Governance Intellectual Property and Membership Mike Dolan 1
Governance, Intellectual Property and Membership Mike Dolan 1
LF Energy – Governance Considerations • Separation of business governance from technical governance • “Do-ocracy” - Individuals earn community status through technical contribution • Development of common core technology with an ecosystem of participants to contribute to the project and leverage the project’s output; and • Neutral ownership of community assets encourages broad participation. 2
Governance Structure Proposal Governing Board oversees business decisions Board Responsible for: • Strategy • Budget • Membership • Ecosystem building • Approving new project charters • Committees (Budget, Outreach/Marketing) • Advisory Committees (End User, Academic) Technical Advisory Council (TAC) coordinates crossproject activities Project 1 TSC Project 2 TSC Project. . . n TSC Dev Community Each Technical Steering Committee (TSC) composed of the lead maintainers/committers of that project and is ultimately responsible for managing the developer community involved in the project. Projects may come in various types: code, specification, community management, documentation, test/build systems, etc. TAC Committees TAC may create sub-committees to work on ad hoc or long term initiatives. TAC Responsible for: • Identify areas of crossproject collaboration (e. g. using a common API) • identifies and approves new projects to bring into community (GB approval also req’d) • cross project policies (e. g. security practices) • Standards organization collaboration 3
Governance Structure Proposal Governing Board oversees business decisions • 1 representative from each Premier Member • TAC representative • Elected General Member representatives (1 per 10, up to 3) • Advisors: chairs of the Advisory Committees (Academic, End User) Technical Advisory Council (TAC) coordinates crossproject activities Project 1 TSC Project 2 TSC Project. . . n TSC TAC Committees Maintainers Volunteer TAC Composition: • 1 representative from each Premier Member • 1 representative from each Project 4
Intellectual Property Policy Template • Participants acknowledge that the copyright in all new contributions will be retained by the copyright holder as independent works of authorship and that no contributor or copyright holder will be required to assign copyrights to the Project. • Except as described in Section 7. c. , all code contributions to the Project are subject to the following: • All new inbound code contributions to the Project must be made using an OSI-approved open source license specified for the Project within the “LICENSE” file within the Project’s code repository (the “Project License”). [or specify license] • All new inbound code contributions must also be accompanied by a Developer Certificate of Origin (http: //developercertificate. org) sign-off in the source code system that is submitted through a TSC-approved contribution process which will bind the authorized contributor and, if not self-employed, their employer to the applicable license; • All outbound code will be made available under the Project License. [or specify license] • Documentation will be received and made available by the Project under the Creative Commons Attribution 4. 0 International License (available at http: //creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4. 0/). • The Project may seek to integrate and contribute back to other open source projects (“Upstream Projects”). In such cases, the Project will conform to all license requirements of the Upstream Projects, including dependencies, leveraged by the Project. Upstream Project code contributions not stored within the Project’s main code repository will comply with the contribution process and license terms for the applicable Upstream Project. • The TSC may approve the use of an alternative license or licenses for inbound or outbound contributions on an exception basis. To request an exception, please describe the contribution, the alternative open source license(s), and the justification for using an alternative open source license for the Project. License exceptions must be approved by a two-thirds vote of the entire TSC. Contributed files should contain license information, such as SPDX short form identifiers, indicating the open source license or licenses pertaining to the file. 5
LF Energy Membership • LF Energy, like other projects of the Linux Foundation, is funded through membership dues and contributed engineering resources • Membership levels include: Premier, General and Associate • Government entities, academic and nonprofit organizations can join as Associate Members 6
LF Energy Membership Tiers • Premier: • • • Appoint one (1) representative to the Governing Board Appoint one (1) representative as a voting member in any subcommittee or activity of the Governing Board Enjoy most prominent placement in displays of membership Access to LF’s invitation-only Open Source Leadership Summit Ongoing, individual engagement with executive director and staff • General: • • Participate as one of up to three (3) General representatives to the Gov. Board (1 representative per 10 GMs) Earn a TSC position through leadership in the community Enjoy prominent placement in displays of membership Ongoing engagement with executive director and staff • Associate • • • Limited to academic, nonprofit and government entity organizations Entitled to identify their organization as an Academic or Non-Profit supporting the mission with other benefits determined by the Governing Board No fee, no membership required Non-members may participate fully in the technical community with contributions, earn committer, or TSC/TAC roles on merit. 7
Membership and Participation Levels Membership Level LF Member Annual Fee Board Seat TSC Seat Outreach Committee Suggested Minimum FTE* Premier Flat fee: $150 k Yes Yes 1 General $5 k-50 k based on org size 1 (Possible) 1 per every 10 General members Based on Merit Yes N/A 1 year commitment Associate No fee (Provisional at start-up) Based on Merit Yes N/A Limited to academic, nonprofit and government entity organizations General Member Annual Fee Scale $50 K - > 5, 000 employees $30 K - 1, 000 – 4, 999 employees $20 K - 200 – 1, 000 employees $10 K - 100 – 200 employees $5 K - < 100 employees Notes Two year minimum commitment * FTE = Full Time Equivalent (e. g. 2 employees each spend 50% of their time on a project). This suggestion is meant to provide a minimum resource investment to ensure members are contributing technically. Most projects see much higher investment of resources than the minimum requirement. 8
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