Note: ebizQ is happy to reprint this expanded version of the annual report of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). We at ebizQ are committed to addressing the community aspects of the open source software (OSS) movement as closely as the product and business sides of OSS. During 2007 we interviewed leading ASF contributors and luminaries such as Jim Jagielski (current chairman of the ASF), James Strachan and Paul Fremantle and covered ASF projects such as the HTTP server, Synapse and the ActiveMQ message-oriented middleware in our feature articles on OSS application/web servers and the OSS movement from message oriented middleware to enterprise service bus.

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The former article contains a good summary of the creation of the ASF as well. One of the most interesting aspects of the ebizQ research and analysis into the OSS movement is the way many of these ASF "foundational" projects form the underpinnings of so many popular "commercial OSS" product and services offerings such as those from Covalent, IBM, Iona, Oracle and WSO2.

In the article, the highlights are divided into paragraphs on the board, membership, sponsorship, the ASF's annual conference, community involvement and the number of projects of different types managed by this volunteer organization, including Apache Labs.

The ASF -- stewards, incubators, and developers of leading OSS projects, including Apache HTTP Server, the world's most popular Web server software for twelve years running -- today announced the 2007 year finished as its strongest ever, reinforcing the broad-reaching success of "The Apache Way." Lauded as one of the most compelling communities in OSS, the all-volunteer Foundation looked back on milestones achieved during 2007, with ASF activities having grown at a steady rate.

"We are grateful to all those individuals – Members, Committers, developers, users, and supporters – who have contributed to our success over the past year," said ASF Chairman Jim Jagielski. "Our achievements reflect strong commitment from our community, boosting confidence in our ability to meet end-user and market demand and building excitement about the work that is underway."