On 09. November 2023, the founding members Argonne National Laboratory, Enakta Labs, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Google Cloud, and Intel have established the DAOS Foundation to broaden the governance of the Distributed Asynchronous Object Storage (DAOS) open source project. See the LF Press Release for the full announcement.
The DAOS Foundation is organized as a directed fund project of The Linux Foundation (the “LF”). The purpose of the DAOS Foundation is to raise, budget and spend funds in support of the open source DAOS Project, which is now operating as a Series of LF Projects, LLC.
Community contributions to the DAOS Project are welcome, and do not require membership in the Linux Foundation or the DAOS Foundation.
Organisations that want to participate in the governance of the DAOS Project, or want to support the DAOS Project in general, are encouraged to join the DAOS Foundation. The available membership levels and instructions to join are described below.
Because the DAOS Foundation operates under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation, membership in the LF is a prerequisite to joining the DAOS Foundation.
Joining the Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation offers Platinum, Gold and Silver levels of corporate membership. Non-profit organisations, open source projects, and certain government entities can apply for LF Associate Membership, which is free of charge.
The following Linux Foundation fee structure is in place as of 09-Nov-2023:
| Linux Foundation Membership Level | Annual Fee |
| Platinum Membership | 500,000 USD |
| Gold Membership | 100,000 USD |
| Silver Membership | 5,000-20,000 USD |
| Associate Membership | 0 USD |
The membership fee for Silver Members depends on the number of employees of the organization, refer to the LF website for details. The LF Membership Benefits deck contains more information on the LF membership levels.
It is also possible to join the LF as an Individual Supporter (99 USD per year).
To check if your organization is already a member of the LF, refer to the LF Membership page or the LF Landscape site. The latter can be searched by many criteria, including the Organisation name.
To join the Linux Foundation, use the workflow at the LF Enrollment website with the project name tlf.
Joining the DAOS Foundation
Organisations that are interested to join the DAOS Foundation need to execute the DAOS Foundation Directed Fund Participation Agreement. This document includes the DAOS Foundation Charter (Effective 09-Nov-2023) which describes the organisation of the DAOS Foundation including its Governing Board.
Participation in the DAOS Project’s Technical Steering Committee (TSC) is governed by the TSC Charter, which is currently being finalized by the Governing Board.
The DAOS Foundations offers three levels of membership:
- Premier Membership.
Each Premier Member can appoint a voting member to the DAOS Foundation’s Governing Board, its Outreach Committee, and to any other committee that the DAOS Foundation may establish (including the TSC). - General Membership.
The group of all General Members annually elect up to three voting representatives to the DAOS Foundation’s Governing Board (depending on the number of General Members).
Each General Member can appoint a non-voting member to the DAOS Foundation’s Outreach Committee. - Associate Membership.
The Associate Members can participate in the activities of the DAOS Foundation, but have no seat on the *Governing Board* and no voting rights.
The following DAOS Foundation fee structure is in place as of 09-Nov-2023:
| DAOS Foundation Membership Level | Annual Fee |
| Premier Membership | 25,000 USD |
| Premier Membership for LF Associate Members | 15,000 USD |
| General Membership | 15,000 USD |
| General Membership for LF Associate Members | 6,000 USD |
| Associate Membership (only for LF Associate Members) | 0 USD |
To join the DAOS Foundation, use the workflow at the LF Enrollment website with the project name daos-fund.