The Apache Way

What does “Apache OpenOffice.org (Incubating)” mean?

@rgardler Who is Ross Gardler?

Ross Gardler Vice President of Community Development The Apache Software Foundation

[email protected] @rgardler

@rgardler What is The Apache Software Foundation? ● Infrastructure ● Legal ● Social ● Technical

● Projects ● 94 top level projects ● 57 incubating projects ● 32 labs projects ● 16 attic projects

@rgardler Apache projects

● HTTP Server ● Felix ● ODE ● Subversion ● Abdera ● Forrest ● OODT ● Synapse ● ActiveMQ ● Geronimo ● OFBiz ● Tapestry ● Ant ● Gump ● OpenEJB ● Tcl ● APR ● Hadoop ● OpenJPA ● Thrift ● Archiva ● Harmony ● OpenWebBeans ● Tika ● Aries ● HBase ● PDFBox ● Tiles ● Avro ● Hive ● Perl ● Tomcat ● Axis ● HttpComponents ● Pig ● TrafficServer ● Buildr ● Jackrabbit ● Pivot ● Turbine ● Camel ● Jakarta ● POI ● Tuscany ● Cassandra ● James ● Portals ● UIMA ● Cayenne ● jUDDI ● Qpid ● Web Services ● Chemistry ● Karaf ● River ● Wicket ● Click ● Lenya ● Roller ● Xalan ● Cocoon ● Libcloud ● Santuario ● Xerces ● Commons ● Logging ● ServiceMix ● XML ● Continuum ● Lucene ● Shindig ● XMLBeans ● CouchDB ● Mahout ● Shiro ● XML Graphics ● CXF ● Maven ● Sling ● Zoo Keeper ● DB ● Mina ● SpamAssassin ● Directory ● MyFaces ● STDCXX Incubating ● ● ● ESME Nutch Struts Projects...

@rgardler Apache's tagline

We are more than a group of projects sharing a server, we are a community of developers and users.

@rgardler Apache's Mission

The Apache Software Foundation provides support for the Apache community of open source software projects. The Apache projects are characterized by a collaborative, consensus based development process, an open and pragmatic , and a desire to create high quality software that leads the way in its field.

@rgardler Apache's Mission (redux)

● Let developers do what they do best – develop ● Apache Software Foundation handles the rest

● The Apache Way ● Open Development vs. Open Source ● Everyone is equal, everyone is a volunteer ● All technical decisions about a project are public ● She who has the best idea leads – Until a better idea emerges

● Apache does not pay for development @rgardler Who are we?

● 2663 committers ● People who have earned write access to one or more projects

● 370 active members ● People who have earned the right to vote for the board

● >4000 iCLAs ● People who have clearance to licence IP to the Foundation

@rgardler Committer geographic diversity

@rgardler Merit Earns Influence ● Use ● Evangelism ● Feature Requests Users ● User Support ● Documentation Committers ● Testing ● Bug Reports Members ● Design ● Patches

● Collaboration Contributors

● Infrastructure ● Mentoring @rgardler How Decisions are Made ●Most decisions are reversible

●“If it didn't happen on the list, it didn't happen”

●Uncontroversial or small changes ● Lazy Consensus – assume it's OK – JFDI

●Controversial, irreversible or large changes ● Propose then wait a minimum of 72 hours ● Anyone can veto it (the -1 notation) ● Silence means you have lazy Consensus ● +1 also indicates support @rgardler How Conflict is Resolved

● Everyone has a veto (-1) ● Only committers veto is binding

● Veto must be supported ● Reasoned argument with course of action ● Willingness to implement alternative

● Veto's force discussion and, if supported, version control rollback

● Code can be vetoed, releases cannot

@rgardler Undue Influence?

● What if there are only committers from FooBar Corporation?

● It should not happen ● Incubator graduation requires diversity

● If it does happen, through attrition ● Board can (and occasionally does) intervene ● Quarterly board reports, community oversight

@rgardler Apache OpenOffice.Org (incubating)

@rgardler The only history slide...

@rgardler I'm one of Eight OOo Mentors

● We provide no technical guidance ● Social guidance only ● We help the community adopt the Apache Way

● We help to ensure ● Everyone is equal ● Everyone has a voice

● We do not dictate, we guide ● There are just a few fixed rules, we enforce those

@rgardler Future of Apache OpenOffice.org

● It's not up to the ASF, it's up to you ● At least if you care enough to engage constructively

● I asked the ooo-dev what their priorities are ● Many views presented ● Some consistency ● Some points to discuss ● Here's a few...

@rgardler Independence

Enable corporate, non-profit, and volunteer stakeholders to contribute in a collaborative fashion.

@rgardler Reuse

Build a constructive working and technical relationship so that the source code developed at Apache can be readily used downstream by everyone.

@rgardler Collaboration Collaboration is not just on code, some suggestions for other forms of collaboration...

jointly sponsored events, interoperability 'plugfests', standards development, shared build infrastructure, shared release mirrors, coordination of build schedules and version numbers, defect lists, and

downstream requirements @rgardler Open

We will our relationship with other projects a priority early in the life of the project

@rgardler Interoperability

Build close relationships with appropriate Apache Projects to enhance the features of OO.o and improve interoperability.

@rgardler One result...

● Yesterday I learned (via the ooo-dev mailing list) of the donation of Lotus Symphony

● End of the IBM Symphony Fork

● Symphony packages OO.o as Eclipse plugins ● More reuse potential, even beyond Eclipse?

● Not a diversion from next release of OO.o

@rgardler You and OO.o

● How do we collaborate upstream/downstream?

● As one responder on the ooo-dev list said

“We will find a way”

@rgardler Over to you...

● Get involved ● [email protected]

@rgardler