In the North American Indian War that began in the 16th century, one of them fought for centuries, and the last tribe surrendered to the US government - the Apache tribe. Their last leader, Geronimo, led the tribe against the American army until 1909.
About a century later, also in the Americas, Brian Behlendorf, a computer science student who called himself "hanging out with radicals", led a small group of people to stand in the arena against big technology companies and named his team the "Apache Group".
The story after that is basically known to everyone. Apache released by Brian et al. has conquered the field of Web server, and its market share exceeded 70% at its peak. On the basis of the Apache HTTP server, a larger software "tribe" fighting for freedom, the Apache Software Foundation ( ASF for short ), was created. Today, there are nearly 200 projects maintained by contributors from all over the world in ASF, providing trillions of services of " Trillions and Trillions Served " on the Internet, which is also in response to the phrase "Open source swallows the world." ".
Many open source projects are honored to be named "Apache", and some people describe ASF as the home of a "grass-roots" project. Whether software can enter incubation and graduate depends on the development of the project itself rather than its origin. Those who have been "certified" by ASF Successfully graduated projects are also leaders in their respective fields.
The Apache HTTP server made a good start, and ASF developed a very correct strategy. Under the combination of punches, this slanted feather has actually existed in every corner of the world through the Internet.
Battle of the Trident, Phoenix Nirvana
In 1994, "radical" Brian, a three-year student in the computer science department at the University of California, Berkeley, left the school to pursue his ideals. Brian's early work was to build and maintain the Wired Magazine's online site, and like most Web pages at the time, Wired relied on the open source NCSA HTTP Server. NCSA HTTP Server is written by graduate students organized by the National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois.
Biran also contributed many patches to the NCSA HTTP Server at the time, and later founding members of ASF were also early contributors. For example, co-founder Mark Cox was also creating new features and bugs for the NCSA Web server during his PhD in 1993. repair.
Brian Behlendorf
But in the year Brian was out of school, the developers of the graphical web browser Anderson and Clark teamed up to form a company called Netscape. In the entire history of the technology industry, Netscape is considered one of the few companies that has overshadowed Microsoft. one.
After Netscape was established, it launched the product "Netscape Browser", which sold millions of copies in less than a year. In 1995, Netscape was listed on the stock market, and the stock price rose from $28 to $75 on the same day, and it also rose all the way after that. .
When it came to prominence, Netscape eyed the fat meat of NCSA HTTP Server.
As Brian recalls: Suddenly one day a student developer at the University of Illinois sent an email to the NCSA web server developer list. The email basically stated that they would no longer work for the NCSA HTTP Server because they both found jobs at Netscape. This means that they can only rely on an open source web server that no one has coded and maintained.
Brian and some of the people who are contributing to the NCSA HTTP Server realize that they are in a very precarious position. So, self-rescue begins.
They first checked the copyright license of the code. The NCSA HTTP Server used a permissive software agreement in the spirit of the MIT License at that time, which gave developers great freedom. Brian decided to continue this idea and mentality, to have people volunteer to work together and work together. At the same time, he wanted to come up with a romantic and interesting name for the new software, and finally he locked Apache, the clan name that fought to the end.
In addition, Apache has another meaning for the new server. Danese Cooper, a member of the ASF, explained that things that used to be submitted for server software were called Patches, but are now called PRs, and the new server is made up of these submissions, so it's also "a patchy software", a homonym for Apache.
For the emergence of the Apache HTTP server, Jim Jagielski, one of the co-founders of ASF, described it as a phoenix nirvana: collecting opinions from a group of people through the mailing list, and coordinating and consolidating the patches, ideas we want to see in our own NCSA web server , features and improvements, and use it to create an Apache web server.
The next step for Apache Group is to lead a battle. In this battle, the image of technology giants is "does not understand open source" and "opposes open source". Apache Group is to create a software and create an open source infrastructure. And creating open source knowledge is, in Jim Jagielski's words, "like a battle of the tridents."
"Our idea of winning this battle is to make open source the de facto way people develop software, which is a long-term goal for Apache," said Danese Cooper, a member of the ASF.
In A Song of Ice and Fire, the Battle of the Trident was the battle that ultimately determined the outcome of the Usurper's War. The insurgents and royal armies were on the Green Fork of the Trident, across the ford that came to be known as Ruby Beach. The battle ended in a victory for the insurgents.
"Grassroots" umbrella
"When the Apache Software Foundation was formed, I really just saw it as an umbrella for a product, I didn't imagine there would be hundreds of projects wanting to be under the same umbrella." This comment from Mark Cox summed up The original intention of the establishment of ASF and the results achieved.
The Apache Group started with just 8 people, and by version 0.8.8 the team had grown to 15 people. After the release of Apache 1.0 on December 1, 1995, it quickly surpassed NCSA as the most commonly used Web server within a year.
Problems arise as contributors and users increase. The Apache HTTP server continues to receive feedback and PRs from developers around the world, and groups like the "Apache Group" are formed. Apache member Maximilian Michels recalls, referring to the ASF's past , "As the number of projects increased, financial interests and potential legal issues threatened Apache's very existence. Out of this need, the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) established in 1999 Incorporated in June as a U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. In the U.S., a 501(c)(3) is a specially designed legal entity for nonprofit charitable organizations.”
"After ASF was established, new projects could easily utilize the services of the Foundation. Over the next year, a new project entered ASF every few months . The first project after Apache HTTP Server was Apache mod_perl (2000 March 2000), Apache tcl (July 2000), and Apache Portable Runtime (December 2000). After a brief hiatus in 2001, the company used a planned approach to adding new projects through an incubator, and ASF has Very steady growth with up to 12 projects (2012).”
Looking at the project growth curve of ASF now, the new projects entering the incubator every year are very stable.
Image source: https://projects.apache.org/
So why does ASF attract so many projects? What is the broader role of the umbrella?
Let 's start with the voice of a witness .
In 1998, IBM sponsored ASF's first team gathering, where almost everyone met with people they had worked with for a few years. The first ApacheCon was also held that year. Back then, Mark Cox saw all the developers of the Apache web server gathered in one place and couldn't help worrying about one problem: If there was a natural disaster, or food poisoning, the community would disappear. However, Mark Cox is not worried about the code, because the code is already on tens of thousands of servers around the world, what he is really worried about is the fear of losing those who share the core values and the same mission , "The success of the project is based on people and not on people. Code, that's what defines success, that's pretty much the Apache Way."
CC BY Mark Cox. https://www.flickr.com/photos/iamamoose/albums/1381277/with/63963566/
CC BY Mark Cox https://www.flickr.com/photos/iamamoose/63963722/in/album-1381277/
What is the Apache way? There is an evaluation: you ask 10 people in ASF what the Apache Way is, and you may get 11 answers. However, if you ask why the ASF is successful, the answer cannot be separated from the Apache Way.
The Apache Way has been around since the founding of the Apache Group, "It's the reason for our foundation's success, and we believe it's critical to the victory of open source as a whole." Of course, the Apache Way has continued to evolve over the years. Improvements, in general, the Apache Way defines open source in terms of existing legal and social frameworks and can help others understand what makes open source great and how to get involved in open source. For specific regulations, please refer to the official explanation of Apache Way. Here are some of the most talked about features and performances of Apache Way.
- Community is greater than code
This is more of a belief held by ASF members. As Mark Cox values, in ASF, community members have always been regarded as the most valuable asset, ASF firmly believes that a healthy community is more important than good code, a strong community can correct the problems of the code, and an unhealthy community may be difficult Maintain the codebase in a sustainable manner.
- Transparent mailing list with clear charter
Brain mentioned in the documentary that the core governance process of ASF can be well documented in the form of bylaws or other means. For example, from the very beginning, all communication and decision-making of the Apache Group was carried out on a public mailing list. (A little story, Brian and his wife also met on the mailing list.)
In addition, when the number of incubating projects attracted by the name continued to increase, ASF officially established the Incubator in 2002 to guide the growth of new projects: volunteers, enthusiasts or company employees can submit proposals to the incubator, including the project name, initial PPMC ( Podling PMC) member list, as well as the motivation and goals of the new project; once the IPMC (Incubator PMC) has discussed the proposal, it will start to vote on whether the project will enter the incubation stage; in the incubation stage, the project name has "Incubator (Podling)" in it , eliminated after graduation; to graduate, the project must prove itself sufficiently mature. The ASF project maturity model mainly includes community activity, code quality and legal compliance.
- Independence/Neutrality
Fundamental to a project in the open source world today is to provide a neutral endorsement, and ASF is no exception, and enforces very strict vendor neutrality: "No organization can gain privilege or control the direction of a project. , regardless of whether Committer is employed on Apache projects or sponsorship status."
"This independence creates a safe haven for the rapidly growing developer community." ASF board member Jim Jagielski believes that the main reason for the growth of ASF projects is neutrality, as ASF's development emphasizes neutrality and community-centricity The needs and recognition of needs in an environment where everyone can work on and contribute to the project without paying. In an ecosystem of companies vying to control open source projects, the ASF provides a safe space in which the community itself has and will always have control over its own destiny. While some projects have a large, single corporate 'association', both the ASF and the PMC take great care in ensuring influence and control. The shoulders of individuals within the community, not the needs of any company.
- Meritocracy and "lazy" consensus
Meritocracy and "lazy" consensus are core principles of internal governance within the Apache Software Foundation.
Meritocracy is a political system originating from ancient Greece. It is similar to the selection of meritocracy in ancient China. People choose those who have made efforts and contributions, and those who are matched with talent and virtue become leaders. identity. In ASF, users who submit patches may receive committer status, committers who advance the project may receive PMC status, and PMC members who actively participate in the project and the foundation may receive membership. In this way, it can ensure that newcomers can better integrate into the community when entering the community, and also have a clear progress guide.
Additionally, decisions within foundations and projects are often executed using "lazy" consensus. Consensus is easy to understand, and voting decisions must determine a consensus that more people support. The "lazy" consensus means that as long as there is no objection, even a few people can directly discuss and make decisions. Of course, discussions must be open to the mailing list. One of the great benefits of this rule is that it reduces friction and speeds up project development without requiring every decision to involve all staff.
It is not difficult to find that serious community disputes rarely occur in ASF's projects, and there are almost no conflicts between project management and contributors. Being able to manage more than a hundred open source projects at the same time, and making almost all of them better and better, seems to have proved the cleverness of the Apache Way. With the increase and popularity of ASF projects, Apache's original dream - making open source development a de facto development method, seems to be not far away from realization.