Apache Software Foundation

ASF logo

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is a non-profit corporation (classified as 501(c)3 in the United States) to support Apache software projects, including the Apache HTTP Server. The ASF was formed from the Apache Group and incorporated in Delaware, USA, in June, 1999.

The Apache Software Foundation is a decentralized community of developers. The software they produce is distributed under the terms of the Apache License and are therefore free software / open source software. The Apache projects are characterized by a collaborative, consensus based development process and an open and pragmatic software license. Each project is managed by a self-selected team of technical experts who are active contributors to the project. The ASF is a meritocracy, implying that membership to the foundation is granted only to volunteers who have actively contributed to Apache projects.

Among the ASF's objectives are to provide legal protection to volunteers working on Apache projects, and to prevent the Apache brand name from being used by other organizations without permission.

The ASF also holds several ApacheCon conferences each year, highlighting Apache projects, related technology, and allowing Apache developers to gather together.

Projects

Formally recognized Apache projects include:
*Apache HTTP Server: Web server
*Ant: Java-based build tool
*APR: Apache Portable Runtime, a portability library written in C
*Beehive: A Java visual object model
*Cocoon: XML publishing framework
*DB: database solutions
**Derby: A pure Java Relational database management system
*Directory: A directory server supporting LDAP and other protocols
*Excalibur: Inversion of Control container named Fortress and related components
*Forrest: documentation framework based upon Cocoon
*Geronimo Application Server: a Java EE server
*Gump: integration, dependencies, and versioning management
*iBATIS: Persistence framework which enables mapping sql queries to POJOs.
*Incubator: for aspiring ASF projects
**Harmony: proposed implementation of the Java programming language.
**OFBiz: A suite of enterprise automation applications
*Jackrabbit: implementation of the Java Content Repository API
*Jakarta: server side Java (including its own set of sub-projects)
*James: Java email and news server
*Lenya: content management system
*Logging: logging services for application debugging and auditing, including log4j
*Lucene: text search engine library written entirely in Java
*Maven: Java project management and comprehension tool
*MyFaces: JavaServer Faces implementation
*mod_perl: dynamic websites using Perl
*Portals: web portal related software
*SpamAssassin: email filter used to identify spam.
*Struts: Java web applications framework
*TCL: dynamic websites using Tool Command Language
*Tomcat: a web container for serving servlets and JSP
*Web services: Web service related systems
*XML: XML solutions for the web
*XMLBeans: XML-Java binding tool
*XML Graphics: conversion of XML formats to graphical output
**Batik : A pure Java library for SVG content manipulation
**FOP : A pure Java processor converting XSL-FO files to PDF or direct-printable-files

Board of directors

The current board of directors includes:
* Ken Coar
* Justin Erenkrantz
* Dirk-Willem van Gulik
* Jim Jagielski
* Ben Laurie
* Stefano Mazzocchi
* Sam Ruby
* Greg Stein (chairman)
* Sander Striker

History

The history of the Apache Software Foundation is linked to the Apache HTTP Server, the work on which started in 1994. A group of eight developers started working on enhancing the NCSA HTTPd daemon. They were Brian Behlendorf, Roy Fielding, Rob Hartill, David Robinson, Cliff Skolnick, Randy Terbush, Robert S. Thau and Andrew Wilson with additional contributions from Eric Hagberg, Frank Peters and Nicolas Pioch.

The enhanced product called the Apache server was released in April 1995. In 1999, members of the Apache Group formed the Foundation to provide support for the Apache HTTP Server. The ASF has a membership of 151 members and approximately 1000 committers as of 2005.

External links

*http://www.apache.org
*http://wiki.apache.org/general
*http://wiki.apache.org/ApacheCon/FrontPage