

The simplified build instructions are as follows:

$ git clone git://github.com/ecsec/open-ecard.git
$ cd open-ecard
$ git submodule update --init
$ mvn clean install

In case you received a preassembled source bundle, the build instructions are as follows:

$ tar xaf open-ecard-${version}.tar.xz
$ cd open-ecard-$version
$ mvn clean install

The Open eCard App uses a Dual Licensing model. The software is always distributed under the GNU General Public License v3 (GPLv3). Additionally the software can be licensed in an individual agreement between the licenser and the licensee.

New developers can find information on how to participate under https://dev.openecard.org/projects/open-ecard/wiki/Developer_Guide.

Contributions can only be accepted when the contributor has signed the contribution agreement (https://dev.openecard.org/documents/35). The agreement basically states, that the contributed work can, additionally to the GPLv3, be made available to others in an individual agreement as defined in the previous section. For further details refer to the agreement.