Host Your Project

Hosting a project with the Linux Foundation follows open governance, which means that there is no one company or individual in control of a project. When the maintainers of an open source project decide to host it at the Linux Foundation, they specifically transfer ownership of the trademark for their project to the Linux Foundation. They don’t transfer the copyright, however, since usage is already available to other users under the open source license.

Note that LF AI & Data will only be hosting the upstream code.

LF AI & Data provides the following services:

• A neutral home that increases adoption and contributions.
• Deep engagement with the open source AI and data community to enable collaboration.
• Staff eager to help and support.
• Program and project management services.
• Creative services available to all hosted projects.
• Marketing services to support community and ecosystem engagement.
• Source code scanning service.
• Strong presence in China via a local office and support staff.
• Ability to keep your maintainers and define your own governance, as long as it’s neutral.
• A world-class events team (virtual until it’s safe to hold in-person events again), able to run events around the world from 12 to 12,000 attendees.

A detailed description of services available to hosted projects is available here.

• The Linux Foundation (LF) is a recognized and respected brand and can activate communications across tech, business, and social media channels.
• The LF is the largest open source foundation, providing management of community assets for over 400 projects:
  • Over 3,400 source code repositories.
  • Over 700 trademark registrations and applications, plus hundreds of unregistered marks.
  • Over 700 project domains and DNS records.
  • Over 12,000 Contributor License Agreements signed for project communities that decide to require one.
• The LF offers neutral sponsorship for managing fundraising.
  • Over 1,600 unique member company relationships.
• Our communities raised over $100 million in 2019 via 6,500+ invoices.
  • Our communities spent funds in 180,000+ separate transactions in 2019.
  • The LF reports its audited financials to its board.

• The LF has repeatedly shown its ability to build diverse ecosystems around open source projects incorporating developers, end users, tech giants, consulting companies, and startups.
• The LF hosts Let’s Encrypt, which provides the majority of the world’s https certificates, and demonstrates our track record of helping to build sustainable, privacy-focused initiatives.
• The LF has a strong history of fostering a rich environment of downstream commercial and volunteer implementations. There are hundreds of independent Linux distributions.
• There are over 100 Certified Kubernetes implementations, each of which has passed a comprehensive conformance test suite.
• CNCF has achieved unprecedented success in helping to grow awareness and adoption of Kubernetes, as demonstrated by Google Trends and KubeCon attendance.
• LF CommunityBridge offers paid internships with experienced mentors to increase the number and diversity of contributors.

The LF has invoicing relationships with its 2,000 members, representing nearly every significant tech company, hundreds of startups, and many government organizations.

The mission of the LF, a 501(c)(6) nonprofit, is to support the creation of sustainable open source ecosystems and public health is a natural next focus.

The LF can quickly receive and distribute funding. The LF fee for fiscal sponsorship services, which includes audited financials, is 9% of the first million dollars per year and 6% of additional funds.