Dojo is Open Source software, distributed by a non-profit foundation which has been set up for the purpose of providing a vendor-neutral owner of Dojo intellectual property. In order to ensure to users of Foundation projects that there is no ambiguity or hidden liability regarding the use of Foundation code, all contributors are required to provide signed Contributor License Agreements (individual and corporate).
All committers on Dojo Foundation projects have a vote in Foundation matters. The Foundation is run by contributors, operates in a transparent way, and is funded exclusively by donations. The licensing goals of the Foundations are spelled out in a short document that informs Foundation decisions.
The Dojo Toolkit is currently dual-licensed. The preferred license is the Academic Free License v2.1. All Dojo Foundation projects release their code under the terms of this license. It is almost never necessary to exercise the "dual" portion of the dual-licensing terms since the AFL is well written, widely accepted, and incredibly permissive.
For users who face the problem of artificial ambiguity the FSF has created regarding the compatibility of the AFL and the (L)GPL, The Dojo Toolkit may alternately be used under the terms of the BSD License. Both the AFL and the BSD licenses meet the licensing goals of the Dojo Foundation.
This "dual licensing" system is similar to licensing systems employed by projects such as MySQL and the Mozilla Foundation. In almost every case, you will not need to understand the differences between the Dojo licenses or choose anything other than the AFL. If you have questions regarding Dojo licensing, please do not hesitate to contact Alex Russell, current President of the Dojo Foundation.