Success at Apache: Lowering Barriers to Open Innovation

[Sally Khudairi <sk...@apache.org>]

[this announcement is available online at https://s.apache.org/dAlg ]

By Luke Han

Over the past decade, I was a Java developer using many Apache projects
such as Tomcat, Jakarta, Struts, and Velocity. In 2010 I stepped into
the Big Data field and started to actively participate in Apache
projects, and became an ASF Member 5 years ago. In addition to being the
VP of Apache Kylin, I helped projects such as Apache Eagle and
CarbonData move to the ASF, and have been a mentor for Apache Superset,
Weex, and RocketMQ. Today, I'm co-founder/CEO of Kyligence (prior to
that, I was Big Data Product Lead of eBay, and Chief Consultant of
Actuate China).

Apache Kylin, as its name may suggest, originated from China ("Kylin": A
powerful yet gentle fire-breathing creature in eastern mythology. Also
written as Qilin. "Apache Kylin": OLAP on Hadoop, capable of analyzing
petabytes of data within seconds http://kylin.apache.org/ ). I started
this project with a few members in early 2015. 

As a pioneer of the first highly-recognized Apache project from the
Eastern world, I was proud to see that, within 2 years, Kylin has helped
over 500 organizations across the globe to solve their Big Data
challenges. 

Before Kylin graduated from the Apache Incubator, the Kylin team faced a
lot of cultural challenges. Since a great number of projects from China
had failed in the past, we too received many questions and doubts from
both eastern and western worlds. As our native language is not English,
communication with mentors did become difficult during the coaching
process. Fortunately, by fully embracing The Apache Way, Kylin is able
to succeed with strong support from the Apache community members. Much
more beyond the Kylin software, our team has also worked with those
talented people in a way to spread our Chinese voice to the world. 

While developing high-quality software, we are engaging more Westerners
to understand the Eastern culture. I had many chances to travel and meet
people across the globe since I initiated Kylin. Some of them are Apache
directors and mentors, some of them are developers and contributors.
Some are from US, Australia, Canada and Chile; some are from Japan and
Taiwan. Some are impressed with Kylin, some are curious about
Easterners’ attitude toward Open Source software. I asked them a lot of
questions about The Apache Way, and they all generously coached me and
my team with lovely and detailed answers. We too could reach consensuses
after intensive and open arguments. Kylin received much more
encouragement and recognition than I expected.

As a VP of a Top-Level Project, my responsibility grew after Kylin
graduated from the Apache Incubator. Kylin faced more opportunities as
it has been bug-fixed quickly and tested frequently, with the nature of
an Open Source software. In the China’s well-knowingly-big market,
Apache Kylin has received many users’ feedback and evolved fast. We
received many suggestions from both developers’ perspective and
products’ perspective. Beyond my expectation, many community members are
passionately writing tools for Kylin and helping users better understand
and use Kylin. Assembling members’ ideas, we are also sharing our
knowledge as a way to give back to the community. 

Thanks to ASF and everyone involved in the Open Source community, I have
the opportunity to work with people that I’ve always admired and make a
difference in the world all together. I feel I and my team are deeply
connected with such warm, global, open community.

= = =

"Success at Apache" is a monthly blog series that focuses on the
processes behind why the ASF "just works". 1) Project Independence
https://s.apache.org/CE0V 2) All Carrot and No Stick
https://s.apache.org/ykoG 3) Asynchronous Decision Making
https://s.apache.org/PMvk 4) Rule of the Makers
https://s.apache.org/yFgQ 5) JFDI --the unconditional love of
contributors https://s.apache.org/4pjM 6) Meritocracy and Me
https://s.apache.org/tQQh 7) Learning to Build a Stronger Community
https://s.apache.org/x9Be 8) Meritocracy. https://s.apache.org/DiEo

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