The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), an organization of more than 350 full-time developers, managers, and incubators of open source projects and initiatives, officially announced its 22nd anniversary on March 25.
Originally established by the 21-member Apache Group to oversee the then three-year-old Apache HTTP server, ASF is now the largest, neutral open source foundation in the world, with more than 800 individual members, more than 8,100 pledges, and more than 40,000 code contributors, They are distributed on every continent. Conservatively estimated at over $22 billion, Apache’s 350 + projects and 37 incubated projects are made available to the general public for free, 100% free, with no licensing fees.
“Over the past 22 years, ASF has evolved to meet the growing needs of the broad community,” said Sander Striker, Apache Software Foundation Board Chair. “ASF enables people from around the world to collaborate, develop and lead projects and communities that help individuals, sustain businesses and transform industries.”
Advancing its mission of providing software for the public good, ASF’s programs are an integral part of virtually every aspect of modern computing, benefiting billions of people around the world. Dominated by the community of collaborative development process of “Apache way”, in the artificial intelligence and deep learning, big data, build management, cloud computing, content delivery and management, the edge of computing and Internet of things, financial technology, identity management, integration, library, news, mobile, search, security, server and network framework, and other fields has brought the breakthrough innovation. Projects under development in the Apache Incubator cover AI, big data, blockchain, cloud computing, cryptography, deep learning, email, Internet of Things, machine learning, microservices, mobile, operating systems, testing, visualization and more.
Nearly half a million people participate in ASF programs and activities, including ApacheCon (ASF’s official global series of meetings), Community Development (which oversees the induction and mentoring of contributors, Google Summer of Code) and diversity and inclusion (whose projects promote diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the Apache community).
ASF’s influence is everywhere — countless mission-critical applications in dozens of industries are driven by the Apache project; Apache License 2.0 is the number one open source License of 2020 (source: WhiteSource); Apache Way is the backbone of open development and endogenous environments; New users, developers, and enthusiasts are joining the larger Apache community every day (ASF has been the guiding organization for Google’s Summer of Code for the past 16 years since the project’s inception). ASF is the most star-rated open source non-profit organization on GitHub (source: GitHub) **.
A feature on ASF just published in FOSSlife notes: “The Apache project has undeniably changed the world…… Apache remains a vital Web server, the most popular in the field. The lessons of building projects for the open source community still resonate throughout the open source world. We recommend that every project respect Apache’s values of ‘community over code.'” .
About Apache Software Foundation (ASF)
Founded in 1999, the Apache Software Foundation is the largest open source foundation in the world, managing more than 227 million lines of code and making over $22 billion worth of software available to the public 100% free. ASF’s all-volunteer community has grown from 21 original founders overseeing the Apache HTTP server to 813 individual members and 206 project management committees, who have successfully led more than 350 Apache projects and initiatives through ASF’s merit process, working with nearly 8,100 committers. It’s called the Apache Way.
Apache software is an integral part of almost every end-user computing device, from laptops to tablets to enterprise mobile devices and mission-critical applications. The Apache project powers most of the Internet, manages exabytes of data, performs teraflops, and stores billions of objects in just about every industry. The business-friendly and permitted Apache license V2 is an open source industry standard that has helped launch billion-dollar companies and benefited countless users worldwide.
ASF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization funded by individual donations and corporate sponsors, Aetna, Alibaba Cloud Computing, Amazon Web Services, Anonymous, Baidu, Bloomberg, Capital One, Cloudera, Comcast, Confluent, Didi Chuxing, Facebook, Google, Huawei, IBM, Indeeds, Microsoft, Namebase, Pineapple Fund, Red Hat, Reprise Software, Target, Tencent, Union Investment, Verizon Media and Workday. For more information, visit apache.org/ and twitter.com/TheASF.