Hi Justin, Regarding the distribution concerns you raised, I apologize that it wasn't initially clear what steps the podling needed to take. My understanding was that the project was using the "create release" button on GitHub; however, since the podling follows standard distribution practices via dist.apache.org, we can resolve these issues quickly.
Regarding vendor neutrality and trademarking, those are excellent points. I believe these will be relatively straightforward to address. In my experience working with the PPMC members, even those with various corporate affiliations act as individuals who are dedicated to advancing the project. I am confident the PPMC members will provide more specific details regarding the roster. Regards, JB On Mon, May 25, 2026 at 10:27 AM Justin Mclean <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > The project looks in good shape as a graduation candidate, but I think we > have some issues here. Fuss was recently mentioned in [1], and it appears > the mentors/PPMC took no action, which is itself a concern. > > So your download page: > • No closer.lua / [preferred] links for release artifacts. The page is > serving downloads but not routing through the ASF mirror network - this > MUST be done. Is there a reason the project is not following policy here? > • Some checksum and signature links do not use > https://downloads.apache.org/. > • No KEYS link pointing to https://downloads.apache.org/ was found. > • No visible download verification instructions on the page. > > Docker Hub - The Docker Hub description does not include a visible > incubation disclaimer text. > > Docker Hub: fluss/fluss -- needs attention - misuse of ASF trademarks. > > Maven Central - The POM descriptions don't include incubation disclaimer > text. > > There are also some serious 3rd party branding concerns: > > Ververica (the commercial company behind Apache Flink, part of Alibaba) is > the biggest source of potential branding issues. The blog posts and > announcements generally use "Apache Fluss™ (incubating)" correctly, with a > TM symbol, which is good. > > The Ververica documentation page [1] is titled simply "Fluss" with no > "Apache" prefix throughout, which doesn't meet the ASF requirement to use > "Apache Fluss" on first and prominent references. It also misses a > trademark statement. The blog tag page uses "Fluss" as a category tag > alongside "Apache Flink”, so it's inconsistently treated: Flink gets the > "Apache” prefix, but "Fluss" doesn't. > > The Alibaba Cloud community blog has posts mixing pre-donation "Fluss" > references with post-donation "Apache Fluss (Incubating)” references. This > could create confusion about the brand's ownership. Some post-incubator > articles are also incorrect, e.g. https://www.alibabacloud.com/blog/602412 > > Alibaba Cloud has just released a managed service for Apache Fluss. I am > curious to know whether that follows the ASF's trademark and branding > policies. > > I also have a concern about vendor neutrality. The project originated > entirely within Alibaba Cloud, and Ververica is an Alibaba subsidiary, so > they're one corporate family. Of the 14 proposed PMC members, I can see > that several are Alibaba Cloud or Ververica employees. Can you provide an > explicit company breakdown of all 14 PMC members, excluding mentors, > counting Alibaba and Ververica as a single entity? While the figures of 8+ > companies and 44 unique committers are encouraging, I think it would be > helpful to have a bit more detail here. > > Kind Regards, > Justin > > 1. https://lists.apache.org/thread/xnb4lhjk82y3c0zd0f622ljgjrpdlydf > 2. https://docs.ververica.com/introduction/about-ecosystem/fluss/ > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > >
