World's largest Open Source foundation provides $22B+ in community-led software 100% free of charge for the common good

Wilmington, DE —24 March 2021— The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the all-volunteer developers, stewards, and incubators of more than 350 Open Source projects and initiatives, announced today its 22nd Anniversary.

Originally established by the 21-member Apache Group, who oversaw the then-3-year-old Apache HTTP Server, the ASF today is the world's largest, vendor-neutral, Open Source foundation, comprising 800+ individual Members, 8,100+ Committers, and 40,000+ code contributors located on every continent. Conservatively valued at more than $22B, Apache’s 350+ projects and 37 incubating podlings are all freely-available to the public-at-large, at 100% no cost, and with no licensing fees.

"Over the past 22 years the ASF has evolved to meet the growing needs of the greater community," said Sander Striker, Board Chair of The Apache Software Foundation. "The ASF enables people from all over the world to collaborate, develop, and shepherd the projects and communities that are helping individuals, sustaining businesses, and transforming industries."

Advancing its mission of providing software for the public good, the ASF's projects are integral to nearly every aspect of modern computing, benefitting billions worldwide. The "Apache Way" process of community-led, collaborative development has led to breakthrough innovations in Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning, Big Data, Build Management, Cloud Computing, Content Delivery and Management, Edge Computing and IoT, Fintech, Identity Management, Integration, Libraries, Messaging, Mobile, Search, Security, Servers, and Web Frameworks, among other categories. Projects undergoing development in the Apache Incubator span AI, Big Data, blockchain, Cloud computing, cryptography, deep learning, email, IoT, machine learning, microservices, mobile, operating systems, testing, visualization, and more.

Nearly half a million people participate in ASF projects and initiatives, including ApacheCon, the ASF's official global conference series; Community Development, which oversees contributor onboarding and mentoring and programs such as Google Summer of Code; and Diversity & Inclusion, whose programs promote diversity, equity, and inclusion across the greater Apache community.

The ASF's influence is everywhere —countless ubiquitous and mission-critical applications across dozens of industries are powered by Apache projects; the Apache License 2.0 was the top-ranked Open Source license in 2020 (source: WhiteSource); the Apache Way is the backbone for open development and inner source environments; and new users, developers, and enthusiasts are onboarding to the greater Apache community every day (the ASF has been a Google Summer of Code mentoring organization for the past 16 years, since the program's inception). The ASF is the top-ranked Open Source not-for-profit organization with the most stars on GitHub (source: GitHub).

A just-released feature on the ASF in FOSSlife [1] states, "The Apache project has undeniably changed the world … Apache remains a crucial Web server, the most popular in the field. For building Open Source communities, the lessons learned by creating the project still resonate throughout the open source world. Every project is advised to respect the Apache value of 'community over code'."

ASF operations bolster Apache projects and their communities with infrastructure support, bandwidth, connectivity, servers, hardware, development environments, legal counsel, accounting services, trademark protection, marketing and publicity, educational events, and related administrative assistance. As a United States private 501(c)(3) not-for-profit charitable organization, the ASF's day-to-day operating expenses are offset through tax-deductible sponsorships, corporate contributions, and individual donations. Current ASF Sponsors are:

Platinum: Amazon Web Services, Facebook, Google, Huawei, Microsoft, Namebase, Pineapple Fund, Tencent, and Verizon Media.

Gold: Anonymous, Baidu, Bloomberg, Cloudera, Confluent, IBM, Indeed, Reprise Software, Union Investment, and Workday.

Silver: Aetna, Alibaba Cloud Computing, Capital One, Comcast, Didi Chuxing, Red Hat, and Target.

Bronze: Bestecasinobonussen.nl, Bookmakers, Casino2k, Cerner, Curity, GridGain, Gundry MD, Host Advice, HotWax Systems, Journal Review, LeoVegas Indian Online Casino, Miro-Kredit AG, Mutuo Kredit AG, Online Holland Casino, ProPrivacy, PureVPN, RX-M, RenaissanceRe, SCAMS.info, SevenJackpots.com, Start a Blog by Ryan Robinson, Talend, The Best VPN, The Blog Starter, The Economic Secretariat, Top10VPN, Twitter, and Writers Per Hour.

Targeted Platinum: Amazon Web Services, CloudBees, DLA Piper, Fastly, JetBrains, Leaseweb, Microsoft, OSU Open Source Labs, Sonatype, and Verizon Media.

Targeted Gold: Atlassian, Datadog, Docker, PhoenixNAP, and Quenda.

Targeted Silver: HotWax Systems, Manning Publications, and Rackspace.

Targeted Bronze: Bintray, Education Networks of America, Friend of Apache Cordova, Google, Hopsie, No-IP, PagerDuty, Peregrine Computer Consultants Corporation, Sonic.net, SURFnet, and Virtru.

"Baidu has always maintained close cooperation with Apache Software Foundation. In the past, we donated Apache ECharts, Apache Doris, Apache brpc, and Apache Teaclave. We are very grateful to Apache way for promoting the growth of these projects and enabling Baidu to make greater contributions to the open source world together with ASF."
—Zhenyu Hou, Corporate Vice President of Baidu Group

"Congratulations to the Apache Software Foundation on its twenty-second anniversary! If it were not for ASF's work to incubate and steward open source projects, the internet community would not be thriving to the same degree. Open source is enabling our digital prosperity, and the ASF plays a key, behind-the-scenes role in this. We share their vision for the availability of trustworthy open-source software and are proud to be a sponsor."
—Travis Spencer, CEO of Curity

"Congratulations to the 22nd anniversary of the Apache Software Foundation! Didi Chuxing is more than honored to join the Apache family as a corporate sponsor this year. At Didi, our developers utilize and contribute to many Apache projects such as Hadoop, Kylin, and Flink etc. Sharing the same “Community Over Code” principle, we hope to drive more innovations with Apache and we look forward to further collaborations!"
—Yunbo Wang, Director of Technical Community and Open Source at Didi Chuxing

"Facebook was originally built on a stack using the Apache HTTP Server, and it's one of the many reasons we've been sponsoring, advocating, utilizing, and contributing to the ASF for the past 10 years. We're proud to be a part of the ASF community and look forward to continued support of its mission to provide Open Source software for the public good."
—Joel Marcey, Open Source Developer Advocate and Ecosystem Lead at Facebook

"We are honored to be a part of and proud to support the ASF! The Apache community continues to be an incredibly valuable resource for HotWax. Contributing to and receiving from the ASF remains a central focal point for our business, and an important part of our team philosophy."
—Mike Bates, CEO of HotWax Systems

"It is an honor to support Apache, an organization responsible for such an astounding amount of Open Source projects that truly make up the fabric of the Internet. Here's to all that's been accomplished in the last 22 years – we can't wait to see what the future of open development brings."
—Robert van der Meulen, Global Product Strategy Lead at Leaseweb

"We're extending a big congratulations to the Apache Software Foundation on their 22nd anniversary! The ASF has been a key driver for the success of open source software models and community-led development for over two decades. Microsoft is honored to engage with and contribute to the Apache community across many facets of our business including Azure big data, Hadoop and Spark – and we look forward to continuing the collaboration."
—Stormy Peters, Director of Open Source Programs Office at Microsoft

"Congratulations to the Apache Software Foundation on its 22nd anniversary! Tencent has been a user and contributor to the projects at ASF. Many developers from Tencent have been actively involved with the ASF projects as Chair or PMC. We look forward to continuing our collaboration and creating more open-source innovations with 'The Apache Way'."
—Mark Shan, Chair of Tencent Open Source Alliance


[1] FOSSlife "How the Apache Project Boosted the Free and Open Source Software Movements" https://www.fosslife.org/how-apache-project-boosted-free-and-open-source-software-movements

Additional ASF Resources

 - "Trillions and Trillions Served" documentary on the ASF https://s.apache.org/Trillions-Feature

 - About The Apache Way http://apache.org/theapacheway/

 - The Apache Way to Sustainable Open Source Success https://s.apache.org/GhnI

 - FY2020 Annual Report https://s.apache.org/FY2020AnnualReport

 - Ways to support the ASF http://apache.org/foundation/contributing.html


About The Apache Software Foundation (ASF)
Established in 1999, The Apache Software Foundation is the world's largest Open Source foundation, stewarding 227M+ lines of code and providing more than $22B+ worth of software to the public at 100% no cost. The ASF's all-volunteer community grew from 21 original founders overseeing the Apache HTTP Server to 813 individual Members and 206 Project Management Committees who successfully lead 350+ Apache projects and initiatives in collaboration with nearly 8,100 Committers through the ASF’s meritocratic process known as "The Apache Way". Apache software is integral to nearly every end user computing device, from laptops to tablets to mobile devices across enterprises and mission-critical applications. Apache projects power most of the Internet, manage exabytes of data, execute teraflops of operations, and store billions of objects in virtually every industry. The commercially-friendly and permissive Apache License v2 is an Open Source industry standard, helping launch billion dollar corporations and benefiting countless users worldwide. The ASF is a US 501(c)(3) not-for-profit charitable organization funded by individual donations and corporate sponsors including Aetna, Alibaba Cloud Computing, Amazon Web Services, Anonymous, Baidu, Bloomberg, Capital One, Cloudera, Comcast, Confluent, Didi Chuxing, Facebook, Google, Huawei, IBM, Indeed, Microsoft, Namebase, Pineapple Fund, Red Hat, Reprise Software, Target, Tencent, Union Investment, Verizon Media, and Workday. For more information, visit http://apache.org/ and https://twitter.com/TheASF

© The Apache Software Foundation. "Apache", "Apache HTTP Server", and "ApacheCon" are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Apache Software Foundation in the United States and/or other countries. All other brands and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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