Title: The Apache Group Incorporates as the Apache Software Foundation
Notice: Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file
distributed with this work for additional information
regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file
to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
"License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
.
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
.
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
software distributed under the License is distributed on an
"AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the
specific language governing permissions and limitations
under the License.
**Non-profit corporation provides organizational assistance and development
frameworks for the Apache open-source projects, including the world's
leading Web server**
For Immediate Release -- ( [plain text](pr_1999_06_30.txt) )
Contact: Sally Khudairi
ZOT Group
1.617.818.0177
<sk@zotgroup.com>
http://www.apache.org/ -- June 30, 1999 -- The Apache Group today announced
the creation of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), to formally shepherd
the development of the #1 Web server worldwide -- the Apache HTTP Server
Project -- and other projects under the Apache umbrella. This international
volunteer effort is dedicated to the support of open-source software
projects based on the collaborative model of the Apache HTTP Server
Project. "This is an important step forward for the Apache projects," said
Roy T. Fielding, ASF Chairman and co-founder of the Apache HTTP Server
Project. "The Apache Software Foundation will protect the efforts of the
community of developers working on our open-source projects, while
providing a pillar of strength and stability for our customers."
### COMMITMENT TO COLLABORATIVE DEVELOPMENT ###
The Apache Software Foundation will provide organizational, legal, and
financial support for the Apache open-source software projects. The
Foundation ensures the continuity of Apache projects beyond the
participation of individual volunteers, enables contributions of
intellectual property and financial support on a sound basis, and provides
a vehicle for limiting legal exposure while participating in open-source
projects.
Although the Foundation will oversee all Apache activities, the technical
aspects of each project will be governed by its own project team. The ASF
requires that all its projects remain open to new contributors via Internet
collaboration, and limits the distribution of software under its name to a
set of approved open-source licenses, but does not interfere with the
day-to-day operations of each project.
"IBM is pleased to be a part of today's announcement, which really helps to
further drive collaborative, open source development within the broader
community," said Robert LeBlanc, Vice President, IBM Software Strategy.
"IBM will also be providing code and a dedicated team of programmers to the
Apache Software Foundation, including the Jakarta Project and will use the
resulting code in its commercial products, similar to its use of the Apache
Web Server today. Setting up the Foundation ensures that both commercial
software customers and the community will benefit from the broad range of
skills and partners in the marketplace."
### CONTINUED LEADERSHIP BY COMMUNITY MEMBERS ###
ASF membership is open to individuals by invitation. Candidates are judged
by their technical contributions and skills, and must be active
collaborators on one or more of the Foundation's projects. At present, only
individuals may become members; however, companies may be represented in
the Foundation by individual participants.
"We hope that the open-source community, especially Apache software users,
will view this new corporate structure in the spirit that we held when
working toward its existence," said Randy Terbush, CEO/CTO of Covalent
Technologies. "Our ultimate goal was to preserve the longevity of the
Apache open-source development efforts while extending the same benefits to
other open-source projects that fit logically under the Apache Software
Foundation umbrella."
The members of the Apache Software Foundation have elected a Board of
Directors to oversee the corporation and ensure its responsiveness to the
needs of its projects. The Board is comprised of widely-recognized
contributors to the original Apache Group:
- Brian Behlendorf (O'Reilly and Associates)
- Ken Coar (IBM Corporation)
- Roy T. Fielding (University of California, Irvine)
- Ben Hyde (Gensym)
- Jim Jagielski (jaguNET Access Services)
- Ben Laurie (A.L. Digital Ltd.)
- Sameer Parekh (C2Net)
- Randy Terbush (Covalent Technologies)
- Dirk-Willem van Gulik (WebWeaving Consultancy)
"The Foundation will be guided by the same people who have maintained the
vision, principles and continuity of the Apache projects over the past four
years," added Fielding.
### APACHE OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE PROJECTS ###
Projects overseen by the Apache Software Foundation carry forth the
commitment to open collaboration, active participation from the Internet
developer community, and freely available software.
The Apache HTTP Server Project, the Foundation's best-known project, was
founded in 1995 as a collaborative effort to produce an open-source,
commercial-grade Web server in sync with the Internet standards for the
Hypertext Transfer Protocol [HTTP]. Software produced by the Apache HTTP
Server Project serves over 61% of all public Internet websites, according
to the June 1999 Netcraft Web Server Survey
[http://www.netcraft.com/survey/]. Hundreds of users have contributed
ideas, code, and documentation to the project. Every eight seconds another
Apache-based website joins the existing 3.5 million on the Web.
"Apache has had 'sister' projects for quite some time. We are now
formalizing that relationship, and ensuring that these projects benefit
from the same operating framework that the HTTP Server Project has and will
continue to have," explained Brian Behlendorf, ASF President.
One such sister project is the recently announced Jakarta Project -- the
collaboration between Sun Microsystems, IBM, Oracle, and the server-side
Java development community. Sun Microsystems is donating a significant
amount of code to this project, and plans to use code from Jakarta in their
commercial products and services.
"There's a lot of trust in the Apache name, and we want to maintain that,"
added Behlendorf. "We want to do what we can to make the open-source
development model really work."
### ABOUT THE APACHE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION ###
The Apache Software Foundation provides organizational, legal, and
financial support for the Apache open-source software projects. Formerly
known as the Apache Group, the Foundation incorporated as a
membership-based, not-for-profit corporation to ensure that the Apache
projects continue to exist beyond the participation of individual
volunteers, to enable contributions of intellectual property and financial
support, and to provide a vehicle for limiting legal exposure while
participating in open-source projects. For more information on the Apache
Software Foundation, please see http://www.apache.org/