The SQLite Consortium is a membership association dedicated to insuring the continuing vitality and independence of SQLite. SQLite is high-quality, public domain software. The goal of the SQLite Consortium is to make sure it stays that way.
Consortium members contribute funding to support the ongoing development and maintenance of SQLite and in return receive enterprise-level technical support and legal assurances that SQLite will remain independent and open-source. Consortium members have direct access to the SQLite developers and receive priority consideration for any bug fixes or feature requests. However, technical control and direction of SQLite remains with the SQLite architect and developers. An important goal of the SQLite Consortium, after all, is to make sure that SQLite does not fall under the governance of any single company but remains independent and fully under the control of the SQLite developers.
Companies that use SQLite as a critical component in their products or infrastructure may want to consider becoming SQLite Consortium Members as inexpensive insurance in the future vitality and independence of SQLite. The SQLite Consortium membership fee is a fraction of the cost of devoting internal staff to supporting the SQLite code base. Benefits of membership include:
Consortium members have the guaranteed, undivided attention of the SQLite developers for 23 staff-days per year and for as much additional time above and beyond that amount that the core developers have available. There are no arbitrary limits on contact time. The consortium will never be over-subscribed. New SQLite developers will be recruited and trained as necessary to cover the 23 day/year support commitment.
Consortium members can call any developer at any time, day or night, and expect to get their full and immediate attention. Consortium members have access to the home telephone numbers and cellphone numbers and work schedules of the core developers so that the developers can be tracked down quickly in a crisis.
The SQLite developers are eager and happy to write new code or debug existing code for consortium members. Consortium members can request and expect to receive significant new enhancements to the public SQLite code base. Consortium members can also request their own private, proprietary extensions and enhancements.
Consortium members can receive support for any version of SQLite no matter how old. Bug fixes will be back ported to older versions of SQLite upon request.
Consortium members can receive private email and/or telephone notifications and briefings covering new bugs or recently added features. The core developers are constantly watching out for the interests of consortium members and will attempt to protect those interests in every way possible and alert members when their interests are threatened in any way.
The SQLite developers will set up customized regression tests to fully and completely test SQLite as configured by consortium members. Normally, only the standard SQLite configuration is fully tested at each release. Consortium members that use a non-standard configuration can request that their configuration be tested to the same level of detail.
Support requests are accepted from any employee or contractor working for a consortium member. Support is not limited to a single development team as it is with a maintenance subscription or technical support agreement.
Support requests, comments, and suggestions for future changes to SQLite coming from consortium members take priority over requests from all other sources. Consortium members go to the front of the line.
We will be happy to recognize consortium members on the SQLite website with a logo and/or a brief acknowledgement of their contribution to the project. This is an opportunity for companies to build good will by demonstrating that they are giving back to the community. Or, members can remain anonymous.
Membership in the SQLite Consortium is via contract with Hipp, Wyrick & Company, Inc.. Send email to drh@sqlite.org or phone +1.704.948.4565 during US east-coast business hours for additional information.