Informative material only

These pages exist only to provide some down-to-earth insight in how things work at the ASF. They're informative only, not normative. They may contain errors or inadequacies. IANAL.

So what is this PMC thing?

Apache is a legal entity, i.e. a real non-profit organisation, with a charter, members, a board, a president, etc. You can read all about that here

A PMC, Project Management Committee, is a group of people appointed with the task of managing something that fits with the Apache Software Foundation goals. The Avalon PMC, for example, is tasked with managing Avalon.

What, management?! We've already got plenty of those at work!

We're all programmers, and that is what we want to occupy us with. We like to share and work on our software together, which is why we make it free software. However, there is always some stuff which still requires management.

For example, in order to protect ourselves and our users, all software hosted at Apache must be properly copyrighted to the ASF, and licensed under the ASF license. This is something the PMC is responsible for.

Also, remember that the PMC consists of the same people that do the development work. There's no "bossing around" here. The PMC exists only to facilitate free software developers in "doing their thing", just like the ASF exists "to provide organizational, legal, and financial support for the Apache Open Source software projects".

The PMC Chair and Officer of the Foundation

The position of Avalon PMC chair is an important one; the PMC chair has special responsibilities and privileges as detailed in the ASF bylaws.