Apache Software Foundation
URL = http://www.apache.org/
'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 software license, and a desire to create high quality software that leads the way in its field.'
Description
From http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html
" What is the Apache Software Foundation?
The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization incorporated in the United States of America and was formed primarily to:
- provide a foundation for open, collaborative software development projects by supplying hardware, communication, and business infrastructure
- create an independent legal entity to which companies and individuals can donate resources and be assured that those resources will be used for the public benefit
- provide a means for individual volunteers to be sheltered from legal suits directed at the Foundation's projects
- protect the 'Apache' brand, as applied to its software products, from being abused by other organizations
That's the dry fact, but how did all this come to be and what does it really mean in its details? We need to step back a little in history.
A bit of history
The foundation was created in 1999 by a group of people, that called themselves the "Apache Group" and had come together several years earlier, to continue to support and maintain the HTTPD web server written by the NCSA.
That server was freely available, came with source code and was licensed under a license that allowed very open modification and redistribution, but the original developers lost interest in that project and moved onto something else, leaving users with no support.
Some of those users started to exchange fixes (called "patches") and information on how to prevent problems and improve the existing software. Brian Behlendorf created a mailing list on his own machine for those users to collaborate to fix, maintain and improve that software.
The name 'Apache' was chosen from respect for the Native American Indian tribe of Apache, well-known for their superior skills in warfare strategy and their inexhaustible endurance. It also makes a cute pun on "a patchy web server" -- a server made from a series of patches -- but this was not its origin. The group of developers who released this new software soon started to call themselves the "Apache Group".
Between 1995 and 1999, the Apache HTTPD Web Server created by the Apache Group became the leader of the market (and currently still is, with more than 65% of the web sites in the world powered by it).
But as the web grew bigger, economical interests started to grow, and the Apache web site hosted new sister projects (such as the mod_ perl project, the PHP project, the Java Apache project). The need for a more coherent and structured organization that would shield individuals from potential legal attacks felt more and more necessary." (http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html)