Re: [DISCUSS] Graduate Apache Fluss (Incubating) as a Top Level Project

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/