Sponsorship

This page contains information about how commercial entities can sponsor Fedora through direct contribution of services or funding, and what options are available for acknowledging those contributions.

Introduction

Non-Fedora entities such as companies sometimes ask whether and how they can sponsor the Fedora Project in part. Fedora has thousands of regular contributors who give freely of their time and efforts on a continual basis. Sponsorship by commercial entities must never be seen as disenfranchising or sidelining the work done by our many volunteers around the globe. For this reason, only very substantial direct contributions of services, mainly those which empower our volunteers to work more effectively and collaborate more easily, are recognized beyond simple gratitude such as a written "thank you."

Definition

Sponsorship generally occurs in one of two ways:

• One-time sponsorship
  • Funding of part or all of an event
  • Hardware donation
• Recurring sponsorship
  • Continuing service donation

The following are not considered sponsorship of the Fedora Project:

• Providing a public mirror of Fedora software. Many educational, commercial, and public institutions provide public mirrors of Fedora software already, not only as a service to the free and open source software (FOSS) community, but because they realize tangible benefits from the distribution of FOSS. Public mirrors do receive a web link from the public mirror list pages back to the organization's main web site.
• Advertisement. The Fedora Project does not accept unsolicited advertisement on any of its sites.

Levels of recognition

The level system provided here is generally used by Fedora to recognize sponsors. The Fedora Council is ultimately responsible for sponsor recognition, and retains discretion over that work. The value of services may go beyond monetary value, and be related to their ability to increase the openness, transparency, and collaboration capabilities of the Fedora Project, empowering its contributors to interact in new and more effective ways.

Level 1

This level is used for one-time event-related sponsorships, and is recognized in any of several ways:

• Co-branding of an event as agreed upon by the Fedora Project and the sponsor
• Specific mention in publicity for, or in keynote at, event itself
• Part of a quarterly email to fedora-announce-list naming and thanking sponsors

Level 2

This level is typically used for sponsorships such as long-term services that solve specific problems for the Project. It may also be used for larger or more critical one-time donations, as decided by the Council after consultation with the affected community team(s). Recognition may occur in any of several ways:

• Inclusion on the sponsors web page
• Speaking slot at a FUDCon, if appropriate
• Specific hosted site branding

Level 3

This level is used for recurring sponsorships that translate to extremely high dollar values per year. Such sponsorships are by definition very rare; the relationship that Fedora has with its primary sponsor, Red Hat, is obviously in this category. Recognition is made by any of:

• Inclusion on the sponsors web page in a prominent position
• Site-wide web page branding
• Other recognition as agreed upon between the Council and the sponsor.

Other

The Council has the discretion to grant sponsorship recognition in other areas, such as extraordinary circumstances where a small donation bridges a critical gap.

Any formal entity such as a corporation that wishes to grant man-hours to the Fedora Project can contact the Council for more information.