Community-led development "The Apache Way"
This Third Party Event Branding Policy defines requirements for third parties using Apache® marks in relation to events.
This document defines the branding policy for events run by third parties that use Apache marks in the name or primary branding of the event. For more information on use of Apache® marks in other areas, please see our formal Trademark Policy and site map of resources.
See Also: Trademark Resources Site Map.
The use of Apache marks in any events run by third parties must be approved by VP, Brand Management or the VP of the relevant Apache project. This includes conferences, meetups, gettogethers, and any other sorts of events. Events must comply with this policy and have permission to use Apache marks in the name of the event or in any of the primary branding, including the domain name, for the event.
Event branding and event organizers may not claim to be the organizers or sole or exclusive leaders of any Apache project, nor claim to be the sole, exclusive, or primary source of information for any Apache project.
Simply presenting a talk on an Apache project requires no approval, and is very much encouraged! The Community Development Project may be able to help with this. Approval is required when the event name or primary branding features Apache marks. Thus, giving a talk on Apache Foo at your local technology get-together requires no approval, while organising "An evening with Apache Foo" as an event open to the public does require approval.
Conferences organised by third parties which use Apache marks are required to have an Anti-Harassment Policy. This policy must either be identical to the ASF Anti-Harassment Policy or be an alternative approved by the ASF.
At least a portion of any training and/or technical presentations at events must be applicable to the Apache product(s) being referenced. For example, an event about Apache Tomcat must include some sessions or lessons that attendees can apply to an actual Apache Tomcat download directly - not just lessons that apply to some third party product(s) built atop of or related to Apache Tomcat.
Event organizers must allow a PMC representative from any project whose marks are used, or alternately a member from the Community Development, to sit on their Selection Committee. The PMC or Community Development representative will wear their Apache "hat", to help ensure that these guidelines are followed. PMC representatives from Apache must be associated with at least two different organizations, so as to avoid the appearance of the event being beholden to one organization.
In particular, PMC representatives shall work to ensure that events with an open CFP or talk selection process works in a fair and unbiased manner, based on technical merit of talks selected. For events that have pre-selected talks or more limited technical content, PMC representatives can ensure that sufficient open educational content is applicable to the actual Apache product(s) in question, and that the content is not solely about a third party product.
The first and most prominent reference to any Apache product on every page or major section of a page, both in titles and in body text, must use the full name of the project, for example "Apache Tomcat". Professionally produced events are expected to fully comply with our Apache Product Name Usage Guide.
The event's main landing page, as well as any "About" or "Overview" page, must include a prominent paragraph in the body content or sidebar (i.e. not only in the footer content) that includes a brief description of the appropriate Apache project - as an independent project, not just a technology. This must also include a link back to the Apache project's home page, linked from the "Apache Tomcat" wording.
Event pages must feature prominent attributions of all Apache marks. For example:
Apache Tomcat, Tomcat and Apache are either registered trademarks or trademarks of the Apache Software Foundation in the United States and/or other countries, and are used with permission. The Apache Software Foundation has no affiliation with and does not endorse, or review the materials provided at this event, which is managed by BigCo.
This may appear in page footers or in any other appropriate location. The "Apache Software Foundation" text should link to http://www.apache.org/ and the "used with permission" should link to this Event Branding Requirements page.
You must have permission from a VP of the ASF to use the "used with permission" text.
Events may not normally use any Apache logos or graphics as part of their primary event branding. Apache product logos may only be used to refer to the Apache products or projects themselves, and must be clearly set off from any of the events' own branding and logos.
If your event wishes to use an Apache project logo within your event branding, you must work with VP, Brand to explicitly grant trademark and goodwill rights for the brand and event logo to the ASF.
Event branding may not include the Apache feather in any way. The only use of the bare Apache feather on event materials allowed is to provide a single link to http://www.apache.org/ as a reference to The Apache Software Foundation, typically as a Community Partner or to otherwise refer to Apache as a whole.
As a non-profit organization, the ASF always appreciates donations. Community led events are not required to provide donations. Third party commercial events are welcome to provide a portion of profits as a donation to the ASF.
The primary website and other collateral for events must provide The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) with the option to have Apache listed as a Community Partner, Sponsor, or other appropriate category within the event's branding style.
This is intended to ensure that the ASF as a whole has a formal recognition by the event organizers that is clear and specific to event attendees and others. ASF or project representatives can will determine the appropriate text blurb, logo, and link back to the ASF website for this recognition, and will let you know if Apache should be listed or not for each event. Note that listings for Community Partner or the like are for the Apache Software Foundation as a whole, and are not typically listed for an individual Apache project.
The Apache Community Development Committee pro-actively seeks to avoid conflicts between Apache-related technology conferences geographically, and between conferences on the same Apache project topics internationally, to ensure that individual conferences are successful and that they are not competing for participation by the same limited collection of experts on individual Apache technologies.
The Apache Software Foundation will not approve the use of Apache trademarks in conjunction with competing conferences that would adversely affect each event's ability to put on content (i.e. get speakers) and fulfill the goals of having a rich community event with educational content about Apache projects.
Small events (under 250 expected attendees), and free or purely community run (non-corporate & non-profit) events might be considered competing only with other events that are about the same Apache project or related Apache projects.
Large events (over 250 expected attendees) may be considered competing with other events even in other Apache project areas, or compared with the ASF's own ApacheCon conferences.
An "Announced Event" means an event called "ApacheCon" or "Apache Roadshow" and listed on https://events.apache.org/.
The Apache Software Foundation will not approve the use of Apache trademarks where a date conflict exists with an Announced Event. A date conflict is defined as:
A Proposed Announced Event (ie, an event that wishes to become an Announced Event, as defined above) conflicts if it is within 60 days in the same geographical area (ie, North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia/Pacific) and 30 days within a different geographical area.
A third-party event, or a Project Event (ie, an Apache Foo event run by the Apache Foo PMC) is in conflict if it is within 6 weeks in the same geographical area, or 3 weeks in a different geographical area.
In order to ensure that your use of the marks requested can be approved, contact us with early notice of your intended timeframe and location to verify no conflicts, and then follow up with the specific dates and venue once scheduled for final approval and to be placed on the calendar.
The Apache Community Development committee attempts to track all relevant upcoming conference dates for the purpose of scheduling and conflict avoidance. We publish all conferences run by the ASF, and those approved to make use of ASF marks in our calendar. Submitting advance notice of your proposed event's intended dates and prompt confirmation of your scheduled conference dates to dev@community.apache.org will ensure this calendar is up to date and also avoids conflicts with related, relevant conferences of the Apache Software Foundation, its partners, and the rest of the industry. Submission to dev@community is not related to getting trademark permissions.
Third party events may not use either the "Apache" nor the "ApacheCon" names, nor confusingly similar names, as any part of their primary branding. These names are reserved exclusively for the ASF and its own authorized conferences, or for specific PMC-run events that are approved by the Foundation.
For more information about Apache marks, please see our formal Trademark Policy and our site map of Trademark resources.
Approval to use an Apache marks for your conference must be obtained in writing from the foundation. If you have not received approval from VP, Brand or that Apache project's VP, then you do not have permission!
Make sure you've done all this and have a mockup ready to show us before asking. If further information or changes are required, a representative from the Brand Management or the Apache project in question will contact you. A decision will typically be made within two weeks of all information being available, and all attributions being present. Assuming the affected PMCs have approved your event through appropriate consensus based methods and no objection from VP Trademarks or their representative has been received you may proceed with your event as planned. However, please note that only explicit approval should be considered authoritative. If in doubt please request explicit approval.
Approval for events is given on a case by case basis and must be requested for each events. If you plan to repeat your event, or if you are planning recurring for-profit events, you can save time in the future by contacting us to negotiate a detailed agreement with the ASF.
Nothing in this ASF policy statement shall be interpreted to allow any third party to claim any association with the Apache Software Foundation or any of its projects or to imply any approval or support by ASF for any third party products, services, or events.
This is version 1.5 of this Apache policy document, published in December 2019. Material changes will be marked with a new version number.
v1.1 Update to have permissions by VP, Brand or designee
v1.2 Clarify blackout dates, event sizes, and About Apache X text; update version number
v1.3 Update to v1.3; clarify Apache Projectname usage; About paragraph; event size and date blackouts; appropriate Apache project logo usage
v1.4 Update to v1.4; require an anti-harassment policy for 3rd party events
v1.5 Update to v1.5; add more detail regarding conflicting event dates