Wikitech:Cloud Services Terms of use (May 2023)
This is a summary of the Wikimedia Cloud Services Terms of Use for Administrators and Developers. You can read the full terms below.
Disclaimer: This summary is not a part of the Terms of Use and is not a legal document. It is simply a handy reference for understanding the full Terms of Use. Think of it as the user-friendly interface to our Terms of Use.
- Who do these terms apply to?
- All administrators and developers of WMCS Projects.
- What can you do on WMCS?
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- Try out improvements to the Wikimedia infrastructure;
- Run bots related to Wikimedia projects or data;
- Collect, process, or store analytics of Wikimedia projects; and
- Create other projects related to a Wikimedia project, or MediaWiki software development or testing.
- What canât you do on WMCS?
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- Do not break the law.
- Do not misuse Personal Information.
- Do not use, host, create or accept proprietary content.
- Do not use WMCS as a network proxy.
- Do not engage in abusive or disruptive activity.
- Remember to use the right logo.
- Can you use third-party resources on WMCS?
- Short answer: You can, in limited circumstances.
- Long answer: Please refer to the Cloud Services Cross Site Policy for more information.
- What must you do on WMCS?
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- Keep your software Open Source.
- Provide a relevant privacy statement:
- What else do you need to remember?
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- All your use of WMCS is at your sole risk. We provide WMCS on an "as is" and "as available" basis.
- If you violate these Terms your WMCS account, or your WMCS Projects, can be suspended or terminated by WMF or WMCS administrators at their sole discretion.
Wikimedia Cloud Services Terms of Use for Administrators and Developers
Welcome to Wikimedia Cloud Services ("WMCS"), hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation ("WMF"). Because of the unique nature of WMCS, it is not governed by the same policies as other Wikimedia sites. You can only develop and host projects on WMCS or use WMCS resources if you agree to these Wikimedia Cloud Services Terms of Use for Administrators and Developers. For definitions of capitalized terms, see section 2 ("Definitions") below.
- The email address you associate with your Wikimedia developer account will be visible to other WMCS users to allow project collaboration and notification of ongoing issues.
- When you connect to virtual machines in Wikimedia Cloud VPS using SSH, your IP address will be recorded and may be visible to other users of Cloud VPS or Toolforge via access logs.
1. Who should read and follow these Terms?
All administrators and developers of WMCS Projects, including those administered or developed by WMF staff on behalf of WMF, must adhere to these Terms.
2. Definitions
Here are definitions for terms we use in this document:
| When we say... | ...we mean: |
|---|---|
| "End User" | An individual who accesses or transmits data to a WMCS Project. |
| "WMCS Project" | Any website, service, or project hosted on Wikimedia Cloud Services, including those hosted on Cloud VPS and Wikimedia Toolforge. |
| "your WMCS Project" | A WMCS Project developed or administered by you. |
| Open Source | Code under an open source license, as defined by the Open Source Initiative. |
| "Personal Information" | Information that could be used to personally identify an individual or that relates to an identifiable individual, including the following:
(a) real name, address, phone number, email address, password, identification number on government-issued ID, IP address, user agent, payment account number; or (b) any sensitive data such as biometric data, date of birth, gender, sexual orientation, racial or ethnic origins, marital or familial status, medical conditions or disabilities, political affiliation, or religion. |
| "Privacy Statement" | A statement or document to notify the End User about the privacy practices of a WMCS Project. |
| "Terms" | This document, the Wikimedia Cloud Services Terms of Use for Administrators and Developers. |
| "Toolforge Project" | Any website, service, or project hosted on Wikimedia Toolforge. |
| "your Toolforge Project" | A Toolforge Project developed or administered by you. |
| "Wikimedia Foundation", "WMF", "we", "our", or "us" | The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., the nonprofit organization that operates the Wikimedia sites. |
| "Wikimedia Cloud Services" | Instances and resources provided by our Openstack cloud, including websites, services, content, and projects hosted on wmcloud.org, toolforge.org, and wmflabs.org. |
| "Wikimedia Username" | An End Userâs Username from a Wikimedia project. |
3. What uses of WMCS do we allow?
The purpose of WMCS is to make it easier for developers and system administrators to: try out improvements to the Wikimedia infrastructure, including MediaWiki; run bots related to Wikimedia projects or data; collect, process, or store analytics of Wikimedia projects; and create other projects related to a Wikimedia project, or MediaWiki software development or testing. You agree that your WMCS Projects on WMCS will be related to these purposes. Consult with the WMCS administrators or the Cloud mailing list if you would like to verify whether your WMCS Project is within the scope of WMCS.
4. What uses of WMCS do we not allow?
You agree not to use WMCS for any of the following ("Prohibited Uses"):
4.1 Illegal or harmful activity
Do not break the law. This includes, but it is not limited to the following:
- accessing computer systems or files without authorization;
- accessing Personal Information without authorization;
- harassing or abusing others;
- engaging in fraud;
- displaying or using illegal content and materials including defamatory content, child pornography, obscene materials, or deceptive content;
- infringing copyrights, trademarks, patents, or other proprietary rights;
- using, displaying or distributing unsolicited email (spam), viruses, malware, or other malicious code.
4.2 Misuse of Personal Information
Do not solicit, collect, or use Personal Information or Wikimedia Usernames of End Users except as outlined in section 7 ("End User privacy").
4.3 Open Source and proprietary software
Do not use, host, or install any software on WMCS unless the software is licensed under an Open Source license. See section 6 ("Keeping your software Open Source") below for more information.
4.4 Proprietary content
Do not use, host, or create content or accept content from your End Users unless it complies with the Wikimedia Licensing policy. Acceptable content includes those in the public domain or freely licensed under an applicable free culture license, such as the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 license.
4.5 Using WMCS as a network proxy
Do not use WMCS Projects to proxy or relay traffic for other servers. Examples of such activities include running Tor nodes, peer-to-peer network services, or VPNs to other networks. In other words, all network connections must originate from or terminate at WMCS.
An explicit exception for Github Actions has been granted, with conditions. See T260746 for details.
4.6 Disruptive or abusive activity
Be respectful of systems and network resources and do not interfere with other usersâ WMCS Projects, WMFâs operation of WMCS, or other Wikimedia sites. Disruptive or abusive activity includes 1) inundating WMCS Projects with traffic without serious intent to use the WMCS Projects; 2) probing, scanning, or testing the vulnerability of WMCS, WMCS Projects, or other Wikimedia sites with malicious intent, destructive intent, or for personal gain; and 3) using WMCS resources for processing activity unrelated to Wikimedia projects (e.g. bitcoin mining is not permitted).
4.7 Use of Wikimedia logos
Comply with our Trademark Policy and do not confuse End Users by using Wikimedia logos on web pages, or otherwise running sites that donât properly explain that they are not official Wikimedia projects. Use the Wikimedia Cloud Services logo instead!
For more on avoiding End User confusion, see section 8 ("What should you do to avoid confusing users when running a beta or test wiki?").
4.8 Use of Wikimedia's LDAP directory for authentication
Even when complying with the end-user notification that is required for any service that handles passwords or other sensitive data, use of any of the Wikimedia LDAP service which contains Developer account information for password authentication from within the WMCS environment is strictly prohibited.
4.9 Exceptions
You can request exceptions to a Prohibited Use in limited circumstances. To request an exception, please submit a proposal to the WMCS administrators.
5. Limited use of third-party resources allowed
WMCS Projects are allowed to use third-party resources that may collect an End Userâs Personal Information or transmit such Personal Information to third party resources in limited circumstances only. For more information on using third party resources on WMCS, please refer to the Cloud Services Cross Site Policy.
5.1 Legacy Projects
If you administer an existing service that uses such third-party services as of 2023-05-26, you will have until 2024-06-01 to put your WMCS Project into compliance with this "Care in using third-party services" section.
6. Keeping your software Open Source
As noted in section 4.4 ("Open Source and proprietary software"), any software you use, host, or install on WMCS must be licensed under an Open Source license. As such, the source code for your WMCS Projects should be hosted and published in an easily accessible location or available on request. However, the source code does not need to be posted on WMCS. It is OK to host source code on code repositories such as Github. If you do not specify an Open Source license for code that you have written and hosted on WMCS, you agree as part of using this service that you license it under the GNU General Public License version 3.
There are only two exceptions to this section:
- In very rare cases where certain parts of the source code cannot be published to avoid violating other provisions of these Terms (for example, to avoid violating an End Userâs privacy); or
- For one-time use scripts (as opposed to code for web-accessible projects and long-running background processes).
To request an exception, please submit a request to the WMCS administrators.
6.1 Legacy Projects
If you administer a WMCS Project as of 2023-05-26, you will have until 2024-06-01 to put your WMCS Project into compliance with this section 6.
6.2 Abandoned projects
There have been past instances of abandoned WMCS Projects whose source code was not published. Abandoned Toolforge Projects must follow the Toolforge Abandoned Tool policy. For all other WMCS Projects, to ensure the continued maintenance of such abandoned WMCS Projects, if WMCS administrators fail to reach you within six (6) weeks of making reasonable efforts to do so, you agree that the project may be considered abandoned. The project name could then be re-used or transferred and applicable source code published as necessary to ensure continued maintenance.
7. End User privacy
The requirements we impose on you to protect End User privacy is dependent on the type of the WMCS Project and your relationship to WMF.
- Are you WMF staff developing or administering WMCS Projects in the course of your work for WMF?
- If so, please review sections §7.1 and §7.4 below.
- Are you working on a Toolforge Project?
- If so, please review sections §7.2 and §7.4 below.
- Are you working on any other type of WMCS Project?,
- If so, please review sections §7.3 and §7.4 below.
7.1 If this is a WMCS Project you are developing or administering in the course of your work for WMF
If you are WMF staff and an administrator or developer for WMCS Projects as part of your work for WMF, including the Continuous Integration project, please carefully review and follow the WMF Privacy Policy and the WMF Data Retention Guidelines. Please handle all Personal Information of End Users according to these policies, including End Usersâ Wikimedia Usernames.
Finally, please provide a conspicuous link to the following Privacy Statement from the homepage of your WMCS Project, ensuring that this Privacy Statement is accurate with respect to your WMCS Project:
Privacy Statement of «Your WMCS Project Name»
This project is administered by the Wikimedia Foundation and adheres to the Foundationâs Privacy Policy and Data Retention Guidelines.
WMF staff may request exceptions to this section 7.1 in very rare circumstances. Please contact WMF Legal at legal@wikimedia.org for permission.
7.2 If this is a Toolforge Project
If you administer or develop a Toolforge Project, you must:
- Use Toolforge's anonymizing reverse proxy for all End User requests.
- Use any user agent information your Toolforge Project receives from the anonymizing reverse proxy only for the maintenance of your Toolforge Project.
- Not collect any other Personal Information and Wikimedia Usernames from End Users, other than any user agent information forwarded by the anonymizing reverse proxy or OAuth provided usernames and email addresses.
7.3 If this is any other WMCS Project (i.e. non-WMF and non-Toolforge Projects)
We recommend that you do not collect and store any Personal Information (and Wikimedia Usernames). If you must collect this information, non-WMF and non-Toolforge Projects should only collect or store it when complying with the conditions listed below. Please note that if your WMCS Project involves account creation, you should ask users to login via OAuth.
Failure to comply with the requirements in this section in your collection and storage of Personal Information is prohibited and is grounds for account termination. Furthermore, you may also be subject to additional requirements in collecting and using Personal Information due to applicable local laws. You are responsible for the compliance of your WMCS Project with all applicable laws and consulting with your own legal counsel as necessary.
- Does your WMCS Project collect Personal Information?
- If yes, please review sections §7.3.1 and §7.3.2 below.
- If no, please review section §7.3.3 below.
7.3.1 If your WMCS Project collects Personal Information
If you do collect any End Usersâ Personal Information or Wikimedia Usernames, you must:
- Draft a Privacy Statement following the instructions in the section §7.3.2 ("Privacy Statement Requirements") below to notify End Users and other individuals of your privacy policies.
- Display a link to the Privacy Statement in a conspicuous manner from the home page of your WMCS Project in English (as well as any other language versions if applicable)
- If you materially change your data collection practices (such as how you collect data, what data you are collecting, and the length of the data retention), you should revise your Privacy Statement to reflect the new practices, conspicuously display notice of such changes on the homepage of your WMCS Project, and maintain links to previous versions of your Privacy Statement.
- Take appropriate measures to protect the security of any Personal Information (and Wikimedia Usernames) collected by your WMCS Project. For example, consider hashing, encrypting or otherwise properly securing any Personal Information you store.
- Notify WMF immediately of any intentional or unintentional exposure to third parties or the public of Personal Information and Wikimedia Usernames collected or stored by your WMCS Project, including any unauthorized acquisition, access or disclosure of such information. In the event of a breach, we also encourage you to contact your End Users and other individuals as necessary and to comply with any applicable local laws.
7.3.2 Privacy Statement requirements
We have provided general information about how you should draft a Privacy Statement below. This does not constitute legal advice and you should consult with your own legal counsel for more information.
A Privacy Statement should have at least the following elements:
- Provide a title for the document (Ex. "Privacy Statement of «Your WMCS Project Name»").
- Describe what End Usersâ Personal Information (and Wikimedia Usernames) you are collecting about End Users or other individuals, how you will use this information, and when you will delete information.
- For example, you could provide a table with the following columns ("Type of Personal Information", "Use for Information", "Duration of Storage") for each type of Personal Information collected.
- Consistent with requirement 3 in section §7.3.1, explain that you seek to take appropriate reasonable measures to protect the security of Personal Information. Consider hashing, encrypting, or otherwise taking measures designed to secure any Personal Information your WMCS Project stores.
- Explain that any Personal Information collected may also be available to the Wikimedia Foundation, volunteer administrators, or other WMCS developers.
- If you require non-OAuth account creation on your WMCS Project, please discourage individuals from using their Wikimedia credentials.
- Ex. "Use of your Wikimedia credentials is highly discouraged in this project. You should use a different password for your account than you would on projects like Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, etc."
- Inform your End Users that the administrators of your WMCS Project are bound by the Wikimedia Cloud Services Terms of Use for Administrators and Developers and provide a link to the Terms.
- Notify your End Users that WMCS is hosted and operated in the United States and that by using your WMCS Project, whether from inside or outside of the United States, (a) collection, transfer, storage, disclosure, and other processing of their information (personal or otherwise) will take place in the United States, (b) their information also may be transferred to other countries, and (c) that the United States and such other countries may have different or less stringent data protection laws than their country.
- Provide a final disclaimer at the end of the Privacy Statement that contains at least the following concepts:
- "WMCS is hosted and operated in the United States. By using [your WMCS Project Name], you acknowledge and understand that collection, use, storage, and other processing of your information (personal or otherwise) as outlined in this Privacy Statement will take place in the United States. You understand that your information also may be transferred to other countries, and that the United States and such other countries may have different or less stringent data protection laws than your country. Furthermore, you acknowledge that your Personal Information will be governed by this Privacy Statement, rather than the Wikimedia Foundation's Privacy Policy."
7.3.3 If your WMCS Project does not collect Personal Information
If you do not collect any Personal Information (and Wikimedia Usernames), great job! We suggest you still provide a prominent Privacy Statement to your End Users to assure them that no Personal Information or Wikimedia Usernames are collected. Such a statement could contain the following, or something to the same effect (as well as any other language versions if you wish to do so):
Privacy Statement of «Your WMCS Project Name»
This project does not collect and store any personal information that may be used to identify you, or collect and store your username from the Wikimedia projects, as a user of this project.
By using this project, whether from inside or outside of the United States, you consent to the collection, transfer, storage, processing, disclosure, and other uses of your information (personal or otherwise) in the United States. You also consent to the transfer of your information from the United States to other countries, which may have different or less stringent data protection laws than your country, in connection with your use of this project.
7.4 Legacy Projects
If you administer a WMCS Project as of 2023-06-01, you will have until 2024-06-01 to put your WMCS Project into compliance with this section 7 ("End User privacy"). Note that this section does not apply to any Toolforge Projects. Such Toolforge Projects must comply with this section 7 ("End User privacy") immediately.
8. What should you do to avoid confusing users when running a beta or test wiki?
If your WMCS Project includes a publicly accessible wiki, you must ensure that it is not confusingly similar to a Wikimedia project. For example, if you were running a test wiki, you should include a prominent disclaimer, such as in the footer, indicating the site is a test project (see a sample disclaimer below), set the robots.txt file to disallow indexing in a search engine, and use the WMCS logo instead of the Wikimedia logos. We can require that you modify your WMCS Project or suspend your account at any time if End Users have been or will be confused by the appearance or operation of your WMCS Project.
Warning: This is not a live Wikimedia Foundation project.
This site is used only for testing and development purposes. This site is not covered by the Wikimedia Foundationâs Terms of Use or Privacy Policy. Do not disclose personal information on this site and do not use this site to post any illegal or harmful content.
For more information on this test environment, see «link to project description».
9. Additional terms and disclaimers
9.1 Additional WMCS requirements
You agree that:
- WMCS is hosted and operated in the United States. If you decide to develop on WMCS, whether from inside or outside of the United States, you acknowledge and understand that collection, use, transfer, storage, disclosure, and other processing of your and your End Usersâ information (personal or otherwise) in connection with WMCS will take place in the United States. You also understand that such information may be transferred to other countries, and that the United States and such other countries may have different or less stringent data protection laws than your country or your End Usersâ countries. As discussed in Section 7, provide notice in your Privacy Statement that such information may be collected, used, stored, shared and otherwise processed in the United States and such other countries, and consider whether you need to obtain consent to such transfers.
- You will conspicuously link to the Cloud Services End User Terms of use from the homepage of your WMCS Project.
- We can add, change, or discontinue the features or services on WMCS at any time.
- We can notify you of changes to these Terms, other updates related to WMCS policies and rules, and changing technical requirements by email or similar. We will make our best efforts to give you reasonable notice to changes in WMCS policies and these Terms via the WMCS Cloud-announce mailing list, but it is your responsibility to subscribe to this mailing list, read announcements from WMCS administrators, and comply with updated Terms or WMCS policies. Your continued use, development, or hosting of your WMCS Projects constitute acceptance of any new terms or changes to the Terms.
- We can contact you for purposes related to WMCS, the Wikimedia Foundation, or the Wikimedia movement at the email address you gave us when you registered.
- You will follow the Wikimedia technical spaces Code of Conduct and these terms. If you develop or administer a Toolforge Project you must also follow the Toolforge Rules.
9.2 Disclaimers
While WMF obviously wants to make WMCS as reliable and robust as possible, all software is imperfect, and we also provide WMCS to you at no charge. As a result, we canât be responsible if something goes wrong. There is no guaranteed uptime or service availability.
In more formal legal language, this means:
All your use of WMCS is at your sole risk. We provide WMCS on an "as is" and "as available" basis, and we expressly disclaim all warranties of all kinds, including implied warranties of fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability, and non-infringement. We make no warranty that WMCS will meet your requirements, be safe, secure, or uninterrupted.
We are not responsible for the content, data, or actions of third parties, and you release us, our officers, directors, employees, and agents from any claims and damages, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with any claim you have against such a third party. No advice or information, whether oral or written, obtained by you from us or through or from WMCS creates any warranty not expressly stated in these Terms.
Any material downloaded or otherwise obtained through your use of WMCS is done at your own discretion and risk, and you will be solely responsible for any damage to your computer system or loss of data that results from the download of any such material. You agree that we have no responsibility or liability for the deletion of, or the failure to store or to transmit, any content, software, or communication maintained by WMCS. We retain the right to create limits on use and storage at our sole discretion at any time with or without notice.
Some states or jurisdictions do not allow the types of disclaimers in this section, so they may not apply to you either in part or in full depending on the law.
9.3 Limitation on liability
WMF will not be liable to you or to any other party for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or exemplary damages, including but not limited to, damages for loss of profits, goodwill, use, data, or other intangible losses, regardless of whether we were advised of the possibility of such damage. In no event shall our liability exceed one thousand U.S. dollars (USD 1000.00) in aggregate. In the case that applicable law may not allow the limitation or exclusion of liability or incidental or consequential damages, the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you, although our liability will be limited to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.
9.4 Disputes and jurisdiction
We hope that no serious disagreements arise involving you, but, in the event there is a dispute, we encourage you to seek resolution through the dispute resolution procedures or mechanisms provided by WMCS administrators and the Wikimedia Foundation. If you seek to file a legal claim against us, you will file and resolve it exclusively in a state or federal court located in San Francisco County, California. You also agree that the laws of the State of California and, to the extent applicable, the laws of the United States of America will govern these Terms, as well as any legal claim that might arise between you and us (without reference to conflict of laws principles). You agree to submit to the personal jurisdiction of, and agree that the venue is proper in, the courts located in San Francisco County, California, in any legal action or proceeding relating to us or these Terms. To ensure that disputes are dealt with soon after they arise, you agree that regardless of any statute or law to the contrary, any claim or cause of action you might have arising out of or related to use of WMCS or these Terms must be filed within the applicable statute of limitations or, if earlier, one (1) year after the pertinent facts underlying such claim or cause of action could have been discovered with reasonable diligence (or be forever barred).
9.5 Miscellaneous terms
These Terms do not create an employment, agency, partnership, or joint venture relationship between you and us, the Wikimedia Foundation. Furthermore, you understand that, unless otherwise agreed to in writing by us, you have no expectation of compensation for any activity, software, contribution, or idea that you provide to us, the community, the Wikimedia sites, or on WMCS.
If you have not signed a separate agreement with us, these Terms are the entire agreement between you and us with respect to your development and hosting of your WMCS Projects. If there is any conflict between these Terms and a signed written agreement between you and us, the signed agreement will control.
If any provision or part of a provision of these Terms is found unlawful, void, or unenforceable, that provision or part of the provision is deemed severable from these Terms and will be enforced to the maximum extent permissible, and all other provisions of these Terms will remain in full force and effect.
If in any circumstance, we do not apply or enforce any provision of these Terms, it is not a waiver of that provision.
Finally, we think this is highly unlikely, but if necessary, you will defend, indemnify, and hold us harmless from and against any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including attorneysâ fees) arising out of or relating to any third-party claim concerning: (a) your or your End Usersâ use of your WMCS Project and the content on those WMCS Projects; (b) breach of these Terms or violation of applicable law by you or your End Users related to your WMCS Project; or (c) a dispute between you and your End User related to their use of your WMCS Project. If WMF is obligated to respond to a third-party subpoena or other compulsory legal order or process described above, you will also reimburse us for reasonable attorneysâ fees, as well as our employeesâ and contractorsâ time and materials spent responding to the third-party subpoena or other compulsory legal order or process. We will promptly notify you of any claim subject to this provision, but our failure to promptly notify you will only affect your obligations to the extent that our failure prejudices your ability to defend the claim. You may: (a) use counsel of your own choosing (subject to our written consent) to defend against any claim; and (b) settle the claim as you deem appropriate, provided that you obtain our prior written consent before entering into any settlement. We may also assume control of the defense and settlement of the claim at any time.
10. What happens if I violate these Terms?
If you violate these Terms, such as by using WMCS for one of the Prohibited Uses, your WMCS account, or your WMCS Projects, can be suspended or terminated by WMF or WMCS administrators at their sole discretion.
11. Translations
In the event of any differences in meaning between the original English version and a translation, the original English version takes precedence.
12. Questions/contact us
These Terms are maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Team. You may contact us at privacy@wikimedia.org for any questions or issues related to these Terms or to report a violation of these Terms by a WMCS Project.
13. Thank you!
Thank you for reading these Terms. We hope you enjoy creating your WMCS Projects and appreciate your participation in working to improve the largest repository of free knowledge in the world.
This Wikimedia Cloud Services Terms of Use went into effect on 2023-05-26. Previous versions can be found below: