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Posted to cvs@httpd.apache.org by wr...@apache.org on 2005/06/13 06:51:47 UTC
svn commit: r190348 - /httpd/site/trunk/xdocs/ABOUT_APACHE.xml
Author: wrowe
Date: Sun Jun 12 21:51:46 2005
New Revision: 190348
URL: http://svn.apache.org/viewcvs?rev=190348&view=rev
Log:
Bring another doc into the 21st century, feedback and improvements welcome
Modified:
httpd/site/trunk/xdocs/ABOUT_APACHE.xml
Modified: httpd/site/trunk/xdocs/ABOUT_APACHE.xml
URL: http://svn.apache.org/viewcvs/httpd/site/trunk/xdocs/ABOUT_APACHE.xml?rev=190348&r1=190347&r2=190348&view=diff
==============================================================================
--- httpd/site/trunk/xdocs/ABOUT_APACHE.xml (original)
+++ httpd/site/trunk/xdocs/ABOUT_APACHE.xml Sun Jun 12 21:51:46 2005
@@ -8,15 +8,16 @@
<section id="WhatIs">
<title>What IS the Apache HTTP Server Project?</title>
-<p>The Apache Project is a collaborative software development effort aimed
-at creating a robust, commercial-grade, featureful, and freely-available
-source code implementation of an HTTP (Web) server. The project is
-jointly managed by a group of volunteers located around the world, using
-the Internet and the Web to communicate, plan, and develop the server and
-its related documentation. These volunteers are known as the Apache Group.
-In addition, hundreds of users have contributed ideas, code, and
-documentation to the project. This file is intended to briefly describe
-the history of the Apache Group and recognize the many contributors.
+<p>The Apache HTTP Server Project is a collaborative software development
+effort aimed at creating a robust, commercial-grade, featureful, and
+freely-available source code implementation of an HTTP (Web) server.
+The project is jointly managed by a group of volunteers located around
+the world, using the Internet and the Web to communicate, plan, and develop
+the server and its related documentation. This project is part of the
+Apache Software Foundation. In addition, hundreds of users have contributed
+ideas, code, and documentation to the project. This file is intended to
+briefly describe the history of the Apache HTTP Server and recognize the
+many contributors.
</p>
</section>
@@ -102,10 +103,11 @@
it retains that position today.</p>
<p>In 1999, members of the Apache Group formed the <a
-href="http://www.apache.org">Apache Software Foundation</a> to provide
+href="http://www.apache.org/">Apache Software Foundation</a> to provide
organizational, legal, and financial support for the Apache HTTP
Server. The foundation has placed the software on a solid footing for
-future development.</p>
+future development, and greatly expanded the number of Open Source
+software projects, which fall under this Foundation's umbrella.</p>
</section>
@@ -126,12 +128,13 @@
<blockquote>
<strong>NOTE:</strong>
-The developer mailing list is not
-a user support forum; it is for people actively working on development
-of the server code and documentation, and for planning future
-directions. If you have user/configuration questions, send them
-to the <a href="../userslist.html">Users list</a> or the USENET newsgroup
- "<a href="news:comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix"><samp
+The developer mailing list is NOT a user support forum; it is for
+people actively working on development of the server code. There
+is also a 'docs' subproject for those who are actively developing
+and translating the documentation. If you have user/configuration
+questions, subscribe to the <a href="../userslist.html">Users list</a>
+or try the USENET newsgroups
+"<a href="news:comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix"><samp
>comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix</samp></a>" or
"<a href="news:comp.infosystems.www.servers.ms-windows"><samp
>comp.infosystems.www.servers.ms-windows</samp></a>"
@@ -141,21 +144,22 @@
<section id="Development">
-<p>There is a core group of contributors (informally called the
-"core") which was formed from the project founders and is
-augmented from time to time when core members nominate outstanding
-contributors and the rest of the core members agree. The core group
-focus is more on "business" issues and limited-circulation
-things like security problems than on mainstream code development.
-The term "The Apache Group" technically refers to this core of
-project contributors.</p>
-
-<p>The Apache Group is a meritocracy -- the more work you have done, the
-more you are allowed to do. The group founders set the original rules, but
-they can be changed by vote of the active members. There is a group
-of people who have logins on our server and access to the
-CVS repository. Everyone has access to the CVS snapshots. Changes to
-the code are proposed on the mailing list and usually voted on by active
+<p>There is a core group of contributors, formed from the project
+founders, which is augmented from time to time with the outstanding
+contributors. There are 'committers', who are granted access to the
+source code control respositories to help maintain the project or docs,
+and the core group now managing the project is called the Apache HTTP
+Project Management Committee (PMC, for short). In fact, each Apache
+Software Foundation project has its own PMC to determine committers,
+project direction and overall management. The terms "The Apache
+Group" or "Apache Core" are no longer used.</p>
+
+<p>The project is a meritocracy -- the more work you have done, the more
+you are allowed to do. The group founders set the original rules, but
+they can be changed by vote of the active PMC members. There is a group
+of people who have logins on our server and access to the source code
+repositories. Everyone has read-only access to the repositories. Changes
+to the code are proposed on the mailing list and usually voted on by active
members -- three +1 (yes votes) and no -1 (no votes, or vetoes) are needed
to commit a code change during a release cycle; docs are usually committed
first and then changed as needed, with conflicts resolved by majority vote.
@@ -167,30 +171,31 @@
in the web server community, release dates, etc. The actual code development
takes place on the developers' local machines, with proposed changes
communicated using a patch (output of a unified
-"diff -u oldfile newfile" command), and committed
-to the source repository by one of the core developers using remote CVS.
+"diff -u oldfile newfile" command), and then applied to the
+source code control repositories by one of the committers.
Anyone on the mailing list can vote on a particular issue, but we only
count those made by active members or people who are known to be experts
on that part of the server. Vetoes must be accompanied by a convincing
-explanation.</p>
+technical justification.</p>
-<p>New members of the Apache Group are added when a frequent contributor is
-nominated by one member and unanimously approved by the voting members.
-In most cases, this "new" member has been actively contributing
-to the group's work for over six months, so it's usually an easy decision.
+<p>New members of the Apache HTTP Project Management Committee are added
+when a frequent contributor is nominated by one member and unanimously
+approved by the voting members. In most cases, this "new" member
+has been actively contributing to the group's work for over six months, so
+it's usually an easy decision.
</p>
-<p>The above describes our past and current (as of January 1998) guidelines,
-which will probably change over time as the membership of the group changes
-and our development/coordination tools improve.</p>
+<p>The project guidelines continously evolve under the oversight of the PMC,
+as the membership of the group changes and our development/coordination tools
+improve.</p>
</section>
<section>
-<title>Why Apache is Free</title>
+<title>Why Apache Software is Free</title>
-<p>Apache exists to provide a robust and commercial-grade reference
-implementation of the HTTP protocol. It must remain a platform upon which
-individuals and institutions can build reliable systems, both for
+<p>Apache Software exists to provide robust and commercial-grade reference
+implementations of many types of software. It must remain a platform upon
+which individuals and institutions can build reliable systems, both for
experimental purposes and for mission-critical purposes. We believe the
tools of online publishing should be in the hands of everyone, and
software companies should make their money providing value-added services
@@ -203,31 +208,35 @@
To the extent that the protocols of the World Wide Web remain
"unowned" by a single company, the Web will remain a level
playing field for companies large and small. Thus, "ownership"
-of the protocol must be prevented, and the existence of a robust reference
-implementation of the protocol, available absolutely for free to all
-companies, is a tremendously good thing.</p>
-
-<p>Furthermore, Apache is an organic entity; those who benefit from it
-by using it often contribute back to it by providing feature enhancements,
-bug fixes, and support for others in public newsgroups. The amount of
-effort expended by any particular individual is usually fairly light, but
-the resulting product is made very strong. This kind of community can
-only happen with freeware -- when someone pays for software, they usually
-aren't willing to fix its bugs. One can argue, then, that Apache's
-strength comes from the fact that it's free, and if it were made
-"not free" it would suffer tremendously, even if that money
-were spent on a real development team.</p>
+of the protocols must be prevented, and the existence of a robust reference
+implementations of various protocols and application programming interfaces,
+available free to all companies and individuals, is a tremendously good
+thing.</p>
+
+<p>Furthermore, the Apache Software Foundation is an organic entity; those
+who benefit from this software by using it often contribute back to it by
+providing feature enhancements, bug fixes, and support for others in public
+lists and newsgroups. The amount of effort expended by any particular
+individual is usually fairly light, but the resulting product is made very
+strong. These kinds of communities can only happen with freely available
+software -- when someone pays for software, they usually aren't willing to
+fix its bugs. One can argue, then, that Apache's strength comes from the
+fact that it's free, and if it were made "not free" it would
+suffer tremendously, even if that money were spent on a real development
+team.</p>
-<p>We want to see Apache used very widely -- by large companies, small
-companies, research institutions, schools, individuals, in the intranet
+<p>We want to see Apache Software used very widely -- by large companies,
+small companies, research institutions, schools, individuals, in the intranet
environment, everywhere -- even though this may mean that companies who
could afford commercial software, and would pay for it without blinking,
-might get a "free ride" by using Apache. We would even be
-happy if some commercial software companies completely dropped their
-own HTTP server development plans and used Apache as a base, with the
-proper attributions as described in the <a
-href="http://www.apache.org/licenses/">LICENSE</a>.
-</p>
+might get a "free ride" by using Apache. We are even happy when
+some commercial software companies completely drop their own HTTP server
+development plans and used Apache as a base, with the proper attributions
+as described in the <a href="http://www.apache.org/licenses/">LICENSE</a>.
+That is to say, Apache HTTP Sever only comes from the Apache Software
+Foundation, although many vendors ship their own product "based on the
+Apache {Project}". There is no "{Vendor} Apache {Product}", this is an
+abuse of the Apache Software Foundation's marks.</p>
</section>
</body>