ownCloud GitHub Organization: Housekeeping and Alumni Program

[jordanafung]

Community Update: Restructuring our GitHub organization to better serve you

EDITING NOTE: We have made changes to this post since publishing to update links and add corrections.

Hi everyone,
We're restructuring the ownCloud GitHub organization.
This post explains what's changing, why, and what it means for you.

What's happening

The ownCloud GitHub org currently has 231 members.
Many of these accounts belong to people who contributed in the past but are no longer actively involved with the project.
We're reorganizing into three groups:

1. Active members stay in github.com/owncloud (current employees, active maintainers, and regular contributors).
2. Alumni move to github.com/owncloud-community, a new organization that preserves your connection to the project's history.
   This is recognition, not removal. If you contributed to ownCloud, that contribution matters, and the alumni org keeps that visible.
3. Inactive accounts with no contribution history are removed.

Why we're doing this

Two reasons, both practical:

• First, CI/CD resources.
  Our GitHub Actions pipelines are the backbone of oCIS development. To get the runner capacity we need for faster builds and shorter feedback loops, we need to upgrade the org's GitHub subscription plan. That plan is priced per seat. Paying for 231 seats when fewer than 50 are active doesn't make sense, and the money saved goes directly into better CI/CD infrastructure that benefits every contributor.
• Second, security posture.
  A smaller, actively maintained membership list reduces the surface area for accidental or unauthorized access to repositories, Actions workflows, and org settings. This is consistent with the security practices we've committed to in our OSPO manifesto.

What the alumni org is (and isn't)

The owncloud-alumni org is a place of recognition. If you're moved there, it means you contributed to ownCloud's history and we want that to stay visible. Your GitHub profile will still show the owncloud-alumni membership. You're welcome to list it on your CV, your LinkedIn, and anywhere else.

It is not a demotion or an exclusion. Alumni can rejoin the main org at any time by becoming active contributors again.
Open a PR, start reviewing, join a discussion.
Remember: the path back is the same contributor ladder we've published in our governance charter.
The alumni org will not contain any active repositories. It exists purely as a community recognition space.

Timeline

Friday June 12, 2026: Individual notifications sent to everyone being moved or removed. You'll know which group you're in before anything changes.
Friday June 19, 2026: Migration executed. Accounts moved to alumni or removed.

If you receive a notification and believe you've been miscategorized (for example, you're actively contributing but we missed it), reply to the notification or email ospo@kiteworks.com. We'll correct it.

For current contributors

If you're an active contributor, maintainer, or reviewer, nothing changes for you.
Your access stays the same. The CI/CD improvements from the subscription upgrade will make your workflows faster.

For alumni

Thank you for everything you built!
ownCloud exists because of the work you did. The alumni org is our way of keeping that connection alive.
And if you ever want to come back and contribute again, the door is open.

Questions?

Reply here on GitHub Discussions, ownCloud Central or email ospo@kiteworks.com.

If you'd like to read more about the Kiteworks' ownCloud Open Source Program Office, read some of the blog posts leading up to the launch, read the blog post about the launch, or read about our program.

EDITING NOTE: We have made changes to this post since publishing to update links and add corrections.

[DeepDiver1975]

Please note that some of the accounts will be getting kicked out of the owncloud organization before the invitation for the owncloud--community organization is sent out. This is due to the fact that GitHub allows only 50 invitations to be sent within 24h.

Thank you for your understanding!

[DeepDiver1975]

One further side note: only if you mark your membership in the owncloud-community organization as public it will show up in your account profile.

[micbar]

Your history and contributions stay visible in owncloud-community.

Just our of curiosity: Will you erase the complete git history? How? Refactor the past?
Maybe that statement is misleading.

[dj4oC]

Yes, true, this is misleading. And no, of course not. Nothing is going to be deleted.

[dragotin]

I got an invitation to the new community repo, but I am not in any of the lists above. Why is that? I do not get the move.

[dj4oC]

This is a good finding. Need to investigate why you are not in the list above. IIRC you were in that list. Will investigate what that flaw was. Sorry for that. And: happy to onboard you again once you start contributing again.

[DeepDiver1975]

The script logic changed as we were sending out the invitations. I consider it anyhow questionable if we should list all the accounts in here ....

[DeepDiver1975]

Everybody got their invitations in the past few weeks. Case closed