Please read on for my take on what’s important for the ASF’s future…

Shane’s Director Position Statement 2017 v1.0

If you want a director who will keep the board focused on being clear, consistent, and polite; who will provide oversight for independent governance for our projects; who will help the board improve our shared strategic vision for growth while delegating effectively to the officers and volunteers who provide services to our projects, then I ask you to vote for me.

What We Need In A Board

We are lucky to have candidates who all have immense amounts of passion for the ASF and experience in the Apache Way of doing things. But that’s not enough to make an effective board. We need directors who can work well together, and who can work well when speaking to all the other parts of the Foundation: with our corporate operations (infra, brand, legal, press, fundraising, and even our vendors and sponsors), and with the thousands of volunteers working in Apache project communities.

The board needs to focus on providing the independent oversight for everything we do. That independence from corporate influence is the most important part of what makes the ASF different. That oversight should be trust but verify. We trust that our projects will do the right thing, and verify by reading their quarterly reports. Only if something seems wrong does the board speak up – and then, to ask the community to self-correct. Only if a project community can’t self-correct does the board take formal action.

We need a board that will give the officers, staff, and volunteers who run our non-project corporate operations the same respect and trust as we do our projects. Since we rely wholly on unpaid volunteers to govern organizational decisions, the board needs to ensure officers have a safe, consistent, and clearly defined space to do all the “paperwork” that keeps our legal corporation running. Since all corporate officers provide monthly reports, the board has plenty of visibility to what they do.

When the board has questions or advice – or when directors have questions – they need to ensure it’s brought into project communities clearly, concisely, and professionally. The organizational aspects of providing oversight are often not the day-to-day work that committers are doing on their project codebase. When the board (or any officer) jumps into a project community, we need to explain both how things should work at Apache, but also the why they work that way.

I hope that I’ve shown this kind of behavior in the past; if I haven’t, please let me know. Keeping our communities welcoming is important.

What Shane Does At Apache

For those who don’t follow Apache operations on a regular basis, here are some of the places where I’ve worked to take the tribal knowledge of our mailing lists, and better explain it to both our communities and the world at large:

• About trademarks & brands
  • https://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/resources
  • https://www.slideshare.net/shanecurcuru
• About how the ASF works
  • https://www.apache.org/foundation/governance/
  • https://s.apache.org/How-Apache-Really-Works
• About Community over Code & The Apache Way
  • http://theapacheway.com/
  • https://communityovercode.com/

I’ve served on the board for several terms, and serve as VP, Brand Management. I’m hoping to get back to coding on Apache PonyMail. My first mail to an Apache list was in November 1999.

If elected, I will

• Attend every board meeting
• Ensure that there is clear, consistent, and polite feedback from the board to projects
• Work to promote constructive, polite, and efficient working environments for our staff and all our community volunteers
• Speak at every ApacheCon (if they accept my CFPs!)
• Be available to speak or meet with Apache projects or meetups in the New England area or other conferences I attend

About Shane

I am currently unemployed and hold no allegiance other than to the ASF (and my family!) I will not accept a job that would compromise my ability to act in the best interests of the ASF. I live with my wife, daughter, and four cats.

The post Shane’s Apache Director Position Statement, 2017 appeared first on Community Over Code.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the past year, and I like to think I have an easy to explain answer to “what Apache needs in a board”.

We need a board to provide two things: Independent Oversight, of both projects and officers; and  Strategic Vision and Drive.

Independent Oversight

Independent oversight is the core value the ASF offers as a community hosting organization. We are a 501C3 public charity, and we rely solely on unpaid volunteers to perform all governance activities. That means that we can ensure our projects are run for the benefit of the public and the world, and not just for individual for-profit companies.

In particular, I am confident that we can maintain this corporate independence, even in the face of project and organizational growth and any potential future needs to hire more staff for operations. Our cultural history and Member ability provide oversight to both project and corporate operations mean the Membership will be able to keep us independent for the next 50 years.

Oversight of Projects: The board provides oversight to our projects. The board does this by reviewing quarterly project reports, and then only providing 1) mentoring when requested, or 2) board requests or directives only if the project is not capable of correcting problems themselves. As has been noted before: the board acts slowly by design: it gives projects a chance to self-correct before taking organizational action (ultimately by changing a PMC, in very rare cases).

Oversight of Operations: The board appoints officers to perform the daily corporate operations needed (infra, publicity, etc.), and then provides oversight to the President or those officers via monthly reports. This is a key point here: we need a board that can delegate operations to the officers, and treat them more like PMCs. That is, we need a board that respects delegation rather than micromanaging. Like PMCs, if the board sees something odd, they should request an update in the next report from the officer. If the officer can’t self-correct (like we give PMCs a chance to do), only then should the board step in, with specific directives to make changes.

Strategic Vision And Drive

Strategic vision and drive: the board needs to think ahead, and plan in broad strokes where we’d like to see the ASF be in 5 years, and how that can best serve the needs of both our project contributors, our users in general, and the volunteers and staff who perform our corporate operations.

We’re incredibly lucky to have director candidates with broad experience, strong viewpoints, and a willingness to volunteer their time for the position. We need a board that can take this experience to think about the big picture, and how the ASF can remain relevant, exciting, and a well-functioning organization for years to come. This includes supporting both our paid staff and our many, many volunteers with an efficient and helpful environment across our operations.

Individual Directors

Along with a good board, we need directors who can communicate clearly, professionally, and consistently. The larger world and many community members view Directors as a very specific role, and it’s clear from the feedback over the years that many outsiders (i.e. not regularly active in internal operations and governance at the ASF) see each director as being A Director in their emails.

As we rely on volunteers both for project work and governance, we need directors who can keep their messages clear, consistent, and always remember what audience they are speaking to. That includes both mentoring/overseeing project communities; reviewing officers or operational areas; or in public in general when speaking about the ASF.

We also need at least some Directors willing to serve as public spokespersons for the ASF. In many cases, Sponsors and the press/analysts expect to speak to someone with  A Senior Title, like Director or President. While the Apache Way minimizes the importance of titles inside of our communities, the reality in the real world is that titles matter to many other people.

For those folks interested in the nitty-gritty details of how the ASF elects its board, you can read about the STV tools we use from the Apache STeVe project.

The post What Apache needs in a Board appeared first on Community Over Code.

You probably use contribute to several Apache projects.  But do you know what goes on behind the scenes at the ASF?  Besides all the work of the 200+ project communities, the ASF has an annual budget of about one $million USD to fund the services our projects use.  How we manage providing these services – and governing the corporation behind the projects – continues to change and improve.

I’ve written a detailed description of corporate governance at the ASF. Members elect the board; the board appoints officers; the board approves all PMC appointments; and some officers either work with committees or outside vendors to do their work.  And all governance positions at the ASF are unpaid volunteers, meaning that keeping clear coordination paths is important.

Over the past couple of years operations at the ASF have expanded and changed how we organize them.  Here are some updated org charts to help explain who does what behind the scenes.

Apache Corporate Organization Charts

All officers at the ASF report to the board monthly.  Every Apache PMC submits a report quarterly.  A number of specific officers manage the relationships with external vendors who handle accounting, insurance, publicity, and other corporate functions that we contract for.

Note that the Apache Membership can also provide oversight and advice to the board.  Members do not have a formal role in daily operations, however many Members are the volunteers (or officers) that help keep operations running.

The Membership are like shareholders in the corporation; they elect directors to the board.  The board serves two roles: as a traditional corporate board, which appoints officers and sets strategy; and the open source board, which provides community oversight to all Apache projects.  Daily operations are now centralized under the President, and most corporate officers report there instead of directly to the board.

Each project at Apache manages their own affairs.  Projects must follow the Apache Way, but are free to set their own technical direction and speed.  Every project can be their own world with their own style.  Officers and the Infra Team then provide services (and set a very few corporate wide requirements) equally to all projects.

Have Your Say – Help Us Improve!

The Apache Community Development project is working hard to better explain how Apache works.  There’s a lot of work in running a successful FOSS Foundation like the ASF.  We want to give people some perspective on all the volunteers behind the scenes that provide services for all Apache projects

Once reviewed, I’ll be checking these org charts into the official apache.org website.  Any comments or suggestions – or corrections of errors – are greatly appreciated!

The post Behind the scenes at Apache: Corporate Org Chart appeared first on Community Over Code.

We are lucky to have both a large involved membership, as well as another excellent slate of candidates including a couple of great new faces. No matter how Apache STeVe ends up computing the results, Apache will have a great board for the year to come.

Please read on for my take on what’s important for the ASF’s future…

Shane Curcuru (curcuru) Director Position Statement 2016

V1.0 STATEMENT

I’m honored and pleased to be nominated for the board again. If you want a director who will take the time to help projects politely, ensure we keep our strong and independent governance, and act as a positive and friendly voice to the outside world, then I urge you to cast your first place vote for me [1].

While Apache has amazing successes, I believe we can do a better job of serving all of our projects while still staying true to our roots. We are long past the point where tribal knowledge is an efficient way to guide our projects or to respect the time of our volunteer mentors, officers, and committers.

We need to take operations at the Foundation level to the next step: build a professional organization that is run by volunteers. I’m confident we will always keep our strongly independent and volunteer-run governance – but we must do better at helping all of our communities understand and implement the Apache Way as best fits their situation, and provide them with the services they deserve.

Internally, projects frequently ask questions that we’ve already answered – either because they didn’t read the available Apache process/practice/policy docs, or they didn’t understand the rationale behind our policies. Addressing these questions individually every time they come up both requires time from the ASF directors and officers who help resolve the issue, as well as leading to confusion for projects sometimes when inconsistent or incorrect interpretations are provided by different people.

Opportunities for improvement include: making sure new projects understand what the Apache Way means, as well as why our policies are written the way they are; developing and providing clear access to documentation that’s easy for newcomers to find and understand; and providing better mentoring and more consistent guidance to projects. Similarly, we need to find ways to provide more friendly and organized mentoring and guidance for projects at the day-to-day level, so that more issues are identified earlier, instead of waiting until a crisis appears and (over)reacting to it. I also support efforts to fund and hire a sufficient infrastructure team to maintain our services properly for all projects.

Externally, we also need directors who are willing to provide a public face to the ASF. While titles don’t matter much within Apache, to the outside world, titles (like Director, President, VP) are very important. When sponsors or companies considering donating technology or engineering time to the ASF want to ask questions, they ask to speak to an officer, not just some PMC member. Apache project volunteers deserve directors who will help the rest of the world understand how Apache works and help guide newcomers to contribute to our projects productively, and who will always treat our diverse project communities and contributors with respect.

If elected, I will:

• Attend every board meeting
• Take the time to be sure each PMC understands any report feedback I bring from a board meeting to their project
• Speak at every ApacheCon (if they accept my CFPs!)
• Be available to speak or meet with Apache projects or meetups in the New England area or other conferences I attend

I look forward spending time this summer with my wife, daughter, and our four cats, I also look forward to devoting additional time to my ASF responsibilities over the coming year. Having sufficient time for ASF activities will be a priority in any future plans, as I will not consider jobs that would limit my ability to support the ASF as fully as I would like to. For me, Apache always comes before jobs.

More Resources About How Apache Works

I’ve helped write or contributed to many different web pages explaining how Apache really works:

• Apache Governance – the formal reference, plus an essay on how it really works
• Why Apache code is always available for free
• The importance of vendor-neutral and independent project governance
• Apache Brand and Trademark Policy
• Conference slides on The Apache Way and Brand Management
• My graphical history of past directors

• Or your second place vote, if first place goes to a newcomer!

The post Shane’s Apache Director Position Statement, 2016 appeared first on Community Over Code.

We are lucky to have a large roster of excellent director candidates, so no matter how the election turns out we’ll have a stellar board. Given the wide variety of opinions in our candidates, I urge all Apache members to set aside the time this week to carefully consider all the board candidates, as well as all the great new Member nominees.  Please vote – and if you’re not free this week, be sure to assign your proxy for the meeting attendance: I and several other Members are happy to proxy for you.

Please read on for my take on what’s important for the ASF’s future…

Shane Curcuru (curcuru) Director Position Statement 2014

V1.0 STATEMENT

If you believe that we need to significantly improve the scope and quality of services and support that Apache provides to our 200+ project communities, then I urge you to cast your first place vote for me.  I want to: codify tribal knowledge; hire staff to help our volunteers; and be a director who will better tell our story to the world.

Codify Tribal & Community Knowledge

The ASF has grown past the point where relying on volunteers to effectively perform the many coordination, mentoring, project support, and Foundation operations is practical.

As a community we have amazing knowledge and experience locked up in our heads, our mailing lists, and scattered in hard-to-read documentation.  Itâ€s not fair to our project committers – and the new communities joining the Incubator every week – to continue to rely on various individual volunteers to provide the tribal knowledge of how and why the Apache Way works.  We need to codify our core processes and why they are that way, and make it easy for any Member – or any project, or podling, or contributor – to understand them and implement them.  We also shouldnâ€t be afraid to publish and recommend our many best practices to all our communities.

We need directors who will codify the operational models inside Apache so that we rely less on individual historical knowledge, and more on clear, documented, and easy-to-implement processes to provide services and assistance to Apache projects.

Engage Dedicated Staff To Help Our Volunteers

Even when we have clear and efficient processes that are easy for people to understand and use, we still struggle to effectively provide key services, and to provide Apache Way mentoring for all projects and podlings.  We could greatly improve the level, amount, and professionalism of services the Foundation offers to projects by hiring dedicated staff[1].  This will provide a consistent and reliable backstop to our many volunteer Members who provide mentoring and operational work within the Foundation.

Our volunteer governance, and minimizing the rules for our projects will always be central to the ASF.  Hiring staff for a position like Director of Operations or Community Mentor will greatly improve our volunteerâ€s ability to help our thousand of committers and project community members focus on whatâ€s important to them: efficiently producing great software products for the public good.

I donâ€t want paid staff to ever replace what helpful volunteers actually do provide.  But paid staff can assist in two crucial ways:

• Improving the efficiency of volunteers doing mentoring and Foundation or project operations.  Someone with paid time to focus on improving docs, providing interactive education, and to actively “mentoring the mentors” would both improve the experience for our volunteer mentors, and increase the value our project communities get from them.
• Backstopping volunteers.  We rely on the Incubatorâ€s volunteer mentors to ensure that podlings have a healthy community before graduation – but we know that not all our mentors are stepping up to the level our podling communities deserve.  Paid staff can step in as a reliable backup community mentor when our volunteers donâ€t come through.

We also need to continue to invest in our excellent infrastructure team to ensure we can comfortably and reliably provide the wide variety of services our projects ask for.

Tell Apacheâ€s Story To The World

Despite our rapid growth, we still struggle to explain to new communities and the rest of the world who we are and what we stand for.  We need directors who will actively represent the ASF by better telling our story to the world: to developers, to users, and to companies in the software ecosystem.  While titles may not matter much inside Apache, to the world outside, titles are important.  We need directors and officers to actively educate individual developers and companies alike on how Apache works and the benefits of contributing to our projects.

Effective and appropriate education (from explaining the Apache Way and how Apache projects work) means that more companies may invest in our project technologies and communities.  Most importantly, when newcomers do contribute – developers, companies, and their employees – will respect our project brands and communities, and contribute in a productive way.  Even today we still find many clueful people at other major open source groups or events who donâ€t understand, or misunderstand, what Apache is – and doesnâ€t that just drive you crazy?

What Shane Does At Apache

Iâ€ve been a passionate and active committer at the ASF since 1999. My current focus is to improve our documentation and guidelines to make them useful for everyone in our communities.  Iâ€ve written or improved content across the apache.org website, explaining Apache governance, project independence, and plenty of other clarifications.  I speak at ApacheCon, OSCON and elsewhere, and have worked on mentoring within many Apache projects, both on branding and community issues.  As VP, Brand Iâ€ve defined and implemented a trademark policy for third party use, and guidance for projects to  best showcase and defend their brands.  I was an active mentor for the OpenOffice podling.  I also give Lightning Talks whenever someone will let me.

About Shane

Committer since November 1999, Member since 2002, VP Brand Management since 2009, past Director.

My employment at IBM in the HR division as an Applications Architect is wholly unrelated to Apache; all my work here is currently unpaid.   I live in Massachusetts with my wife, young daughter, and 2 cats (soon: +2 Siamese kittens! Whee!).

I believe in Apacheâ€s mission for the public good – my work here is how I give back to the world. I view directorships and officer positions at the ASF as important commitments, and will attend every board meeting if re-elected.  I have attended every board meeting since June 2009 with two exceptions (one due to my fatherâ€s passing; the other was a special in-person meeting in CA when I wasnâ€t a director).

[1] Paid staff: contracts or PEO through Virtual, Inc., not Employees.

The post Shane’s Apache Director Position Statement 2015 appeared first on Community Over Code.

Even better is Apache Ambari to manage your Apache Cassandra data store through Apache Hive with Apache Pig to make it simpler to write Apache Spark compute flows… Or, if you want it assembled for you, just grab the latest Apache BigTop, which already includes a bunch of Apache Hadoop related packages all together.

How can we do a better job of getting at least a single “Apache Hadoop” into some of the many media stories about Hadoop these days? It’s great that all these vendors are making great technology and projects that power big data, but with all their success and fancy marketing campaigns, you’d think we could get just a tiny bit of credit in the popular press with the actual committers on the core Apache Hadoop project itself. Or any of the other Apache project technologies that these vendors, other software companies – and just about every other company too – rely on every day to help make their websites work.

Would it hurt marketers and journalists and bloggers to throw in just one extra “Apache” before talking about the many free Apache software products that help power more than half the internet?

The ASF and Apache projects give away a tremendous amount of technology every day under our permissive Apache license – always for free. All we ask is respect for our trademarks, and a little bit of credit for the many volunteer communities that build Apache software.

P.S. Apache projects love to get more code, documentation, testing, and other contributions too! And the ASF has a Sponsorship program.

Thanks!

The post Even better than Hadoop! appeared first on Community Over Code.

The new board comprises:

• Rich Bowen
• Doug Cutting
• Bertrand Delacretaz
• Ross Gardler
• Jim Jagielski
• Chris Mattmann
• Brett Porter (chairman)
• Sam Ruby
• Greg Stein

I also keep a graphical history of the ASF board.

As the ASF grows in projects, communities, and Members, we’re looking forward to continuing to support our now 151 top level Apache projects going forward!

The post Congratulations to the 2014 Apache Board of Directors appeared first on Community Over Code.

I’ve also written an Apache corporate governance overview as well as posted an ASF contributor timeplot and history of past boards.

Shane Curcuru (curcuru) Director Position Statement 2014

v1.0 statement

Over the past couple of years, the ASF has grown to a point where we can no longer efficiently continue to govern, manage, and execute the various operational aspects of the Foundation in support of our nearly 200 project & podling communities with only unpaid volunteers. We need a board that can maintain our fiercely vendor-neutral governance while also expanding and improving the services that we offer to all Apache projects, and this will require finding ways to increase our paid staff [1].

While the volunteer membership has been amazing throughout our history in helping with governance, mentoring, incubation, and all other aspects of operations, we simply don’t have enough members with time reliably available to provide this level of operational support. With 150+ separate Apache top level projects – each with its own technology, individual community history, and sometimes urgent pace of development — the overall cohesion that marked the earlier years of the Apache organization has been jeopardized. It’s clear from recent requests and issues that we are not providing the level of support – infra, brand/press, fundraising, and community mentoring – that many of our projects expect and require.

With the growth in key project technologies that affect the larger world, we also have a corresponding higher level of expectations from stakeholders outside of the ASF volunteer community. Our sponsors – when we do talk to them about their sponsorships – want us to be more visible in the open source space and show more support to our projects. The many vendors whose employees work on our projects similarly want to be more involved with donations, servers, events, or branding efforts around our projects. Ensuring that this external energy is focused on the Apache project in ways that maintain an independent project governance is critical to the success of both our projects and to the ASF itself.

We need to provide a better API between individual project communities and our service providers (infra, press, brand, legal, fundraising) at the Foundation level. We need to ensure that projects are aware of the services we can provide to support their operations, and make it simple for them to utilize those services. Clear expectations should be set for the level of services that the ASF will provide, as well as governance assistance for those projects that will continue to use external service providers (eg, various marketing@ efforts and many projects’ externally run build/CI/test farms).

To meet the current services needs, and to support increased quality in our governance and operations, the ASF will need to increase our number of paid staff [1]. We need motivated, experienced, and trusted individuals who have the paid time to address the ever-expanding needs of the Foundation, and who can dedicate themselves and their time at a level that is not possible for an unpaid volunteer.

It is also essential that we scale our management and oversight ability of these services and of staff without losing our soul: without compromising our historically independent and volunteer board and governance structures. I don’t know exactly what this path will be: that will be for the next board to decide. But I do believe we are underserving many of the projects at Apache today, and we have no end in sight of new podlings hoping to join us.

If you also believe we need to better provide for the many Apache project communities that trust us to be their home, I hope you’ll cast your first vote for me. Thanks!

About Shane

Committer since November 1999, Member since 2002, VP Brand Management since 2009.

I am employed by IBM in the HR division as an Applications Architect. My employment and income have been unrelated to my work at the ASF for many years, and I will always clearly separate volunteer work from employer-funded work.

My involvement in the ASF is driven by a belief in, and a love of, the ASF, and is not influenced by politics or finances. I live in Massachusetts with my wife, young daughter, and 2 cats. I view directorships and officer positions at the ASF as serious commitments.

I will attend every board meeting if re-elected.

[1] NOTE: How we pay for staff is equally important: at this point in the ASF’s history, I imagine either independent contractors as infra operates currently, or using the services of our new accounting firm Virtual, Inc. for some sort of co-employment arrangement, to reduce risk to the ASF.

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There are several aspects of how we expect Apache projects to work that we believe are critical to our mission’s success and longevity. These include things like The Apache Way of: volunteer and collaborative led community built software projects; using the permissive Apache license; and having a consistent and stable brand, infrastructure services, and home for all Apache projects.

We – as in the bulk of the Apache membership and especially the directors that we elect to the board (and thus the corporate officers the board appoints to set policy) – believe that these few core organizational and community management principles are so important for our long term mission that we require these behaviors of all Apache projects. Part of having a consistent brand is showing some level of consistent behavior with the products you produce. Having a shared set of infrastructure services likewise simplifies the process for users to find and use our products. Using the permissive Apache license means that we give maximum freedom to the users of our software, meaning that more users are likely to choose it.

But beyond these core principles, ones we have carefully crafted through experience working on Apache projects and have attempted to minimize when prudent, how do we decide where the ASF should go in the future, or what other, more detailed principles might be important to us? While the officers and directors set the official policies of the ASF as an organization, we look to the constructive input of all Apache members when discussing these ideas.

One recurring meme when discussing “What else should the ASF be/do” has been: “Projects first, or Foundation first?” I.e. is the ASF here to serve the needs of our Apache projects, or have Apache projects chosen to come here to follow the direction of the ASF? Should the ASF decide what kinds of projects we want to join, and decide The One True Technology; or should we simply see what projects show up, and try to support them?

If you picture Eclipse, you can see an example of “Foundation first”: the Eclipse board and leadership – mostly through it’s paying corporate sponsors and de facto corporate-led projects – has an overall vision and drive that explicitly provides direction for it’s projects. Eclipse has full-time staff devoted to “…1) IT Infrastructure, 2) IP Management, 3) Development Process, and 4) Ecosystem Development.” Similarly, the Eclipse board is partially made of appointed members from their Strategic Developer and Strategic Consumer corporations. That leads to strong consistency and direction, primarily for the benefit of the corporations directly or indirectly funding Eclipse projects.

“Projects first” means that the ASF exists to serve the needs of any projects who choose to join us, and who willingly agree to follow our basic rules, like using our license, consensus-driven decisions, and running projects independently of corporations. Our mission is not on behalf of the many corporations who pay their employees to donate code to Apache projects. Our mission is to provide software for the public good – that is, the end users of our software, and the larger world around us.

The ASF doesn’t have an agenda beyond that mission. We don’t have a strategic plan for acquiring projects in specific technologies or from specific corporations. We rely on providing a stable and friendly home for like-minded individuals and communities to build software… for the public good. We certainly hope – and time has shown – that this model will attract vibrant communities that will build useful software. There are plenty of Apache Members and Committers who are passionate about sharing their experiences in software development with others, which is great. But as an organization, we don’t have a strategic plan for seeking out new projects: we believe the best process is to let like-minded projects seek us out.

To ensure that Apache projects focus on the public good, we also require our projects to be run independently of undue commercial influence. Apache projects don’t exist to serve as a vehicle for the corporations who may have donated technology or employee developer hours to them – they exist for the broader public good.

This independence is fundamental to the long-term health of our projects, and to the ASF. It both makes the ASF a place where potentially competing corporations can feel comfortable collaborating on technology (which gets us lots of software for our mission) and also seems to attract plenty of individuals who are interested in participating in our projects – even when changing employers. This independence means that an independent Apache project can continue to exist for the benefit of it’s users even if one of the corporations donating technology to it decides to change direction.

But beyond the core requirements here – ones designed to keep project governance in our independent communities – the ASF strives to not add any additional requirements, but rather to provide the best home to like-minded Apache projects that we can. So in that way, we try to remain focused going forward on putting “Projects first”.

Actually, I should amend that. We do have the core project requirements; ones associated with being an Apache project. So I should really say that we put “Apache projects first”. But beyond that Apacheness that the ASF has developed over 13 years and 190 project communities, we strive to not have an agenda – other than to support those Apache project communities who choose to join us as best we can.

People still reading may also be interested in learning how governance at Apache works.

The post Apache Governance – Projects First appeared first on Community Over Code.

The new board comprises:

• Shane Curcuru
• Doug Cutting (chairman)
• Bertrand Delacretaz
• Roy T. Fielding
• Jim Jagielski
• Chris Mattmann
• Brett Porter
• Sam Ruby
• Greg Stein

I also keep a graphical history of the Apache board.

The post Congratulations to the 2013 Apache Board of Directors appeared first on Community Over Code.