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Apache Comes With Too Much Community Overhead?

Posted by Zonk on from the many-hands-make-light-work dept.

drizzle writes "There's an interesting story on the Apache Marketing blog about whether or not Apache projects come with too much overhead, especially compared with other services or a roll-your-own approach. The article states, 'It's true that compared with SourceForge, Apache has a more rigorous management structure. The ASF has formalized processes and procedures that we believe represent best practices governance. All new projects must pass through an incubation period to ensure that all of the project's members have internalized these processes. However, each project's leadership has a tremendous amount of discretion in managing within this framework.' There is also a follow up article written by one of the httpd developers about 'What Apache brings to the table.' The article cites community, experience, legal framework, diversity, brand strength, and networking as reasons why developers and companies should consider bringing their projects over to Apache."

6 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. BSDs? by RT+Alec · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How about the "overhead" of the various BSDs? FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD all have what could be described as "too much overhead" in their development model. Yet all three are considered among the shining stars of FOSS operating systems. Stable, robust, and "you know what you're getting".

    BTW- Apache is developed primarily on FreeBSD.

  2. Re:Tell me about it by geminidomino · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm dreading the upgrade to BSD.

    Don't Be

  3. But what have they done recently? by penguin-collective · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes, Apache 1.x is enormously popular. But that's not where the work in the Apache project has gone recently; recently, they have been working on Apache 2.x, XML-related projects, and lots of other projects. Are you using any of those more recent projects? How much impact have those projects actually had? And is the amount of effort that has gone into them justified by their impact?

    1. Re:But what have they done recently? by winkydink · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually, yes. I am part of the Spamassassin development effort.

      --

      "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

  4. Seriously, other than httpd by smittyoneeach · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...I thought apache.org was primarily about Java projects.
    I won't go into a troll about how challenging it was, trying to set up Tomcat to work with a database.
    Poring over the source code, what I gathered was that they were using XML files and the admittedly interesting reflection features of the JVM to more or less script the JVM and quite a bit of the app server, especially the security stuff.
    The documentation was less than illuminating, and the source code little help. So I took a failing grade in the software engineering class, quit school, and got on with life.
    Anyway, a survey of apache.org would reveal an overwhelming Java bias in their projects, no?

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  5. Roller Weblogger's Transition to Apache by GuruThrill · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've been monitoring Roller's transition through Apache's incubator process. You can get a glimpse of all the legal licensing issues a project has to go through to become compliant. Definitely an interesting read:

    http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator -roller-dev/200511.mbox/thread

    --
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