Apache Foundation Wraps Up 2007 As Its Best Year

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) - stewards, incubators, and developers of leading Open Source projects, including Apache HTTP Server, the worldis most popular Web server software for twelve years running - announced the 2007 year finished as its strongest ever, reinforcing the broad-reaching success of The Apache Way. Lauded as one of the most compelling communities in Open Source, the all-volunteer Foundation looked back on milestones achieved during 2007, with ASF activities having grown at a steady rate. 
 
"We are grateful to all those individuals - Members, Committers, developers, users, and supporters - who have contributed to our success over the past year," said ASF Chairman Jim Jagielski. "Our achievements reflect strong commitment from our community, boosting confidence in our ability to meet end-user and market demand and building excitement about the work that is underway.

MILESTONES DURING 2007

The Board - 2007  marked  the  largest  changeover  of  ASF  Board  members  since  The  ASFis  incorporation  in  1999.
Reflecting  the  Foundationis  diverse,  meritocratic  Membership,  the  newly-elected  board  members  are:  Justin Erenkrantz (President), J. Aaron Farr (Treasurer), Jim Jagielski (Chairman), Geir Magnusson Jr., William Rowe Jr., Sam Ruby (Executive Vice President/Secretary), Henning Schmiedehausen, Greg Stein and Henri Yandell.
 
Membership - at its inception, The ASF comprised 21 individuals who oversaw the progress of the Apache HTTP Server, forming the Foundationis core membership. Additions to this group grew with iCommittersi, developers who contributed code, patches, or documentation, and were subsequently granted access by the Membership: 1) to icommiti or iwritei directly to the code repository; 2) the right to vote on community-related decisions; and 3) and the ability propose an active user for Committership. Those Committers who demonstrate merit in the Foundationis growth, evolution, and progress are nominated for ASF Membership by existing members. Following its bi-annual elections, The ASF closed 2007 with the election of 56 new Members, totaling 259 overall.
 
Sponsors - As a private, 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization, The  ASF is funded solely through tax-deductible contributions from corporations, foundations, and private individuals. At The ASFis inception, all equipment and services were donated; The ASF Sponsorship Program was created to help offset day-to-day operating expenses such as bandwidth and connectivity, servers and hardware, legal and accounting services, marketing and public relations, general office expenditures, and support staff. Since launching the Sponsorship Program late 2006, the following sponsors contributions have helped advance The ASFis activities: Google, Yahoo!, HP, Covalent, AirPlus International, Tetsuya Kitahata and Two Sigma Investments.
 
Community - With  over  1500  Committers  and  countless  contributors  and  users  collaborating  in  the development of Apache-related activities across the Open Source landscape, ASF projects continue to grow at a steady rate. The ASF are responsible for millions of lines of code and roughly one dozen servers comprising its infrastructure; nearly 500 community-driven modules have been developed to extend functionality of the Apache HTTP Server alone.

Apache Conference - The ASFis official conference, trainings, and expo continues to bring Open Source users, developers, and though leaders together to explore some of the hottest topics in the industry. Convening in Amsterdam and Atlanta during 2007, ApacheCon Europe returns to Amsterdam 7-11/4/2008, and to the United States for ApacheCon US in New Orleans on 3-7/4/2008.
 
The ASFis participation in the OpenSource community also takes place through various committees that include: Licensing (responsible for the legal issues associated with licensing and license compatibilities, and for the revision of the Apache Software License), JCP (responsible for the liaison between The ASF and the Java Community Process, of which The ASF is a member of its Executive Committee); Conference Planning (responsible for the organization of ApacheCon); Security (responsible for handling potential security holes in ASF-produced software and mitigating vulnerability); and Public Relations (responsible for press-related issues, management of the Apache brand, trademark licensing, and collaboration with fundraising efforts). 
 
Achievements -Beginning with just two Projects (Apache HTTP Server, and the ApacheCon Conference Planning committee), The ASF today comprises more than 55 Top-Level Projects (TLPs) and two-dozen initiatives under Incubation (comprising both the codebase and its community, known as Podlings).
 
As the backbone of more Websites than any other Web server software, the Apache HTTP Server remains the #1 Web server, powering more than 75 million Websites across the Internet, according to the December 2007 Web Server Survey by Netcraft. This translates to a 74% market penetration across all Web Server domains, according to the January 1 2008  Web  Server  Survey by  Security  Space.  In  September 2007 the  Apache  HTTP  Server  Project announced the stable release of Apache HTTP Server version 2.2.6. The daily activity of each TLP (and any sub-projects) is overseen by Project Management Committees.
Their continuous efforts made 2007 a landmark year for reaching milestones in the following Top-Level Projects: Ant, APR, Cocoon, Directory, Excalibur, Forrest, Harmony, HiveMind, Jackrabbit, Jakarta, James, Lucene, Maven, Mina, MyFaces, Portals, Shale, Struts, Tapestry, Tomcat, and Velocity.

Apache Labs - Formed in November 2006, The ASF Innovation Laboratories allows Committers to experiment with new ideas and brainstorm on blue-sky concepts without the overhead of Project bylaws or community building. The Apache Labs now has 20 active initiatives in its registry. Over the past twelve months, the following initiatives have graduated to ASF Top-Level Projects (TLPs): Apache Tiles (Struts), Apache Turbine (Jakarta), Apache POI (Jakarta), Apache Quetzalcoatl (HTTP Server), Apache Commons (Jakarta), Apache HttpComponents (Jakarta),Apache OFBiz, Apache Cayenne, Apache ActiveMQ, Apache Roller, Apache Felix, Apache openEJB, Apache OpenJPA, Apache Wicket, Apache ODE and Apache ServiceMix.

THE FUTURE TO COME 
Industry projections show continued strong need of interoperable, adaptable, ubiquitous, and sustainable Open Source solutions. Increasingly, for enterprises, the appeal of Open Source software is no longer just about cost savings, but rather the flexibility to choose among vendors to implement support for their infrastructure products - or, as becoming more common, the ability to internally use and build upon an existing Open Source product with a stable codebase and an active community. 
 
ABOUT THE FOUNDATION
Established in 1999, The Apache Software Foundation provides organizational, legal, and financial support for a broad range of Open Source software projects, including Apache HTTP Server o the world's most popular Web server software for more than a decade. The Foundation provides an established framework for intellectual property and financial contributions that simultaneously limits contributors' potential legal exposure. Through a collaborative and meritocratic development process, Apache projects deliver enterprise-grade, freely available software products that attract large communities of users. The pragmatic Apache License makes it easy for all users, commercial and individual, to deploy Apache products. For more information, WebSite: http://www.apache.org