Eligibility Requirements

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Wherein we lay out how your awesome group of people can use our fiscal hosting to accomplish all of the goals for all of the things.
We can accept any open source project, in any language, anywhere in the world. We can also accept open source related meetup groups and conferences, as well as advocacy, research, and awareness initiatives.
Our goal is "to promote a sustainable and healthy ecosystem to sustain open source technology for the future." We're working towards this goal - if you think that you fit this requirement and the following doesn't completely apply to you, let us know.
Governance Requirements
Governance just means "how you figure out who does what, and how". In order to ensure that your project has a healthy community, we ask that you:
Have at least two people willing to be administrators of your future collective.
Have at least two contributors to the GitHub project, or in your general community if you are open-source adjacent.
We also look for Contributing guides, onboarding documents, and we absolutely love to see outlined governance documentation, which talks about how your project leaderships works and what types of roles you have in your community for different types of contribution. We love talking about this, so if you have questions, get in touch.
License
Since the goal of the Open Source Collective is to support a Free and Open Source ecosystem, your project license is critically important. The list of Open Source Initiative Approved License List can serve as a gauge for valid open license criteria to the collective.
Other valid licensing guidelines include the following:
1.​Free Software Foundation License List​
2.​Debian Free Software Guidelines​
3.​Fedora Software License List​
4.​Open Source Hardware Association Statement of Principles​
GitHub and GitLab Validation
If you are an open source project with:
at least 100 stars,
And the above requirements
You will likely be immediately approved. We have a built-in process that automates validation using GitHub stars (more info).
If your project is on GitLab or hosted on an another platform, we will look for a generally active community. We are not platform specific in our requirements.
Other Validation
We can also consider your application on a case by case basis, using the following criteria:
Projects who don’t have their code repo on GitHub should show equivalent traction to the 100 stars requirement, whether through GitLab stars, evidence that the project is a dependency of other open source projects, or similar social validation.
User groups should have at least 50 members and be able to demonstrate a genuine history of community activity (forum, events, publications, etc).
Your project must be directly related to open source, not proprietary technology or any other topics.
If there’s a codebase at the heart of your project, it needs to be under an open source license. (See above.) Generally, we are looking for OSI-approved licenses. We're do not discriminate against dual-licensing, ethical licensing, and other open source licenses.
Meetups or small event groups should have organized at least 2 events previously, and be able to show a history of activity online and offline. As further evidence, you agree to send photo/video documentation of your first event after joining Open Source Collective.
Conferences and larger events may require specific risk assessment by our board. No expenses will be paid in advance of sufficient funds being available in the Collective budget (e.g. hiring a venue).
You understand that all agreements between your Collective and third parties, such as venues, contractors, speakers, etc, require explicit written permission and involvement of the OSC administrators. As fiscal sponsor, such agreements are legally between the third party and Open Source Collective.
Your project is not funded exclusively by a single LLC or other for-proft company. If you already have a fiscal host, please help us understand why you think Open Source Collective would be right for you.
My project doesn't fit, but it should
Get in touch by emailing [email protected]. We are interested in learning about why. However, our decisions are final.
Manual Verification
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Governance Requirements
License
GitHub and GitLab Validation
Other Validation
My project doesn't fit, but it should