Local community domains

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This page gives some informal guidance on how Fedora communities in different locales can establish Internet domains with the word "Fedora" in them. The Fedora trademark guidelines have specific requirements that must be met for setting up these domains, in order to preserve the value of the Fedora trademarks. The Fedora trademarks are owned by Red Hat worldwide, and apply to all Internet domains regardless of their country of origin or registrar.

Summary

• We recommend that local communities use a *.fedoracommunity.org domain name supplied by the Fedora Project, along with their own hosting.
• To establish any other domain with the word Fedora in its domain name, you must have a trademark license agreement with Red Hat.
• Refer to the sections below for more information.

Buying a separate domain

Not every local community requires a local domain. Many local communities can function perfectly well in the existing Fedora Project domain(s). Fedora already offers the ability for communities to provide complete translations for our main web site and other pages. The Fedora Project Wiki also has translation functionality.

In addition, splitting off a domain has the tendency to keep local community members from getting up to date information that flows on the official Fedora channels. It multiplies the number of areas a community member needs to monitor and thus takes away from the time they could otherwise spend on contribution directly to Fedora.

However, there are some good reasons for local domains to exist, and the Fedora Project realizes the importance of enabling the community to grow Fedora in localities around the world. Therefore we have a few options available to people who want to set up a domain to support this effort.

Hosting not provided by the Fedora Project
Due to a number of constraints, the Fedora Project cannot provide hosting for local community web sites. Many companies offer very affordable plans for hosting, and there are also many groups and entities that offer hosting to community groups at very low or zero cost.

Other considerations

Trademark guidelines

In all cases, community domains must adhere to the Fedora trademark guidelines, and if they choose to display a Fedora logo consistent with those guidelines, they must also adhere to the Fedora logo usage guidelines.

National top-level-domains

The Fedora Project tends to discourage the use of fedoraproject.XX or fedoraproject.org.XX domains. One of the primary reasons for establishing local community domains is to clearly identify that a community owns and is responsible for the content at that domain. Using the name fedoraproject in a domain reduces that clarity and could cause significant legal risks for our primary sponsor in some cases. We encourage domains to use a XX.fedoracommunity.org domain wherever possible, or at least a different domain name using fedora under a trademark license agreement as required in the Fedora trademark guidelines.

Mailing lists and email

To establish a mailing list for a local community, simply create a ticket in the Fedora Infrastructure issue tracking system. Generally, this list will be in the form of XX-community@lists.fedoraproject.org.

If you are setting up web applications on your hosts and need to use email addresses for messages, you may use username@fedoraproject.org wherever applicable. Hosts can be set to use the fedoraproject.org mail servers.

For additional assistance, contact the Fedora Infrastructure team.

Options

There are essentially two options open to local communities who want to purchase a domain with the word "Fedora" in the name for purposes of Fedora community work.

Pre-purchased domain

Preferred option
This option is preferable in most instances, because of the benefits listed below.

The Fedora Project or Red Hat can provide a subdomain in the *.fedoracommunity.org domain, and arrange for it to point to the fedoraproject.org domain name servers. Since we control those name servers, it is very easy for the Infrastructure team to then direct host queries to the appropriate community server(s).

Benefits:	Drawbacks:
Red Hat pays for registration and maintenance of the domain name. Domain purchases or transfers initiated quickly and maintained by Iron Mountain. Encourages a standard for domain names where practical. Red Hat automatically renews domains regularly. Easiest way to preserve Fedora trademark coherence around the world since Red Hat technically owns the domain.	Local community does not own the domain name itself, although it controls the domain content.

Reserved Names

• .fedoracommunity.org two letter codes are reserved for official ISO-3166 country codes. Longer subdomains can be used for other purposes.

To use this option:

• If you are to be responsible for the hosts for the community site, ensure your Fedora Account System account is up to date. If someone else is to be responsible, make sure you have their name and complete contact information available.
• File a ticket with the Fedora Council. Use the component "trademarks" and mention Community domain request. Indicate whether you or someone else is to be responsible for the hosts. Do not post any personal information in the email. Please do indicate the following, though:
  • Names of the team that will maintain the site, and their current roles in the Fedora community
  • Services that will be offered through the new domain
  • An IP address or URL where the Council look at the content and presentation, and verify that the trademark guidelines are being consistently applied
• The Fedora Council will respond as quickly as possible, and ask for any further information needed.
• The Fedora Council will take a rapid "consensus vote."
  • The consensus vote essentially answers the question, "Can the community set up this domain?"
  • In most cases, it's expected the Council will answer "Yes."
• A Council member will file a ticket in the Fedora Infrastructure issue tracker, and send you a link.
• After review, you will be assigned an appropriate subdomain and contacted for required host information. The Infrastructure team will ask for IP addresses, and will assign A, AAAA, and TXT records as needed.

Note that we cannot guarantee availability of a domain other than *.fedoracommunity.org, nor that we will provide more than one domain for a particular community group. Currently we do not plan to issue records other than those listed in the process above (e.g. MX for mail servers). The purpose of additional local community domains is to allow domains to set up web sites and forums in a locale's language, but to keep that community cohesive with the rest of the Fedora community.

Self-purchased domain

Communities may purchase their own domains, but only after completing a trademark license agreement from Red Hat, pursuant to the trademark guidelines.

Benefits:

Drawbacks:

Local community owns the domain name as well as the content.

Individual community leader must go through required paperwork for a trademark license agreement, and be legally responsible for the domain. Delay of a few days to a few weeks, depending on locale. Community leader(s) must deal with local Internet domain regulating agency. Local community must pay all fees and costs for the domain registration. Local community must remember to renew the domain regularly.

To use this option, file a ticket with the Fedora Council with your request, before you purchase any domain. The Fedora Council will respond as quickly as possible, consider the request, and arrange for a trademark license agreement as appropriate:

• If you are to be responsible for the hosts for the community site, ensure your Fedora Account System account is up to date. If someone else is to be responsible, make sure you have their name and complete contact information available.
• File a ticket with the Fedora Council. Use the component Trademarks and mention Community domain request. Indicate whether you or someone else is to be responsible for the hosts. Do not post any personal information in the email. Please do indicate the following, though:
  • Names of the team that will maintain the site, and their current roles in the Fedora community
  • Name of the person who will own the domain
  • Services that will be offered through the new domain
  • An IP address or URL where the Council can look at the content and presentation, and verify that the trademark guidelines are being consistently applied
• The Fedora Council will respond as quickly as possible, and ask for any further information needed.
• The Fedora Council will consider the request and if granted issue a trademark license agreement to the domain owner.
  • One of the factors used in consideration will be "likelihood to confuse". For example, if someone presented a fedora-<two letter code>.com domain, it would be rejected unless the two letter code is the official ISO-3166 country code for the community in question.
• A Council member will file a ticket in the Fedora Infrastructure issue tracker, and send you a link.
• After review, you will be assigned an appropriate subdomain and contacted for required host information. The Infrastructure team will ask for IP addresses, and will assign A, AAAA, and TXT records as needed.