The Apache Software Foundation for the open-source

TL;DR After having used, tens Apache projects to manage web servers, logs, and big data ecosystem, it is time to understand how this open-source foundation works. It is a brief summary and great enter door to understand the open-source world.

ASF is one of the larger foundations for open-source projects in the tech world. The official website https://apache.org/ is exhaustive of useful information.

Apache Organization

The organization of ASF is complex enough, here are useful like to understand how it works:

• https://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html
• https://apache.org/foundation/
• https://www.apache.org/foundation/governance/orgchart

Apache community

See https://community.apache.org/

Apache Way: Core values

It is a set of methodologies and values designed to enable disparate communities of volunteers to work collaboratively over time.

See https://www.apache.org/theapacheway/

Apache News

ApacheCon is a conference that is a must for anyone who works deeply with Apache-based software programs.

http://www.apachecon.com/

See the old conferences: https://archive.apachecon.com/

See all the Apache events:

• https://events.apache.org/event/

Apache Blog posts:

• https://news.apache.org/
• https://blogs.apache.org/

Apache Reports:

• https://www.apache.org/foundation/reports.html

Apache sponsors

See https://apache.org/foundation/thanks

Apache Infrastructure

A dedicated team serves the needs of the Apache Software Foundation and its projects:

https://infra.apache.org/

Open-source initiatives based on Apache

An initiative can have a status in the function of its maturity and its impact on the tech world. For non-mature initiatives, we have an incubator:

https://incubator.apache.org/

Each mature initiative has a related website, `<name>.apache.org`, and is owned by a Project Management Committee (PMC) (or Top-Level Project).

https://projects.apache.org/

And if the initiative is too mature, another special committee, called attic, to provide processes and solutions to make it clear when an Apache project has reached its end of life.

Version for download

The last version of each project is available, as well as the older versions, with these links:

• https://dlcdn.apache.org/ : last version
• https://archive.apache.org/dist/ : older versions

But you can install the projects with your usual tools.

Source code

The exploration of sources is available here:

• https://github.com/orgs/apache/repositories: GitHub
• https://gitbox.apache.org/repos : Apache Gitbox

Statistics

You can explore the statistics projects.

License

The famous Apache 2.0 License is described:

• https://apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Other open-source initiatives

There are other open-source initiatives with a foundation like Apache:

• https://www.linuxfoundation.org/ : Linux Foundation
• https://www.cncf.io/ : Cloud-native Computing Foundation
• https://www.eclipse.org/org/foundation/ : Eclipse Foundation
• https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/ : Mozilla Foundation

Often these foundations are built around an origin project; it was Apache HTTP Server for Apache, here respectively, Linux, Kubernetes, Eclipse, or Mozilla. Big companies also manage open-source projects like:

• https://opensource.fb.com/ : Facebook open-source projects
• https://opensource.google/ : Google open-source projects