Apache Software Foundation



The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation, incorporated in Delaware, USA, 1999. The ASF is a natural outgrowth of the Apache Group, the developers of the famous Apache HTTP Server. The Foundation keeps care of the legal and financial concerns of all the Apache projects.

The Software developed by the Apache Software Foundation is developed as open source under the Apache License. The ASF is also a participant of the JCP and holds a seat on the Executive Committee for J2SE/J2EE until 2010.

Objectives of the Foundation
Referring to the FAQ there are four main objectives for the Apache Software Foundation:
 * 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; and,
 * protect the 'Apache' brand, as applied to its software products, from being abused by other organizations.

Supported Projects
There is a wide range of software projects supported by the Apache Software Foundation. The most popular project is probably the Apache HTTP Server, but the ASF is also known for supporting and developing a Java build language called Apache Ant, a library of reusable Java objects with Apache Commons, a Java Web Developer Framework called Struts, a Java servlet container Tomcat, and the SpamAssassin spam filter.

The ASF provides a catalog with its current projects on.

Structure
The ASF is divided into two sections, the Board of Directors and the Project Management Committees.

The Board of Directors are responsible for the management of the foundation and the oversight of the business and affairs. The members are elected between the members of the foundation and for a historical reason there are 9 directors.

One Project Management Committee is a single entity consisting at least of one officer (elected by the Board of Directors to oversee the day-to-day affairs) of the ASF, providing the interface to the single software projects. The Project Management Committee controls and leads the software project. Its members are developers elected due to merit for the evolution of the project and demonstration of commitment.

Sponsorship
The ASF offers a special sponsorship program beside the usual donations. You can obtain different levels of the sponsorship from Platinum (Donation level: $100k / year) to Bronze Sponsorship (Donation level: $5k / year). In Return the ASF displays a link or company logo (depending on the level of the sponsorship) on their sponsorship thanks page.

Under the current sponsors at the moment for example are Google, Yahoo and HP.