FOREST HILL, Md., Jan. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) -- stewards, incubators, and developers of leading Open Source 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 Open Source, 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."

2007 HIGHLIGHTS AND MILESTONES

Board: 2007 marked the largest changeover of ASF Board members since The ASF's incorporation in 1999. Reflecting the Foundation's diverse, meritocratic Membership, the newly-elected board members are: Justin Erenkrantz (President), J. Aaron Farr (Treasurer), Jim Jagielski (Chairman), Geir Magnusson Jr., William Rowe Jr., Sam Ruby (Executive Vice President/Secretary), Henning Schmiedehausen, Greg Stein, and Henri Yandell.

Membership: At its inception, The ASF comprised 21 individuals who oversaw the progress of the Apache HTTP Server, forming the Foundation's core membership. Additions to this group grew with "Committers," developers who contributed code, patches, or documentation, and were subsequently granted access by the Membership: 1) to "commit" or "write" directly to the code repository; 2) the right to vote on community-related decisions; and 3) and the ability propose an active user for Committership. Those Committers who demonstrate merit in the Foundation's growth, evolution, and progress are nominated for ASF Membership by existing members. Following its bi-annual elections, The ASF closed 2007 with the election of 56 new Members, totaling 259 overall.

Sponsorship: As a private, 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization, The ASF is funded solely through tax-deductible contributions from corporations, foundations, and private individuals. At The ASF's inception, all equipment and services were donated; The ASF Sponsorship Program was created to help offset day-to-day operating expenses such as bandwidth and connectivity, servers and hardware, legal and accounting services, marketing and public relations, general office expenditures, and support staff.

Since launching the Sponsorship Program late 2006, the following sponsors' contributions have helped advance The ASF's activities:

-- Platinum Level: Google, Yahoo! -- Gold Level: HP -- Silver Level: Covalent

-- Bronze Level: AirPlus International, Tetsuya Kitahata, and Two Sigma Investments

ApacheCon: The ASF's official conference, trainings, and expo -- now in its 10th year -- continues to bring Open Source users, developers, and though leaders together to explore some of the hottest topics in the industry. Convening in Amsterdam and Atlanta during 2007, ApacheCon Europe returns to Amsterdam 7-11 April 2008; and to the United States for ApacheCon US in New Orleans on 3-7 November 2008.

Community Relations: With over 1,500 Committers and countless contributors and users collaborating in the development of Apache-related activities across the Open Source landscape, ASF projects continue to grow at a steady rate. The ASF is responsible for millions of lines of code and roughly one dozen servers comprising its infrastructure; nearly 500 community-driven modules have been developed to extend functionality of the Apache HTTP Server alone.

The ASF's participation in the Open Source community-at-large also takes place through various committees that include: Licensing (responsible for the legal issues associated with licensing and license compatibilities, and for the revision of the Apache Software License); JCP (responsible for the liaison between The ASF and the Java Community Process, of which The ASF is a member of its Executive Committee); Conference Planning (responsible for the organization of ApacheCon); Security (responsible for handling potential security holes in ASF-produced software and mitigating vulnerability); and Public Relations (responsible for press-related issues, management of the Apache brand, trademark licensing, and collaboration with fundraising efforts).

Project Achievements: Beginning with just two Projects (Apache HTTP Server, and the ApacheCon Conference Planning committee), The ASF today comprises more than 55 Top-Level Projects (TLPs) and two-dozen initiatives under Incubation (comprising both the codebase and its community, known as Podlings).

As the backbone of more Websites than any other Web server software, the Apache HTTP Server remains the #1 Web server, powering more than 75 million Websites across the Internet, according to the December 2007 Web Server Survey by Netcraft. This translates to a 74% market penetration across all Web Server domains, according to the January 1 2008 Web Server Survey by Security Space. In September 2007 the Apache HTTP Server Project announced the stable release of Apache HTTP Server version 2.2.6.

The day-to-day activity of each TLP (and any sub-projects) is overseen by Project Management Committees (PMCs). Their continuous efforts made 2007 a landmark year for reaching milestones in the following Top-Level Projects: Ant, APR, Cocoon, Directory, Excalibur, Forrest, Harmony, HiveMind, Jackrabbit, Jakarta, James, Lucene, Maven, Mina, MyFaces, Portals, Shale, Struts, Tapestry, Tomcat, and Velocity.

Apache Labs: Formed in November 2006, The ASF Innovation Laboratories allows Committers to experiment with new ideas and brainstorm on blue-sky concepts without the overhead of Project bylaws or community building. The Apache Labs now has 20 active initiatives in its registry.

Congratulations, Graduates! Over the past twelve months, the following initiatives have graduated to ASF Top-Level Projects (TLPs):

-- From a sub-project of an existing Apache TLP ... -- Apache Tiles (Struts) -- December 2006 -- Apache Turbine (Jakarta) -- May 2007 -- Apache POI (Jakarta) -- May 2007 -- Apache Quetzalcoatl (HTTP Server) -- June 2007 -- Apache Commons (Jakarta) -- June 2007 -- Apache HttpComponents (Jakarta) - November 2007 -- From the Apache Incubator ... -- Apache OFBiz -- December 2006 -- Apache Cayenne -- December 2006 -- Apache ActiveMQ -- January 2007 -- Apache Roller -- February 2007 -- Apache Felix -- March 2007 -- Apache OpenEJB -- May 2007 -- Apache OpenJPA -- May 2007 -- Apache Wicket -- June 2007 -- Apache ODE -- July 2007 -- Apache ServiceMix -- September 2007 LOOKING AHEAD

Industry projections show continued strong need of interoperable, adaptable, ubiquitous, and sustainable Open Source solutions. Increasingly, for enterprises, the appeal of Open Source software is no longer just about cost savings, but rather the flexibility to choose among vendors to implement support for their infrastructure products -- or, as becoming more common, the ability to internally use and build upon an existing Open Source product with a stable codebase and an active community.

"With our proven success of working together, producing premium projects, building active and healthy user and developer communities and advancing innovative technologies, we have a tremendous opportunity to continue to meet future needs of this technology space, so important to the industry," added Jagielski. "For us, 'Community Over Code' isn't a slogan -- it's a way of life."

ABOUT THE APACHE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION

Established in 1999, The Apache Software Foundation provides organizational, legal, and financial support for a broad range of Open Source software projects, including Apache HTTP Server -- the world's most popular Web server software for more than a decade. The Foundation provides an established framework for intellectual property and financial contributions that simultaneously limits contributors' potential legal exposure. Through a collaborative and meritocratic development process, Apache projects deliver enterprise-grade, freely available software products that attract large communities of users. The pragmatic Apache License makes it easy for all users, commercial and individual, to deploy Apache products. For more information, please see http://www.apache.org/

CONTACT: Sally Khudairi of The Apache Software Foundation,
+1-617-921-8656, press@apache.org

Web Site: http://www.apache.org/