Community Access

The community access criteria evolves over time. The current version of the community access criteria was approved by a Governing Board vote on August 19, 2026.

The ITAM Forum (ITAMF) is a trade association.

The ITAM Forum operates as a member-based trade association under the Linux Foundation, a 501(c)(6) non-profit trade association.

What is a trade association?

A Trade Association is a ‘not-for-profit organization’ made up of a collection of companies and/or individuals with common interests or who work in the same industry. Trade associations require their members to undergo a vetting process prior to joining and are monitored to ensure ongoing compliance.

Membership Requirements

ITAM Forum requires companies to meet and maintain robust membership criteria covering aspects of their service, including professional qualifications and service delivery. Members are audited to ensure standards are being maintained, as do many trade associations.

As with the example organizations, membership is voluntary, and members must align to its publicly published community access criteria, including certification and guidelines related to professional history, current profession, etc.

Like many trade associations, ITAM Forum sometimes limits attendance to certain events to their members who fit published membership criteria. However, it endeavors to provide publicly available events such as virtual summits whenever possible.

Individual ITAM Forum Access Criteria

The ITAM Forum offers different levels of individual access to our programs, resources and channels based primarily on your current job role. To do this we vet everyone joining our community via LinkedIn and require work email addresses in some cases.

The Community access criteria are intended to maintain value in the community by strongly encouraging involvement and input from those who practice ITAM, while still involving the important perspectives of those who provide services or promote good ITAM practices.

Why do we have tiers of involvement?

• Transparency – we want everyone to know who everyone is when interacting with them
• Maintaining the community is focused on the practitioner – encourage their involvement and participation
• Focus conversations on best practices and avoiding disruptive sales pitches

Note on sales roles: Individuals in a sales or business development position of any kind or anyone who holds a quota (including bonuses based on sales revenue) may only hold a Supporter role in the ITAM Forum. Examples of this might be Account Managers, Account Executives, Business Development reps, Pre-sales Engineers, Pre-sales Solution Architects, etc.

Individual Community Requirements

Practitioners

ITAM Practitioners are the primary audience the ITAM Forum seeks to serve. Practitioners perform ITAM functions or interact with ITAM teams in their primary job role. For Practitioners to join the community, individuals have to align with the Practitioner definition. This includes being employed or on a dedicated contract by the organization whose IT Assets are being managed and whose employers are not vendors of ITAM services or tools. We use a combination of LinkedIn title and work email address domain to vet this status. Before participating in the community, Practitioners must agree to the Code of Conduct and Linux Foundation policies.

Vendors

Categorization as a vendor is based on the type of company an individual is employed by. Individuals who work for a company that provides tooling, platform or services are considered ‘vendors’ regardless of their individual qualifications.

For a vendor to be a ‘member’ of the ITAM Forum they must have signed a Participation Agreement with the ITAM Forum and be a Linux Foundation member in good standing. There are two type of vendors based on their formal Linux Foundation organizational membership status:

• Member Vendors

  These individuals are employed by ITAM services or tooling providers that have signed a formal participation agreement with the Linux Foundation to be part of the ITAM Forum Member Program. These individuals must have a subject matter expert status (examples: product leader, relevant engineering or services) and have completed the code of conduct training. Under the Membership, companies are also allowed relevant specific marketing contacts to join to coordinate membership benefits, but these individuals are restricted and must not communicate with the community nor take part in working groups. A fair usage limit may be applied to attendance at certain events to maintain a balance in the community.

• Non-Member Vendor

  Individual employees of Non-Member ITAM-related tooling, platform, and services vendor organizations are added as Supporters. Non-Member vendors acting as independent contractors or consultants MAY participate in Working Groups, Community Calls, and Special Interest Groups. Leadership, speaking, and other special roles may be reserved in some cases to Practitioners or Member-vendors. 

Supporters

There are no limitations on being a designated Supporter of the ITAM Forum. Supporters receive email updates and public event invitations. Supporters do not have access to community Slack.

Educational Supporter

Individuals who apply for Educational access must be a student, teacher, professor, or other education professionals and not hold any other conflicting roles aligned with the Practitioner definition.  Once employed, members should switch to a different access category.

Public

Anyone who does not hold any status to the requirements can freely access information on the Foundation website, and other public documentation areas including ITAM Forum assets (with attribution requirements for republishing). They can also access any of the public events or meetups (venue dependent). Any participation in public events requires an agreement to abide by the Code of Conduct and Linux Foundation policies. ITAM Forum training and any certifications are open to all (content is copyright of the ITAM Forum)

Linux Foundation Membership

Vendor Member Organization

These are organizations that provide ITAM-related tooling, platform, and services vendors that are members of the Forum. Individuals from this organization may be permitted to join the community aligned to the ‘Individuals from Member Organizations’ section.

Changes to Access

If any individual changes job roles in a way that impacts individual access criteria, individuals should notify the Foundation immediately at hello@itamf.org. The Forum reserves the right to adjust access levels for any type, if required, based on current or future published community or membership criteria.

Access Chart

The table below shows access to a range but not all areas and programs of the ITAM Forum. The ITAM Forum’s close association with the FinOps Foundation allows us to provide crossover access to the FinOps Foundation Slack to Practitioners and Vendor Members. Access rules to FinOps Foundation content is governed by the FinOps Foundation access criteria.