This Apache® Project Website Branding Policy defines how Apache projects must refer to trademarks and requires a few specific elements on websites. The site map of trademark resources is also helpful.

Apache Project Website Branding Policy¶

This document defines the branding and trademark policies for how Apache® projects must display certain elements on their websites, and treat all trademarks - Apache's and those of other organizations - appropriately. The PMC Branding Responsibilities also explains how PMC members must manage their project's brands in other ways.

Contents

Project Website And URL Policy: Use *.apache.org¶

Apache projects must host official website content on an apache.org domain. This includes content overseen by the project's PMC (including the top level website, download pages, and wikis), ensures that the ASF infrastructure team can maintain the services, and informs users that the content is official and comes from the ASF and the project's PMC, and not from a third party.
The homepage for any ProjectName must be served from http[s]://ProjectName.apache.org, to ensure consistent branding and to allow for automatically generated links (like https://projects.apache.org). All primary links to the project as a whole must point directly to the homepage, and not to alternative sites or domains.
Projects are free to use any infrastructure-supported technology to manage and deploy their websites, and are free to use any look and feel in its design. In the future, we may ask projects to add a specific style or graphical element (from a choice of several variants) for their link back to www.apache.org that will help give users a better sense of the connection between all Apache projects.
New communities joining the Apache Incubator which have a long open-source development history with a large userbase should read about limitations on using non-apache.org domains.

Project Naming Policy¶

The following guidelines are providing to help podlings and projects choose an appropriate name:

"Apache" is our main trademark, or "house mark", for our overall software development process. All Apache projects and podlings share it.
All top level projects (TLPs) must use the format Apache Foo for their branding. However, people in informal conversation will refer to your project as just "Foo", so choose the name carefully.
Use internet search tools to be sure that there is no "similar" product, i.e. software for a specific purpose.
When people conduct an internet search after hearing about an ASF project, they will use some technical terms and a name. We want to appear near the top of the search results and not get confused with some other project in the same technical space.
Avoiding search-results confusion is important for another reason. Apache projects are often very quickly highly ranked. An Apache project with a similar name to another application in the same technical space may quickly come to dominate searches in that space. If someone else holds a related trademark, this may lead to a legal dispute. As a non-profit organization, the ASF and Apache projects have no business conflicting with an existing trademark for software products or related services.
Even if a product name cannot be found via a search, if you are aware that it, or one very like it, is in use for a similar product then we cannot use it.
You may want to choose a name that is easy to remember, is not too long, and is not difficult to spell.
Be culturally sensitive and avoid names that might offend. In particular, names with Native American connections will not be approved.
Consider using functional names, especially for products of existing projects, e.g. for an "Apache Foo" project, the product name "Apache Foo Pipelines".
Be good citizens. Do unto others as you would expect that they should do unto you. For example, treat the product names of others with respect: do not try a twist that is close to the name of a similar product.
Choose a sensible name early in the product's development, before you develop mailing lists, package names, logos, and other marketing collateral. Better to spend time now - your project will not want to change its product's name later.
See this as an important marketing opportunity, rather than a bother.
By carefully validating the uniqueness of our product and project names and clearly establishing first use in the field, we reduce the chances of future confusion.

Project Branding And Descriptions Policy¶

The primary branding for any project or product name must be in the form of "Apache Projectname". This ensures that users associate the project or product with the ASF as a whole, and that third parties cannot easily misuse our project names. The first and most prominent references to a project or product on every page, and uses in page titles or headers, must use the "Apache Projectname" form of the name. Other references may use either "Apache Projectname" or "Projectname" as appropriate for the context.
Every product homepage and any overview download page for the product must include a prominent reference to the product as "Apache Foo software", and must include a brief, one-sentence description of the purpose and function of the software product itself. For example:

The Apache Xerces XML parsing library software provides a complete implementation of the XML 1.0 parsing specification, and is easily configurable and compliant with current standards.

This description is useful for new readers to your page, and helps the ASF maintain an overall list of trademarks for our software products. A trademark is only important when associated with a specific kind of goods: in our case with the actual downloadable software products that the ASF and our PMCs provide.

Note that it's helpful to share the proposed sample description with trademarks@, to ensure it's a proper trademark goods description. For example, in the past Apache Tomcat's website said it was an "implementation" and a "collaboration", not a product with functionality. Apache SpamAssassin's website described itself as a "project" and a "version" and otherwise referred to the software as "it". Neither of these contained a proper trademark goods description (i.e. computer software that performs a function). While this trademark description style may sometimes seem clumsy in technical documentation, it is a critical way that we can enforce our trademarks. It only needs to be done in one prominent place on the website for each project.

Always present the project and product names in a consistent casing and as an adjective, and never as a noun or verb, which is how any trademark should be used. This is important to do on your project homepage and on the download page; at other places on the website or in technical product documentation it's not required.
We consider the names of all projects, subprojects, and products to be trademarks of the ASF. While not all bare product names (i.e. just "Foo") may be exclusive trademarks of the ASF, all names in the form of "Apache Foo" should be exclusive to the ASF.

Terminology: a project or subproject is a community and any associated products that are managed by a PMC; the same brand guidelines apply to both. A product is a specific, downloadable software product that our users might want to use in some way. There are a few specific requirements for product branding. Note that most projects and subprojects release a product with the same name (i.e. the Apache Foo project releases a software product called Apache Foo).

Whatever main navigation system your project website uses, it must feature certain text links back to key pages on the main www.apache.org website. These links can appear in whatever main navigation system your site uses on all top level pages for the project or subproject.

"License" should link to: www.apache.org/licenses/
"Sponsorship" or "Donate" should link to: www.apache.org/foundation/sponsorship.html
"Sponsors", "Thanks" or "Thanks to our Sponsors" should link to: www.apache.org/foundation/thanks.html or www.apache.org/foundation/sponsors.html
"Security" should link to either to a project-specific page detailing how users may securely report potential vulnerabilities, or to the main www.apache.org/security/ page
"Privacy" should link to: privacy.apache.org/policies/privacy-policy-public.html
All projects must feature some prominent link back to the main ASF homepage at www.apache.org. This may either be a featured link in your main navigation system or a text link in your Main homepage text. A best practice is to include a short sentence or paragraph on the homepage noting that this project is an Apache project, and is part of a larger community of developers and users.

If you have suggestions for the texts for links pointing back to the main ASF pages that better fit with your project's web presence, please let trademarks@ know.

Including "Thanks" links to third parties - if your project typically has companies that donate software licenses or support to project committers, please follow the Corporate Recognition Guidelines. It is important to ensure any such pages are presented publicly in a manner that is distinctly different from material related to the formal Sponsorship program.

https or http?¶

Projects are free to use http, https or protocol relative links for the mandatory links required by the website navigation links policy.

We recommend, but do not require, that projects:

Use https for links where the target automatically switches to https when http is used
Use protocol relative links for all other targets

Trademark Attributions Policy¶

All project or product homepages must feature a prominent trademark attribution of all applicable Apache trademarks. Other project pages should feature attributions of any marks displayed thereon. For example:

Apache Foo, Foo, Apache, the Apache feather logo, and the Apache Foo project logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of The Apache Software Foundation in the United States and other countries.

This may appear in page footers or in any other appropriate location.

At the top of each project or product homepage, and on the top banner of each page where the project name appears, you should include the appropriate ™ or ® symbol next to the first main occurrence of the "Apache Foo" project name, both in header/title text and at the name's first appearance in running text. This highlights our trademark claim and emphasizes its importance to us.
You must give proper attribution to any other organization's trademarks that your website refers to. All non-ASF trademarks must be attributed to their owners when displayed on ASF project websites. You may do this specifically for each referred mark, or generically; it is typically done in the footer of a webpage. For a specific example:

FooBar and the FooBar logo are trademarks of Yoyodyne, Inc.

To provide a generic trademark attribution (to cover cases where a large number of marks are used, or in case we're not sure which words are other organizations' marks), you can add instead:

All other marks mentioned may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Logos and Graphics Policy¶

Logos are important to recognize as trademarks as well. For the project's official logo (if it has one, and especially if it uses the ASF feather), ensure that it includes a small "TM" symbol in the graphic or immediately adjacent to it. For pages that include the project logo on them, ensure you mention "... and the Project logo are trademarks..." in the attribution.
Projects must not use the Apache feather in their logo. For details on the proper Apache visual identity and feather graphics, please work with press@.

Powered By... Logos¶

We encourage projects to create a variation of their main logo as a "Powered By..." or " Project Inside" logo. Third parties may use this logo to denote that they build products or services using the associated product. While we must ensure that the main product logo is associated with the actual product that the Apache project provides, we allow third parties to more broadly use "Powered by..." logos in conjunction with their own products.

Project Metadata¶

All projects must provide a DOAP - Description Of A Project - file or entry for both the project itself and all product releases that they make - OR otherwise provide structured data such that the projects.apache.org website can find it. Follow the guidelines at to make a DOAP file and register it. This will allow the ASF to best showcase all of its projects and products in a variety of ways.

Update Apache Trademark Lists, briefly describing each software product. In the future, we hope to generate this list from DOAP files of all products.

Other Trademark Requirements¶

If your project has subprojects that are software-language-specific, be sure to name them appropriately. For example, "Apache Xerces Perl" is not appropriate, since it improperly uses the trademark "Perl". A better project name would be "Apache Xerces for Perl". The ASF could allow a third party named FooBar to ship a software product called "FooBar Software for Apache Xerces" or "BarFoo Services for Apache Xerces". The ASF would not allow Foobar to use "FooBar Xerces" or "BarFoo Xerces" forms of a name, since Xerces is our trademark. The same applies to the use of the word "Perl" (which is a trademark of The Perl Foundation ).

Registered Trademarks If a PMC would like to request legal registration of their project's trademarks, follow the REGREQUEST instructions.

Project-Related Non-apache.org Domain Names¶

To ensure consistent branding and assure users that content is official and from the ASF and our PMCs, all existing projects must host all content managed by the PMC on the ProjectName.apache.org domain.

IMPORTANT: Projects may not use domain names owned by third parties to host official project content. The content must be migrated, or the domain registration must be transferred to the ASF.

If a new community coming to the Apache Incubator has a long history of using an existing domain name, and has a significant userbase, the podling may request to keep these names for limited uses once the podling graduates to TLP.

Steps for podlings with non-apache.org domains

During Incubation, the PPMC must work with Apache Infrastructure to formally transfer any needed domain name registrations to the ASF. As a non-profit, the ASF expects that these will be donated.
Create an INFRA Jira ticket to officially request that the ASF take over ownership of the donated domain namep.
The PPMC should send their plan of how they intend to use their non-apache.org domains to Brand Management/trademarks@ for approval.
During Incubation, the PPMC must transition all development-oriented information and the primary project homepage to the official ProjectName.apache.org homepage. This is required before a project may graduate.

Factors to consider for use of non-apache.org domains

The primary development homepage, which includes all the common things that a potential contributor would need to find out about before deciding whether to join the project, must be hosted at ProjectName.apache.org.
Major links promoting the project to likely contributors should always point to ProjectName.apache.org resources directly, and not to non-apache.org domains.
In most cases, non-apache.org domains should simply redirect to some place within the ProjectName.apache.org/path domain, unless the podling has each of these really good reasons to use a non-apache.org domain:

-- The domain was very well-known by the user and contributor communities long before the project came to the ASF.

-- The domain is only used to provide end user level information.

-- The domain is Apache branded in appearance just as a.o sites are, and offers clear and prominent links directly to project.a.o/path for all likely contributor topics, like downloads, API docs, and mailing lists.

Examples of non-apache.org domain approvals

These are exceptions, and are not the case for the majority of new projects:

openoffice.org is a user-facing portal with a huge history and millions of users on it. Continuing that as a user portal is important to serve the existing non-technical users.
groovy-lang.org is long-running, user-facing portal. This domain is still used as an end-user portal with information about the Groovy language. Developer information (for contributors to the Groovy codebase), discussions, and downloads are all on the expected groovy.apache.org website.

Project Branding Checklist¶

All Apache top level projects should comply fully with these guidelines. Any projects which are not compliant must work with trademarks@ to ensure that they become compliant. All Incubator podlings must either comply with all requirements before graduation, or have a specific and short-term action plan to complete compliance soon after graduation (in case there are technical issues with website updates, etc.).

Contact trademarks@ directly with branding questions - there is no longer any need to include this in your board reports.

Project Branding Report Checklist

Project Website Basics : homepage is project.apache.org
Project Naming And Descriptions : use proper Apache forms, describe product, etc.
Website Navigation Links : navbar links included, link to www.apache.org included
Trademark Attributions : attribution for all ASF marks included in footers, etc.
Logos and Graphics : include TM, use consistent product logo on your site
Project Metadata : DOAP file checked in and up to date
Read PMC Branding Responsibilities

Rationale¶

This policy helps to promote and improve the image of all projects that are part of the ASF, to show that all Apache® projects are part of the "community of developers and users" that we believe is an important factor in our success. While each of our projects manages their own affairs within the broad guidelines of the Apache Way, a consistent public branding and web presence that ties all of our projects together with the well-known www.apache.org homepage benefits all of us by ensuring that end users and future contributors know how to find official project resources.

Similarly, displaying Apache names and logos properly on our project pages helps maintain our legal rights to the trademarks they embody. Using the appropriate ™ and ® symbols, and using trademarks properly to refer to our actual software products, are key ways that we tell the world (and lawyers) that these trademarks are valuable to us.

Questions? Apache committers with questions can contact the Trademarks Committee. The formal Trademark Policy explains how other organizations should refer to Apache project trademarks and logos. A list of ASF trademarks and guidelines for reporting potential misuses of trademarks are also available.

Incubator Podlings in the Apache Incubator have their own detailed Podling branding guidelines. Direct questions about these guidelines to the general@incubator list. Podlings must comply with all Project Branding Requirements before graduation to a top level project.

Important Note¶

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 or services.

This document is aimed at the ASF's internal community and the PMCs that manage our projects, and does not override or replace our formal Trademark Policy. If you have a question that is not specifically answered here or that you'd like further clarification on, please contact us. Further resources about trademark law and policy are also available.