The Apache Software Foundation, the world's largest open software foundation celebrated its 21st Anniversary by reminding us of "The Apache Way".

When it was incorporated on March 25, 1999 the Apache Software Foundation had 21 volunteer members overseeing the development of the Apache HTTP Server. Still an all-volunteer organization, the ASF now has 765 individual Members, 206 Apache Project Management Committees, and 7,600+ Committers. and caters for over 350 open source projects and initiatives. As we reported last year the 200M+ lines of Apache code are valued at more than $20B.

"The Apache Way" refers to the development process that the community uses with respect to both new and existing projects. Its edict, spelled out in the 21st Anniversary blog post, involves: 

• • Earned Authority: all individuals are given the opportunity to participate based on publicly earned merit, i.e., what they contribute to the community.

• • Community of Peers: individuals participate at the ASF, with merit gained by the individual everlasting and free from association of employment status or employer.

• • Open Communications: all communications related to code and decision-making are publicly accessible to ensure asynchronous collaboration within the ASF’s globally-distributed communities.

• • Consensus Decision Making: Apache Projects are overseen by a self-selected team of active volunteers who are contributing to their respective projects.

• • Responsible Oversight: The ASF governance model is based on trust and delegated oversight. 

The blog post also points out that:

The Apache Way has been a forerunner in collaborative computing, and has directly influenced the InnerSource methodology of applying Open Source and open development principles to an organization. The Apache Way has been adopted by countless organizations, including Capital One, Comcast, Ericsson, HP, IBM, Google, Microsoft, PayPal, SAP, T-Mobile, and many others.

In addition to the ASF’s 21st Anniversary, the Apache community is celebrating milestone anniversaries of the following projects:

• 25 Years - Apache HTTP Server
• 21 Years - Apache OpenOffice (at the ASF since 2011), Xalan, Xerces
• 20 Years - Apache Jakarta (Apache Open Source Java projects), James, mod_perl, Tcl, APR/Portable Runtime, Struts, Subversion (at the ASF since 2009), Tomcat
• 19 Years - Apache Avalon, Commons, log4j, Lucene, Torque, Turbine, Velocity
• 18 Years - Apache Ant, DB, FOP, Incubator, POI, Tapestry
• 17 Years - Apache Cocoon, James, Logging Services, Mavin, Web Services
• 16 Years - Apache Gump, Portals, Struts, Geronimo, SpamAssassin, Xalan, XML Graphics
• 15 Years - Apache Lucene, Directory, MyFaces, Xerces, Tomcat

Happy Anniversary to all the above and long may you continue to flourish.by following the Apache Way.

More Information

The Apache® Software Foundation Celebrates 21 Years of Open Source Leadership

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