PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The AlmaLinux Foundation, stewards of the 100% community-owned and governed enterprise-grade Linux distribution, announces membership options for all project contributors and community members.
The AlmaLinux Foundation is set up as a 501(c)(6) non-profit, the same model used by the Linux Foundation. Individuals and organizations will now be eligible to vote for, and be voted into, the AlmaLinux Foundation’s board of directors, as well as participate in committees. Members will directly help to steer AlmaLinux OS and ensure the Foundation is acting in the best interests of the community. The provisional board of directors has approved a set of Bylaws and a membership committee has been formed to welcome new members.
“Everyone should pause for a moment and take a second to understand how truly historic today is for the CentOS community,” said Jack Aboutboul, community manager for AlmaLinux. “We've been waiting for almost a quarter century to be able to say that we have a Community Enterprise Operating System that is 100% owned and governed by everyone and fulfills its true destiny. Today is that day. We all own AlmaLinux.”
There are currently three membership options available.
Contributor Membership
An individual can qualify for membership as anyone who uses AlmaLinux OS, contributes to AlmaLinux OS, provides services to the AlmaLinux OS community or otherwise supports the AlmaLinux OS. All past and present contributors or mirror maintainers would qualify as Contributor members. There is no cost associated with this membership, and all community members are encouraged to submit their application.
Mirror Membership
Any person or entity who hosts an AlmaLinux mirror, as verified by the Technology committee, qualifies for a Mirror membership. Note that this is different from the Contributor memberships as it is not limited to individuals and allows for the inclusion of businesses and other organizations. An entity may apply once as a Mirror member, irrespective of how many mirrors they are actually providing.
Sponsor Membership
Those individuals or entities who wish to financially support the foundation may do so by applying for a Sponsor membership. There are several possible tiers reflecting the different levels of contributions. This is the only membership type that includes a monetary contribution.
“It is vitally important that free and open source software foundations be supported to maintain their independence and allow them to serve the community as intended, and that is what the AlmaLinux community is doing,” said Daniel Pearson, COO of KnownHost, LLC. “We believe in the critical mission that the AlmaLinux Foundation represents and has undertaken in today's age of constant corporate mergers and backroom deals. AlmaLinux is, as was CentOS, an integral part of the Linux ecosystem, and an excellent platform to build a stable service on top of for our customers.”
All membership applications are considered and accepted based on the merit of the application and the contribution record of the applicant. In order to ensure that balance is maintained through the global group of members, provisions are in place in the Bylaws to ensure an entity cannot just try to “buy their way” onto the board to steer it. These provisions stipulate that there will be community seats matching those awarded through sponsorship.
“Our goal is to build a Linux distribution that will be here after we are gone,” said benny Vasquez, AlmaLinux Foundation board member. “We worked hard to ensure that the structure of the Foundation will really enable the community to thrive and continue to provide the world with its charge -- a truly independent, wholly community owned and driven RHEL derivative OS -- for a very long time to come. AlmaLinux and its community will be here for all users of RHEL as a Linux distribution they can trust to be free forever.”
Interested parties can go here to submit an application for membership.
A Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) is being scheduled with the members of the board of directors. Questions and comments about the membership structure or membership itself can be asked any time as well, on the AlmaLinux Community Chat on Mattermost.
