LF Energy - Project Lifecycle

This lifecycle document is maintained by the LF Energy, and its purpose is to:

  • Describe the requirements for contributing a project to LF Energy;
  • Provide a clear process for the contribution of a project to LF Energy; and
  • Set milestones and requirements for different stages of a project’s development once accepted into LF Energy.

LF Energy may adopt or amend this document by votes of its Technical Advisory Council (“TAC”) and Governing Board.

Examples

  • New projects that are designed to extend one or more LF Energy projects with functionality or interoperability libraries.
  • Independent projects that fit within the LF Energy mission and provide the potential for a novel approach to existing functional areas (or are an attempt to meet an unfulfilled need).
  • Projects commissioned or sanctioned by LF Energy.
  • Any project that realistically intends to join LF Energy Incubating or Graduated Stages in the future and wishes to lay the foundations for that transition.

Stages

This document provides for five lifecycle stages for contributed projects (“Projects”):

Lifecycle Image

All projects must meet the Sandbox stage requirements. It is possible that some projects may be approved at the Incubation stage and pass a review for the Early Adoption and/or Graduated stage at the same time to advance directly to those stages.

Sandbox

Projects submitted to LF Energy at the Sandbox stage are intended to be the entry point for early-stage projects. Characteristics for projects at the Sandbox stage may be one or more of: :

  • Early-stage projects that the LF Energy TAC believes warrant experimentation.
  • New projects that are designed to extend one or more TAC projects with functionality or interoperability libraries.
  • Independent projects that fit the LF Energy mission/vision and provide the potential for a novel approach to existing functional areas (or are an attempt to meet an unfulfilled need).
  • Projects commissioned or sanctioned by LF Energy.
  • Any project that realistically intends to become an LF Energy Project and wishes to lay the foundations for that.

Requirements

To be accepted at the Sandbox stage, a project must:

  • Submit a completed Project Contribution Proposal to the TAC via the process outlined at Project Contribution Process .
  • Complete and approve the Technical Charter and agree to transfer any relevant trademarks to The Linux Foundation or its affiliate, LF Projects, LLC, and to assist in filing for any relevant unregistered ones.
  • Have a successful license scan with any critical issues remedied.
  • Provide administrator access to all project tools, such as its GitHub organization, collaboration and communication tools, and build/test infrastructure.

Approval Process

In conjunction with the LF staff and TAC voting representative, the project will be scheduled to be presented at an upcoming TAC meeting. This presentation should provide an overview of the project and its alignment with LF Energy, and speak to the information shared in the project contribution proposal. Voting will be done per the TAC voting policy.

Benefits

The Sandbox Stage benefits are outlined below.

  • Right to refer to the project as an LF Energy Sandbox Project, and use the LF Energy Sandbox Project logo in the project’s code repository ( subject to the LF Energy Branding Guidelines ).
  • Help to create the project’s artwork, website, and other required creative work.
  • LF Energy blog post or similar announcing the hosting of the project in the Foundation.
  • Neutral hosting of the project’s community and key assets (e.g., trademark, domain, etc.).
  • Access to the LF Energy collaboration infrastructure ( including GitHub, JIRA, Confluence, mailing lists, 1Password, and Slack ).
  • Participation in one or more SIGs, which will provide collaboration and networking opportunities with similar projects.
  • Ability to participate in events and other collaborative activities sponsored by LF Energy.
  • Regularly scheduled license scans of the project’s codebase with results reported to the project’s mailing list.
  • Use of the LFX platform, including LFX Insights and LFX Security, for managing project health and security status.

Sandbox Stage projects will provide a quarterly report and present an annual review to the primary SIG it is aligned with outlining its progress on completing the requirements for the Incubation Stage.

It’s expected that projects in the Sandbox Stage move to the Incubation Stage within one year. In the case of a Sandbox Stage project that is not renewed with LF Energy, the trademark and any other assets will be returned to the project maintainers or an organization they designate.

Incubation

Incubation projects are projects which the TAC believes are, or have the potential to be, important to the ecosystem of Projects or ecosystem as a whole. They may be early-stage projects just getting started, or they may be long-established projects with minimal resource needs. The Incubation stage provides a beneficial, neutral home for these projects in order to foster collaborative development and provide a path to deeper alignment with other LF Energy projects.

Acceptance Criteria

To be considered for the Incubation Stage, the project must meet the following requirements:

  • Have achieved and maintained an OpenSSF Best Practices Badge at the ‘Passing’ level.
  • Have an open and documented technical governance, including:
    • A README file in each code repository, welcoming new community members to the project and explaining why the project is useful and how to get started ( follow the guidelines at the README checklist to create an excellent README file ).
    • A GOVERNANCE file that documents the project’s technical governance ( more details here ).
    • All current Technical Steering Committee members specified in the ‘Technical Steering Committee (TSC)’ committee in LFX Project Control Center ( details on how this should be setup are here ).
    • A CODEOWNERS or COMMITTERS file to define individuals or teams that are responsible for code in a repository, as well as documenting current project owners and current and emeritus committers ( example here )
  • Documentation of the architecture (aka high-level design) of the software produced by the project (aligns with this OpenSSF Best Practices Silver badge requirement).
    • The project should work with the Archimate SIG to ensure the project’s functional architecture is built in the LF Energy ArchiMate tool.
  • A documented roadmap that describes what the project intends to do and not do for at least the next year (aligns with this OpenSSF Best Practices Silver badge requirement).
  • Community and contributor growth assessment using the data from LFX Insights. Specific metric that will be reviewed are.
    • Current number of contributors, committers, and different organizations contributing to the project.
    • Flow of commits / merged contributions
  • A credible plan for developing a thriving user community, particularly expanding the number of committers and contributors to the project.
  • An outline of the plan for the project to complete the requirements for the Early Adoption stage.

Approval Process

SIGs will review Sandbox Stage projects that are wishing to move to the Incubation Stage as part of their annual review or upon request of the project. The SIG will make a recommendation through it’s TAC Representative liaison to the TAC for the project to be consider for the Incubation Stage. The project will present a review of the project that contains an assessment of it’s completion of the Incubation Stage requirements in a TAC meeting.

The project must receive the affirmative majority vote of the TAC to become an Incubation Stage project.

Benefits

Incubation Stage projects receive a broad set of infrastructure and open-source advisement services to ensure the project can mature to the Early Adoption phase. In particular, Incubation projects are entitled to the following benefits in addition to those for Sandbox projects.

  • Right to refer to the project as an “LF Energy Project,” with the right, subject to applicable trademark usage guidelines, to display the “LF Energy Project” logo and mark on the project’s code repository.
  • Marketing, communication, and PR support which is limited to major announcements.
  • Ability to post guest blogs on the LF Energy website with project news and updates.
  • Events support and promotion, limited to LF Energy hosted events.
  • Access to Foundation staff who are eager to help and support the project.

Early Adoption

The Early Adoption stage is for projects that are operating as an open-source community and are seeing a growing and diverse number of contributors and users of the project.

Projects at the Early Adoption phase are focused on industry adoption and have completed the necessary steps for end-users to be able to consider these projects for future production deployments.

Acceptance Criteria

To be considered for the Early Adoption stage, the project must meet the following requirements:

  • Demonstrate growth in the project’s community, including
    • Growth in the number of commits to the project, number of project committers, and organizational diversity of contributions and committers.
    • Production or planned production use of the project by at least two independent end users which, in the TAC’s judgment, are of adequate quality and scope.
  • Technical Governance of the project is operational, as measured by:
  • Development of a growth plan, to be done in conjunction with their project mentor(s) at the TAC. This plan should address the following points:
    • Release plans for the next 18 months.
    • Target end-users.
    • Identification of any regulatory or standards body requirements for deployment, and plans for implementation.
    • Plans for growth of project contributors and committers to support the growth plan.
    • Identification of any infrastructure resources needed to fulfill the growth plan.

Since these metrics can vary significantly depending on the type, scope, and size of a project, the TAC has final judgment over the level of activity that is adequate to meet these criteria.

Approval Process

SIGs will review Incubation Stage projects that are wishing to move to the Early Adoption Stage as part of their annual review or upon request of the project. The SIG will make a recommendation through it’s TAC Representative liaison to the TAC for the project to be considered for the Early Adoption Stage. The project will present a review of the project that contains an assessment of it’s completion of the Early Adoption Stage requirements in a TAC meeting.

The project must receive the affirmative majority vote of the TAC, and subsequently the affirmative majority vote of the Governing Board to become an Incubation Stage project.

Benefits

The benefits for Early Adoption stage projects focus on ecosystem enablement. In particular, Early Adoption projects are entitled to the following benefits in addition to those benefits at the Incubation Stage.

  • An initial strategy meeting with the project leadership and the LF Energy staff to define the actions and activities to support the project’s growth plan.
  • More marketing, communication, and PR support, including major and minor announcements.
  • Events support and promotion, both at LF Energy hosted events and potentially other events ( pending funding approval ).
  • Support and funding for a CI/CD environment.
  • The ability for the project to develop a conformance program and training program to support downstream adoption.

Graduated Stage

The Graduated Stage is for projects that have reached their growth goals and are now on a sustaining cycle of development, maintenance, and long-term support. Graduated Stage projects are used commonly in enterprise production environments and have large, well-established project communities.

Acceptance Criteria

To graduate from Incubation or Early Adoption status, or for a new project to join with Graduated status, a project must meet the Early Adoption stage criteria plus:

  • Achievement of the OpenSSF Best Practices badge at the ‘Gold’ level.
  • Have fulfilled or are on track to complete the growth plan defined in the Early Adoption stage proposal.
  • Have a healthy number of contributions or committers from at least three organizations, with any single organization not composing more than 50% of the contributions or committers. Committers must be identified within the project in a COMMITTERS file.
  • Have a public list of project adopters for at least the primary repo (e.g., ADOPTERS.md or logos on the project website).

SIGs will review Incubation Stage projects that are wishing to move to the Early Adoption Stage as part of their annual review or upon request of the project. The SIG will make a recommendation through it’s TAC Representative liaison to the TAC for the project to be considered for the Early Adoption Stage. The project will present a review of the project that contains an assessment of it’s completion of the Early Adoption Stage requirements in a TAC meeting.

The project must receive the affirmative majority vote of the TAC, and subsequently the affirmative majority vote of the Governing Board to become an Incubation Stage project.

Benefits

Graduated Stage projects are considered “TAC Projects” as defined in the LF Energy Charter, with all the rights and responsibilities as defined in the LF Energy Charter. In particular, Graduated Stage projects are entitled to the following benefits in addition to those benefits at the Incubation and Early Adoption stages.

  • A voting representative from the project on the TAC.
  • Quarterly strategic planning meetings with the project leadership and the LF Energy staff to define the actions and activities to support the project.
  • Access to discretionary budget for supporting project-specific outreach and ecosystem development activities, subject to approval by the Governing Board.
  • Advanced marketing/communication/PR support that includes project promotion via blog posts, social media, and LF Energy website; support with white papers and posters, and any type of marketing collateral designated to promote the project.

Emeritus Stage

Emeritus projects are projects which the maintainers or the TAC feel have reached or are nearing end-of-life. Emeritus projects have contributed to the ecosystem, but are not necessarily recommended for modern development as there may be more actively maintained choices. LF Energy appreciates the contributions of these projects and their communities, and the role they have played in moving the ecosystem forward.

Projects in this stage are not in active development. Their maintainers may infrequently monitor their repositories, and may only push updates to address security issues, if at all. Emeritus projects should clearly state their status and what any user or contributor should expect in terms of response or support. If there is an alternative project the maintainers recommend, it should be listed as well. The foundation will continue to hold the IP and any trademarks and domains, but the project does not draw on foundation resources.

Acceptance Criteria

Projects may be granted Emeritus status via a 2/3 vote from the TAC and with approval from project ownership. In cases where there is a lack of project ownership, only a 2/3 vote from the TAC is required.

Benefits

Emeritus stage projects will have a long-term home for the project assets and code. Each Emeritus project will have a sponsor from the TAC to monitor any security or trademark concerns raised, and at the TAC’s discretion may address them. LF Energy will remove the promotion of Emeritus projects from its website and other promotional materials.

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