Apache Fluss™ Private Preview - Terms of Participation

These Terms of Participation (“Terms”) govern your organisation’s participation as an organisation invited by Ververica to participate (“Participant”) in the Apache Fluss Private Preview Program (the “Program”) operated by Ververica GmbH, Herzogspitalstraße 24, 80331 Munich, Germany (“Ververica”). By accessing the preview, the Participant accepts these Terms. These Terms constitute the entire agreement between the parties regarding the Program and are not conditional on any existing commercial relationship between them. Where the Participant also holds a separate platform agreement or MSLA with Ververica, these Terms govern the Program specifically and prevail over that agreement to the extent of any conflict on Program-related matters.

1. PROGRAM & ACCESS

Ververica grants the Participant a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to access a non-production deployment of Apache Fluss running within the Ververica Platform, solely for evaluation, testing, and collaborative product validation during the preview period. Access is provided free of charge and confers no right to General Availability (GA) software, future releases, or any production entitlement.

2. PREVIEW NATURE

Apache Fluss is open-source software undergoing incubation at the Apache Software Foundation and is pre-release within the Program. The Participant acknowledges it may contain bugs, errors, or security vulnerabilities; that features, APIs, and operational workflows may change or be withdrawn; and that it must not be used for production, business-critical, or SLA-backed workloads.

3. PARTICIPANT COMMITMENTS

Participation is collaborative and requires active engagement throughout the approx. six-month Program, including:

1. Technical engagement of roughly 3–5 hours per week, including active testing of representative Fluss workloads and timely bug reports and feedback;
2. Attendance at scheduled working sessions (weekly during onboarding, moving to biweekly), monthly executive reviews, and milestone and roadmap reviews;
3. Nomination of a technical sponsor and an executive/business sponsor for the engagement.

Non-Engagement. Where a Participant fails to meet the engagement commitments set out in this Section 3 in any material respect for a continuous period of four (4) weeks, Ververica may, on written notice, treat such failure as grounds for termination of the Participant’s access under Section 11. Ververica will use reasonable endeavours to raise non-engagement informally before exercising this right.

4a) FEEDBACK

The Participant may provide suggestions, comments, and feedback on the preview (“Feedback”). Ververica may use Feedback without restriction or obligation, including to develop and improve its products, and the Participant grants Ververica a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free licence to do so.

4b) BENCHMARKING

The Participant shall not, without Ververica’s prior written consent, conduct, publish, or disclose to any third party any performance benchmarking, competitive analysis, or comparative testing of the preview software against any other product or service. Any benchmarking conducted internally for the Participant’s own evaluation purposes shall be treated as Confidential Information and subject to the obligations in Section 5 and 6. Ververica reserves the right to review and approve any proposed publication of benchmarking results prior to disclosure, such approval not to be unreasonably withheld.

5. CONFIDENTIALITY

Each party (“Discloser”) may disclose non-public information to the other (“Recipient”) in connection with the Program (“Confidential Information”). The preview software, related documentation, and all non-public technical, commercial, and product information disclosed by Ververica are Ververica’s Confidential Information. The Recipient shall: (a) hold Confidential Information in strict confidence using at least the same degree of care it uses for its own confidential information (and no less than reasonable care); (b) use Confidential Information solely for the purposes of the Program; and (c) not disclose Confidential Information to any third party without the Discloser’s prior written consent (which may be given by email from an authorised representative). Confidential Information does not include information that is or becomes publicly available through no fault of the Recipient, was already known to the Recipient free of restriction, or is independently developed by the Recipient without reference to the Discloser’s information. These obligations survive termination of these Terms for three (3) years.

6. COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Neither Party shall make any public announcement, press release, social media post, conference presentation, or other external communication that references the other Party’s participation in the Program, the existence of the Program, or any features or capabilities of the preview software, without the other Party’s prior written approval of the content and timing of such communication. For the avoidance of doubt, this restriction applies to the Participant’s employees, contractors, and any representatives attending working sessions under Section 3. Ververica may issue a joint announcement regarding the Program at a time of its choosing, and the Participant agrees to cooperate reasonably in preparing and approving such announcement within five (5) business days of request. This clause shall survive termination of the Participant’s participation for a period of twelve (12) months or until Ververica publicly announces general availability of Apache Fluss, whichever is earlier.

7. DATA, OWNERSHIP & SECURITY

The Participant retains ownership of its data and workloads and is responsible for ensuring that no sensitive, regulated, or production-critical data is used with the preview unless expressly agreed in writing. The Participant is responsible for the security of its own environments and credentials.

7a) DATA PROTECTION

Each party shall comply with all applicable data protection and privacy laws in connection with the Program, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679) (“GDPR”) where applicable. Any personal data provided by the Participant in connection with registration or use of the preview will be processed by Ververica in accordance with Ververica’s Privacy Policy, available at www.ververica.com. To the extent that Ververica processes personal data on behalf of the Participant as a processor in the course of the Program, the parties shall enter into a Data Processing Addendum (“DPA”) on terms compliant with applicable data protection law prior to any such processing commencing. The Participant is responsible for informing its own data subjects of any processing of their personal data in connection with the Program and for obtaining any consents required by applicable law. The Participant shall not submit to the preview environment any personal data of data subjects who have not been appropriately informed, unless a DPA is in place and the processing is otherwise lawful.

7b) INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Each party retains all right, title, and interest in and to its own intellectual property existing prior to or developed independently of the Program. Nothing in these Terms transfers any intellectual property rights from one party to the other. The licence granted in Section 1 is limited strictly to evaluation and testing for the purposes of the Program and does not confer any right to use the preview software for commercial purposes, to sublicence it, or to develop derivative works based upon it. The Participant retains ownership of its own data and workloads submitted to the preview environment. Ververica retains all rights in the preview software, documentation, and any improvements or developments made to them, including those informed by Feedback provided under Section 4.

7c) INDEMNIFICATION

Each party (“Indemnifying Party”) shall defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the other party and its affiliates, officers, directors, and employees from and against any third-party claims, losses, damages, costs, and reasonable legal fees arising out of or relating to: (a) the Indemnifying Party’s material breach of these Terms; (b) the Indemnifying Party’s violation of applicable law; or (c) in the case of the Participant, any use of the preview software in a manner not authorised by these Terms. This indemnity does not apply to the extent that the claim arises from the other party’s own negligence or wilful misconduct.

8. SECURITY VULNERABILITY DISCLOSURE

If the Participant discovers or reasonably suspects a security vulnerability in the preview software or associated infrastructure, the Participant shall: (a) notify Ververica promptly and in any event within forty-eight (48) hours of discovery, by contacting security@ververica.com or such other address as Ververica may notify; (b) provide sufficient detail to allow Ververica to assess and reproduce the vulnerability; (c) not disclose the vulnerability to any third party or take any action to exploit it until Ververica has confirmed remediation or given written consent to disclosure; and (d) cooperate reasonably during investigation and remediation. Ververica shall acknowledge receipt within twenty-four (24) hours and provide an initial assessment within five (5) business days. Nothing in this clause limits Ververica’s obligations under applicable law regarding security incident notification.

9. NO WARRANTY & NO SLA

THE PREVIEW SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. Production support SLAs and availability guarantees do not apply.

10. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, VERVERICA SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF DATA, REVENUE, PROFITS, OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION ARISING FROM PARTICIPATION IN THE PROGRAM. Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded by law.

11. TERM & TERMINATION

These Terms apply for the duration of the Program, which shall commence on the date these Terms are first accepted by the Participant and run for approximately six (6) months unless extended or terminated earlier in accordance with this Section 11. Either party may terminate participation at any time on written notice. On termination or expiry, the Participant shall cease use of the preview software; confidentiality, Feedback, and liability provisions survive, as do the Benchmarking Section 4.b), Communications Section 6), and Security Disclosure Section 7 provisions.

12. GENERAL

These Terms constitute the entire agreement regarding the Program and supersede prior discussions relating to it. They are governed by the laws of Germany, excluding conflict-of-law rules. “Apache Fluss”, “Apache Flink”, “Apache Iceberg”, and “Apache Paimon” are trademarks of the Apache Software Foundation.