HUBzero Foundation
The HUBzero Foundation is a community-based, non-profit organization that promotes the use of HUBzero and ensures ongoing sustainability of the core software.
What’s the purpose of the HUBzero Foundation?
To disseminate the HUBzero software, to promote widespread adoption, and to coordinate software contributions coming from the community.
How do we join the HUBzero Foundation?
Any academic institution, non-profit organization, or corporation can join the HUBzero Foundation after signing the participation agreement and paying dues according to the following schedule:
| Annual Budget/Revenue (all sources)* | Annual Participation Dues |
|---|---|
| Over $750M | $24,500 |
| $500M-$750M | $14,500 |
| $250M-$500M | $9,500 |
| Less than $250M | $4,500 |
*Schedule is based on the annual budget of non-profit organizations and the annual revenue of for-profit organizations.
Participants are encouraged to have representatives join regular meetings and engage in foundation activities, but there are no requirements for participation beyond paying the dues.
What do our dues pay for?
Participation dues are used to finance the operation of the HUBzero Foundation and dissemination of the HUBzero software. This includes support for the administrative staff that manage the finances, and for the technical staff that interacts with the community and integrates software into the core HUBzero release. The foundation also sponsors outreach activities, such as the annual HUBbub conference.
What are the benefits of being a participant?
- Read-only access to the latest code in the HUBzero repository. This repository contains new features and bug fixes well ahead of their official release in the open source distribution. Participants are not allowed to redistribute this code, but they may use it to improve the hubs that they own and operate.
- Participation of up to 3 representatives in regular technical committee meetings to review the latest HUBzero developments, to ask questions, and to give input to the development roadmap.
- Recognition as a “participant” on the hubzero.org web site and use of the “HUBzero Principal” logo on the participant’s web site. Organizations can use this status as a point of pride in proposals for funded research since it shows they have a closer relationship with HUBzero than others in the open source community.
What if we want out?
Participants can their membership at any time by giving 120 days written notice. Remaining dues for the yearly term, prorated on a monthly basis, will be returned to the participant’s organization.
Do we have to join the Foundation to use the HUBzero software?
No. HUBzero is available as free open source software, and anyone can use the software under the LGPL-3.0 license. However, participants in the foundation get access to software fixes and enhancements ahead of the open source community, and they have the ability to influence the vision for future development.
Who creates, supports, and maintains the HUBzero software?
HUBzero was created by a team at Purdue University with support from the National Science Foundation and Purdue internal funding. Ongoing development is supported primarily from sponsored research projects, which fund both new development and the operation of individual hubs. The HUBzero user community can contribute bug fixes, language translation files, new components, and other enhancements. The Purdue team handles the integration of new features into the HUBzero open source release.
Who determines the HUBzero Software Roadmap?
The foundation depends on contributions from sponsored research projects that are adapting HUBzero to support new communities. The foundation coordinates those contributions with the needs of the community by establishing a vision for the evolution of the platform. Participants give input to guide that vision and therefore help to establish a roadmap of community needs. The Purdue team works to integrate contributions, giving priority to the needs expressed by the participants and captured in the collective vision.
Who owns the copyright for the HUBzero software?
The HUBzero software is copyrighted by the HUBzero Foundation, LLC, and managed by the HUBzero development team at Purdue University.
Who runs the HUBzero Foundation?
The HUBzero Foundation is managed by Purdue University as the lead institution. Any organization that joins the HUBzero Foundation as a “participant” has input rights into the operation of the foundation.
How do we contribute software to HUBzero?
The HUBzero Foundation will establish a Component Marketplace on the hubzero.org site, where users can post software contributions to share with the community. Such contributions will be owned, licensed, and maintained by their original author; the HUBzero Foundation will merely facilitate sharing and reuse. Anyone will be allowed to post such components in the marketplace, and anyone will be able to post ratings and reviews to help other users judge the quality of posted components.
The HUBzero Foundation will also establish an upload area for bug fixes and core patches. Such contributions will be reviewed by the HUBzero development team at Purdue, and if accepted, they will become part of the HUBzero core distribution. When contributions are offered to the HUBzero Foundation, the copyright for the software must be reassigned to the HUBzero Foundation so that the changes can be managed as an indistinguishable part of the core distribution. Contributors must fill out and submit this form before their contributions can be accepted.
Do all contributions become part of the core HUBzero release?
No. HUBzero is based on a modular Model-View-Controller architecture, so components can be posted in the HUBzero marketplace or on other web sites to share with the community—without becoming part of the HUBzero core distribution. When changes are made to files in the HUBzero core distribution, however, those changes are hard to maintain. It is easier if such patches are contributed and maintained as part of the core. The copyright for such patches must be reassigned to the HUBzero Foundation, and after being reviewed and accepted by the Purdue team, they can become a standard part of the HUBzero core distribution.
Are there standards for HUBzero software contributions?
The HUBzero Foundation will establish guidelines for all components in the marketplace and for core contributions. Marketplace components that don’t adhere to the guidelines are unlikely to get good ratings and may be rejected entirely. Core patches should also adhere to the guidelines, but they are always reviewed by the Purdue team before being incorporated and may be tweaked or rewritten as needed during the inclusion process.
What if we don’t want to contribute software to HUBzero?
The terms of the open source license do not require that you contribute any new features, tools, or components to the HUBzero project. You are allowed to treat HUBzero as a “library” and create your own simulation tools, middleware changes, and web components on top of it. We hope that you’ll choose to post such improvements in the marketplace or donate them to the HUBzero Foundation, but your intellectual property is yours to keep, and you are not required to make any such donations.
However, if you make a change to any of the existing core distribution files and subsequently redistribute your derived work, the terms of the LGPL 3.0 license say that you must post your code as open source under the same license terms. In other words, if you modify and redistribute the HUBzero core, you must post your code for everyone else to see. You may choose to post the code on your own web site, but we encourage people to submit such changes back to the hubzero.org site, so they can be considered for integration into the core. If you’ve fixed a bug, we may as well incorporate that fix for everyone else and maintain the HUBzero core as one consistent software package.