About the foundation

Supporting the Future of Storage

The Ceph Foundation supports the Ceph project and community

The Ceph Foundation is made up key commercial, government, and educational stakeholders who pool financial resources and collaborate in investment, development, marketing, and community events for the Ceph open source project. The Ceph Foundation is organized under the Linux Foundation and serves both as a resource for the Ceph community as a point of coordination and collaboration among key industry and community members.

Ceph stays true to its open source philosophy and roots by leaving technical development in the hands of the developer community. The technical direction of Ceph is handled by the Ceph Leadership Team (CLT).

Ceph Foundation Membership

Membership in the Ceph Foundation is tiered: Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Associate. There are many benefits to belonging to The Ceph Foundation, detailed here:

See the benefits

Silver to Diamond Member organizations contribute a yearly fee, whereas Associate Members are educational institutions, government, or non-profit organizations invited to join at no cost.

Diamond and Platinum Members are guaranteed a seat on the Governing Board. Two Gold Members are chosen to represent all Gold Members, one Silver Member is chosen to represent the Silver Members, and similarly one Associate Member is chosen to represent all Associate Members on the board.

The Ceph Foundation Board

The Governing Board consists of Foundation members who organize and distribute financial contributions for the improvement of the Ceph project, oversee community activities and developments, and work together to fulfil a variety of responsibilities. Foundations are a proven method to effectively collaborate and pool resources on large projects to encourage participation, spread responsibility and increase investment.

The Ceph Foundation Board is responsible for:

  • Building and approving an annual budget for spending in support of the Ceph project.
  • Establishing ad-hoc committees to address current needs of the project.
  • Coordinating combined marketing activities surrounding the Ceph.
  • Meeting regularly to discuss Foundation activities, the status of the Ceph project, and overall project strategy.
  • Voting on any decisions or matters before the board.

The Ceph Foundation is organized under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation, who provides financial, logistical, and other support services.

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is dedicated to building sustainable ecosystems around Open Source projects to accelerate technology development and industry adoption. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation provides unparalleled support for open source communities through financial and intellectual resources, infrastructure, services, events, and training. Working together, The Linux Foundation and its projects form the most ambitious and successful investment in the creation of shared technology.

By providing the assistance and governance required for collaborative work, the Ceph Foundation, and the Linux Foundation, facilitate the exciting advancement of Open Source projects.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Why did the community decide to start a foundation? Why is a foundation needed?

While Ceph is supported by an incredibly vibrant community of contributors, users and global companies around the world, the Ceph Foundation will organize and distribute financial contributions in a coordinated, vendor-neutral fashion. The foundation will also provide a forum for community stakeholders to coordinate their development and community activities on a regular basis. This will help galvanize more rapid adoption, training and in-person collaboration across the Ceph ecosystem.

As seen with countless other open source projects, providing a neutral home for the community to collaborate will encourage more participation and contribution. Foundations enable the community to spread responsibilities and costs for project infrastructure–helping to increase overall investment–while also providing more opportunities to get involved.

Q: Why should developers care?

The foundation will provide more resources for Ceph development, which will benefit all contributors and those consuming or looking to consume Ceph. Some examples of support include organizing events and working groups to accelerate the pace of growth for Ceph, coordinating investments in additional hardware and cloud services infrastructure for CI and testing, formalizing governance structures, and providing marketing support to the project.

Q: How will this impact the technical direction of Ceph?

The technical communities of Linux Foundation projects are independent, and Ceph will continue to develop according to its own road maps and timetables with input from the newly established Governing Board on project needs outside of the development process. The Linux Foundation accelerates the development of open source projects by providing the underlying assistance and governance that is necessary for collaborative work, including infrastructure and support for developers, events, marketing and community facilitation.

For more information, see the Governance page in the Ceph documentation.

Q: What is the difference between Membership tiers?

The Membership benefits are detailed here.

Q: How is the Ceph Foundation organized?

The Ceph Foundation is organized as a directed fund under the Linux Foundation. That means that the Foundation is not a separate legal entity, and avoids the legal and managerial overhead associated with forming a truly independent organization. Instead, we take advantage of the Linux Foundation as an umbrella organization while keeping the Ceph Foundation finances in an independent fund for use in supporting the Ceph open source community.

Q: What is the Linux Foundation?

The Linux Foundation is dedicated to building sustainable ecosystems around open source projects to accelerate technology development and industry adoption. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation provides unparalleled support for open source communities through financial and intellectual resources, infrastructure, services, events, and training. Working together, The Linux Foundation and its projects form the most ambitious and successful investment in the creation of shared technology.

Q: Can my organization join the Ceph Foundation? How much does it cost?

The Ceph Foundation welcomes any organization who is engaged in an working to support the Ceph project. For more information, contact membership@linuxfoundation.org

Q: How do I get involved?

Developers can already contribute to the project and support the community in a variety of ways.

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