The Apache Software Foundation is a decentralized community of developers working on its open-source software projects. The Apache projects are characterized by a collaborative, consensus based development process, an open and pragmatic software license. Each project is managed by a self-selected team of technical experts who are active contributors to the project. ASF is a meritocracy implying that membership to the foundation is granted only to volunteers who have actively contributed to Apache projects.
Among the ASF's objectives are to provide legal protection to volunteers working on Apache projects, and to protect the Apache brand name from being used by other organizations. The Apache project is the origin of the Apache-style license.
History
History of the Apache Software Foundation is linked to the Apache HTTP Server, the work on which started in 1994. A group of eight developers started working on enhancing the NCSA HTTPd daemon. They were Brian Behlendorf, Roy T. Fielding, Rob Hartill, David Robinson, Cliff Skolnick, Randy Terbush, Robert S. Thau and Andrew Wilson with additional contributions from Eric Hagberg, Frank Peters and Nicolas Pioch.
The enhanced product called the Apache server was released in April, 1995. In 1999, members of the Apache Group formed the foundation to provide support for the Apache HTTP server. ASF has a strength of 105 members as of 2003.
A list of some of the projects maintained by Apache :