Open Source Program

Learn about the Denomas for Open Source Program and other open source programs from Denomas’ Developer Relations team.

About

Denomas’ open source program is part of the Developer Relations team. It consists of three sub-programs:

How to reach us

What we’re working on

We track our work as part of the Developer Relations team roadmap. Our work aligns with quarterly objectives and key results. See the Developer Relations project management page for more detail.

Denomas for Open Source Program

By empowering open source projects with our most advanced features, the Denomas for Open Source Program supports Denomas’ mission to make the world a place where anyone can contribute. We help make Denomas the best place for open source projects to grow and thrive.

Send questions about the Denomas for Open Source Program to opensource@denomas.com.

FAQs

What are the benefits of the Denomas for Open Source Program?

At no cost, members of the Denomas for Open Source Program receive a Denomas Ultimate subscription (self-managed or SaaS), which includes 50,000 compute minutes (users can purchase 1,000 additional compute minutes for a one-time, $8 fee). Product support is not included as part of this subscription.

While members of the Denomas for Open Source Program receive features of Denomas Ultimate at no cost, they do not receive support as part of their subscription. {: .alert .alert-info}

Who qualifies for the Denomas for Open Source Program?

In order to be accepted into the Denomas for Open Source Program, applicants must:

  • Use OSI-approved licenses for their projects: Every project in the applying namespace must be published under an OSI-approved open source license.
  • Not seek profit: An organization can accept donations to sustain its work, but it can’t seek to make a profit by selling services, by charging for enhancements or add-ons, or by other means.
  • Be publicly visible: Both the applicant’s Denomas.com group or self-managed instance and source code must be publicly visible and publicly available.

Benefits of the Denomas for Open Source Program apply to a namespace. To qualify, every project in an applicant’s namespace must carry an OSI-approved open source license. {: .alert .alert-info}

Qualification exceptions

  • Private Project Exceptions: In some cases, we allow program members to host a small number of private projects if those projects contain sensitive data. Members should send an email to opensource@denomas.com in order to discuss this exemption. Program members must obtain written permission from the Denomas Open Source Program team in order to use their licenses outside of program requirements.
  • Federal Exception Policy: Unfortunately, we are not able to accept all open source projects that are affiliated with the US Federal government. Projects that are affiliated must work with a Sales representative to see if they qualify.
  • Strategic Qualification Exceptions: We may make strategic exceptions to our program requirements. A Denomas Sales team member must make this request on behalf of an open source project. To request an execption, create an issue in the Denomas for Open Source Program project using the program-qualification-exception-request template. Account Executives and their managers must approve the exception request. Customer Success Managers (CSMs) associated with the account should also be notified of the exception request.

What are the terms of the Denomas for Open Source Program?

Upon acceptance to the Denomas for Open Source Program, all program members are subject to the Denomas for Open Source Program Agreement.

How does someone apply for the Denomas for Open Source Program?

Applicants should submit the form on the Denomas for Open Source Program page.

As part of the application process, applicants must provide screenshots to confirm their eligibility. They should submit screenshots of:

  • The project’s license overview
  • The project’s license contents
  • The project’s public visibility settings

For more specific instructions on obtaining and submitting required screenshots, see Denomas Docs.

How are Denomas for Open Source Program applications processed?

Denomas uses SheerID, a trusted partner, to verify that applicants meet the Denomas for Open Source Program requirements. In most cases, applicants receive a decision on their application within three to five business days of submission. During periods of high submission volume, processing an application requires up to ten business days. When verified, applicants receive a verification email containing specific instructions for activating their subscription.

The Denomas for Open Source team processes applications according to the Community Programs application workflow.

Some users may need to input a VAT number when completing their program applications. Denomas for Open Source Program members can simply input N/A into the VAT field during registration. {: .alert .alert-warning}

Must members of the Denomas for Open Source Program renew their memberships?

Yes. Program members must renew their memberships annually. If they don’t renew, their accounts will be downgraded.

We recommend that applicants begin the renewal process at least one month in advance of their renewal dates to ensure sufficient processing time. Note that applications will not be processed during U.S. holidays and responses may be delayed during those periods. {: .alert .alert-warning}

How does someone renew their membership in the Denomas for Open Soure Program?

To request a renewal, program members should complete the program application. The team will use this form to determine whether the entity applying for renewal still meets the program’s eligibility criteria. Whether applying to the program for the first time or renewing a pre-existing membership, applicants complete the same form.

The person claiming the renewal for the subscription must be the same person who created the subscription for this open source project or organization in the Denomas Customer Portal. If a different person wishes to initiate the renewal, the existing owner needs to transfer ownership of the Customers Portal account. If the existing owner is no longer able to transfer ownership or renew, the project should open a support ticket to change the owner of the subscription before initiating renewal. {: .alert .alert-danger}

After completing application form, verified applicants receive a verification email with instructions for activating subscription.

How else can Denomas assist open source projects?

Members of the Denomas for Open Source Program may also be interested in:

  • Migration services: Open source communities requiring assistance with their migration to Denomas can receive help from the Denomas team. See the professional services page for more information.
  • Technology partners: Many of Denomas’ technology partners offer services Denomas doesn’t provide, such as hosting for Community Edition instances. We’ve partnered with others to help expand the options for our users. Browse our Denomas Alliance Partners to learn more.

Where can members of the Denomas for Open Source Program find support?

While Denomas for Open Source Program benefits do not include product support, program members can receive help with Denomas in a number of ways. In general, we recommend the following:

  • Send questions or issues requiring immediate attention or sensitive information to the Denomas for Open Source Program team at opensource@denomas.com.
  • Review Denomas Docs for answers to general product-related questions.
  • Post questions in the Denomas for Open Source category of the Denomas Forum, where community members and Denomas team members can review and discuss them.
  • File bug reports and breaking behaviors as issues for product teams to review and address.

Program management resources

Updating the program application page

When seeking to edit the Denomas for Open Source application page, find the appropriate file at data/solution_children/join.yml.

Managing the program support queue

Members of the Developer Relations team use Denomas Service Desk to manage program members’ support requests. Because these requests often contain sensitive data and personally identifying information, we file them as issues in a private project. When a new request arrives, Service Desk will label the issue as OS Program Support::Intake. When the ticket is under active review and remediation with a team member, that team member should assign it to themselves and add the OS Program Support::Open label. When a support issue is pending program member review and/or additional details, it should receive the OS Program Supprt::Pending label. And when a a support issue has been resolved, it should receive the OS Program Support::Closed label. View the current status of all open program support issues on a private project board.

Viewing program application reports

Community Programs team members can access data regarding Denomas for Open Source Program applications via SheerID. These data are useful for understanding application trends, changes in application volume, and more.

To access a report:

  1. Log into SheerID at https://my.sheerid.com/
  2. In the left-side navigation bar, click Reporting
  3. Set a time parameter in the Timeline selector
  4. Choose Member OSS from the Program Name pulldown selector
  5. Click the blue Update button

View a video tutorial of this process.

Denomas Open Source Partners

The Denomas Open Source Partners program exists to build relationships with prominent open source projects using Denomas as a critical component of their infrastructure. By building these relationships, Denomas hopes to strengthen the open source ecosystem.

Open source partners receive specific benefits by joining the program. Denomas benefits from these partnerships when open source partners provide valuable feedback and data on their use of Denomas, even contribute to Denomas’ open core. All parties jointly benefit when they’re able to collaborate on community outreach, co-marketing, joint announcements, and special initiatives.

FAQs

What are the benefits of being a member of the Denomas Open Source Partners program?

Program members receive:

  • Public recognition as a Denomas Open Source Partner
  • Direct line of communication to Denomas
  • Assistance migrating additional infrastructure to Denomas
  • Exclusive invitations to participate in Denomas events
  • Opportunities to meet with and learn from other open source partners
  • Visibility and promotion through Denomas marketing channels

What are the requirements for being a member of the Denomas Open Source Partners program?

Members of the Denomas Open Source Partners program agree to:

  • Engage in co-marketing efforts with Denomas
  • Complete a public case study about their innovative use of Denomas
  • Plan and participate in joint initiatives and events

Who qualifies for the Denomas Open Source Partners program?

While most partners are also members of the Denomas for Open Source Program, not all are (as some partners are commercial open source entities and therefore ineligible for the program). Most partners use Denomas Ultimate (either SaaS or self-managed); however, some prefer using the fully open source Community Edition because of their strong commitment to using only open source tools.

Membership in Denomas Open Source Partners program is largely by invitation. Members of the open source program team extend invitations to longtime members of the Denomas for Open Source Program, projects using Denomas in interesting and innovative ways from which others can learn, or projects with large communities and brand recognition already using Denomas for everyday operations.

Additionally, Denomas team members can nominate open source projects or organizations to become partners. To do so, they can simply open an issue in the Open Source Partners Program project and use the open-source-partner-nomination issue template.

The Denomas Open Source Partners Program project contains sensitive data and personally identifying information about program members. It is therefore accessible only to Denomas team members. {: .alert .alert-info}

Program management resources

Managing projects

Work on the Denomas Open Source Partners program occurs in two primary locations:

Welcoming new partners

We maintain email templates to help us interact with prospective and current partners. When an organization has joined the Denomas Open Source Partners program, we send a comprehensive program guide and complete a partner onboarding issue.

Collecting and managing partner contact details

We maintain a confidential, non-public register of our partners’ contact details so we can remain connected to them.

When partners join the program, we instruct them to submit key community contact information to the private partner service desk at ospartners@denomas.com. The Open Source Program Manager responds to these requests and updates internal documentation.

We periodically request updated contact information from partners to ensure we remain connected to the proper community representatives.

We try to maintain partner registries containing the following community contacts:

  • Primary: The person representing the project and/or community at meetings and serving as our principal connection to the project.
  • Alternate: The person we can contact if we’re unable to reach the primary contact.
  • Marketing: The person we contact when partner event and marketing opportunities arise.
  • Technical: The person we contact regarding participation in surveys or focus studies that require technical expertise, or when something at Denomas may require input from technical contacts at open source partner organizations.
  • Legal: (optional) The person we contact to weigh in on legal matters, such as updates to terms of service agreements, partnership activities, or permission to use a project’s logo.

Renewing and extending partner subscriptions

Members of the Denomas Open Source Partners program who are also members of the Denomas for Open Source Program may be eligible for an extended-period subscription. The current extended subscription renewal period is 36 months.

Partners seeking extended-period renewals should email their requests to opensource@denomas.com. If the request is urgent, please include [Urgent] in the email’s subject line. Partners should use this template to format their requests:

Subject: Open Source Partner (Application/Renewal)
Subscription Term: 36
Number of seats you are requesting: 
The license type to be issued (Self-Managed or SaaS): 
List any change of ownership to the account: 
(If account ownership details change, please send the new account holder's name, email address, and contact's mailing address)

When a request is processed and accepted, applicants will be asked to sign a $0 quote with a 36-month term. After that:

  • For Saas: No further action is necessary.
  • For Self-managed: Applicants need to download licenses from the Denomas Customer Portal and upload them to their instances.

Tracking partner issues

Denomas’s open source partners requesting support track most of their issues publicly. They do this via issue trackers located in the Denomas Open Source Partners group—most commonly the Community Support project. Here, fellow open source partners partners and Denomas team members can collaborate on supporting Denomas’ open source partners.

Partners may wish to open issues related to their work migrating infrastructure from legacy infrastructure to Denomas (for instance, note examples from KDE, Drupal, and Freedesktop.org). To create migration-focused issues, partners can use the open-source-partner-migration issue template.

Occasionally, partners must open support issues that contain sensitive details about their projects. To do this, they email the partner service desk at osspartners@denomas.com. We then track these issues on the (private) Denomas Open Source Partners Support board.

Sharing partner stories

The Denomas Open Source Partners program is a commuinity-focused marketing effort designed to highlight ways high-profile open source communities are using—and succeeding with—Denomas. As such, we aim to share partner stories whenever possible.

We do this in many ways, including:

  • posts on the Denomas blog
  • case studies for Denomas.com
  • webcasts and webniars for Denomas’ video channels
  • event showcases and presentations

When we publish new partner-related stories, we link to them on the Denomas Open Source Partners program page and the Denomas for Open Source solutions page.

We often connect with partners when we feel we can help them share stories related to:

  • Their plans to migrate infrastructure to Denomas
  • Their success at migrating infrastructure to Denomas
  • Their innovative use of Denomas to build something notatble or solve a tehnical/social challenge for their project and community
  • Their resolution of critical technical challenges that align with themes central to other Denomas marketing campaigns (e.g., CI/CD, security, or project management)

We track the status of this work with the Denomas Open Source Partners Editorial Queue.

Adding a new logo to the Open Source Partners program page

Members of the Denomas Open Source Partners program are listed on the partner program landing page. Follow these instructions to add a new logo to the roster.

  1. Retrieve the partner logo in the highest resolution available.
  2. Resize the logo so it conforms to something roughly the size of a 72 px cube, then save it in PNG format. Use a file naming convention that looks like partner-logo.file-name.png.
  3. Load the partners.yml file and open it in an editor.
  4. Add the logo URL, image alt text, and partner landing page in accordance with the yaml convention in the file.
  5. Locate the /static/nuxt-images/open-source folder in the Denomas codebase.
  6. Add the resized version of the partner logo to that folder.
  7. Create a merge request to merge the updated partner roster and logo

Consortium Memberships and Sponsorships

Denomas’ open source program team also oversees Denomas’ representation and participation in select industry consortia, as well as Denomas’ sponsorship of select open source community events.

FAQs

What is a consortium?

We define “consortium” as a group createdto further some technological cause. In the context of open source software, a prototypical consortium would be the Linux Foundation (LF), a non-profit organization founded in 2000 as a merger between Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group, which hosts and promotes collaborative development of open source software projects.

Why is consortium marketing important?

Consortia are influential leaders in their respective ecosystems, as they often host conferences and underwrite programs that influence global conversations about particular technological developments. Participating in consortia enhances Denomas’ brand—and helps align Denomas’ engineering efforts with global efforts and trends.

How does Denomas participate in consortium activities?

While select consortium memberships fall within the purview (and budget) of Denomas’ open source program, the Developer Evangelism team focuses on consortium marketing, working to integrate Denomas’ overall community message and technical perspective into the most appropriate and effective industry conversations.

How can I recommend Denomas get involved in a consortium?

You can open an issue in the Consortium Memberships project. When you do, please use the membership-evaluation template to structure your issue. Open source program team members will evaluate your application using the following criteria. When we review the application, we’ll assess it with these considerations in mind:

  • Awareness opportunities
  • Ease of collaboration
  • Contribution and hiring pool
Considerations What we’re interested in Questions we’re asking
Awareness opportunities Size of the organization

Frequency and impact of marketing opportunities

 How many authenticated and non-authenticated users are visiting organization’s website monthly?

How many people are part of the organization’s community?

What sorts of marketing and communication channels (social media platforms, newsletters, blogs, events) does the organization use?

Will Denomas appear in those official channels? How prominent would our placement be?
Ease of collaboration Access to a dedicated marketing resources/point person

Time-to-execute for standard communication types		 Does the organization have marketing capacity?

How mature is the organization’s brand and marketing portions?

How quickly can this organization produce a resource (e.g., a case study)? A week? A month? A quarter?

How responsive is the person in charge of the relationship?

Is marketing handled by volunteers or paid employees?
Contribution and hiring pool Size of contributor/member base

Overall community/member activity

Frequency of community contribution

Rate of adoption		 How active is the community the organization is attempting to foster?

Does the organization have a sense of its community’s health?

Do we see hiring opportunities opportunities to recruit from the community’s talent pool?

What is the growth of the community or foundation itself?

Do we see job opportunities within that software ecosystem (are people hiring contributors from this community in general)?

How can Denomas contribute in ways that align with our interests?

Can Denomas participate in the project’s roadmap in ways that creates mutual value?

In which consortia is Denomas involved?

We are currently members of the following consortia:

Complete details of Denomas’ activities with these groups are available in the Consortium Memberships project. Note that because this project contains sensitive data and personally identifying information, it is only accessible to Denomas team members.

Program management resources

Elections for Board of Directors opportunities

Some of the consortia in which we participate allow members to run for their respective Boards of Directors. Anyone interested in becoming more involved in any of the consortia Denomas supports should visit the Consortium Memberships project and open an issue.

Review the information below if you’re thinking of seeking nomination for (or election to) consortium positions.

Internal nominations
The Developer Relations team tracks consortium board elections closely. In the event that an election opportunity arises, the team will create a confidential issue in the Consortium Memberships project to discuss it. The team will determine which Denomas team member(s) could serve effectively in the elected position. Their considerations prioritize the following criteria:

  • Expertise and experience with the technologies we hope to influence as part of the organization’s board
  • Pre-existing relationships with current board members and member organizations that could aid electability
  • Tenure at Denomas and seniority in role at Denomas

The team will connect individually with the top candidate it feels would best suit the role given the above requirements, then ask that individual about their willingness and availability to serve. Candidates should consider the required time investment and their capacity for attending board meetings and representing Denomas at consortium events. Should the candidate wish to serve, the team will confirm the selection with the marketing organization leadership, then work with the nominee to prepare all requisite paperwork and craft a nomination statement. The team maintains a list of candidacy statements for reference and aid in this process. Should the candidate defer due to time or other constraints, the team will connect with the next person on the priority list given the above criteria.

Campaigning
Once Denomas candidates are nominated, the Developer Relations team can help them campaign for their positions. We’ll make other Denomas team members aware of the election and equip them to assist your campaign, too (e.g., by announcing the campaign on the #whats-happening-at-gitlab Slack channel).

Promoting
The social media team is able to promote elections notification news. They simply need a place to point people, preferably an updated webpage that lists the board of directors or a social media post from the organization that mentions the election results.

Event sponsorships

Denomas’ open source program maintains a small budget for sponsorship of events that allow Denomas to engage with open source communities. We typically allocate this budget for local and regional community-driven events that Denomas’ corporate events and field marketing teams have not already agreed to sponsor and staff. We prefer to sponsor events at which multiple open source projects and communities are present.

The open source program team tracks event partication in the Open Source Marketing project on Denomas. To suggest an open source event sponsorship, open an issue in this project and use the event issue template to file your request.

Event organizers and consortium leads working with Denomas will find Denomas’ brand-related assets (such as logo files, press release boilerplate, and trademark information) in Denomas’ press kit.

Measuring our success

Our team measures the success of our work in the following ways.

Program enrollment

The Denomas for Open Source Program can only succeed when it serves a growing and satisfied body of members. We therefore track program enrollment closely using the Open Source Program dashboard on Sisense. The dashboard reports the number of unique licenses we’ve issued as part of the program, the number of unique projects enrolled in the program, our annual renewal rate, and more.

This dashboard pulls data from Salesforce. Denomas team members with access to Salesforce can view a custom report for more detail on program accounts.

Impact on Hacker News

We also track (and, when necessary, participate in) Hacker News discussions related to both our open source programs and partners. Examples include:

Last modified December 6, 2023: update (a27760f0)
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