ASF

There are some topics which are just too expansive for a simple tweet. This is one of them.

Lately, there have been quite a few posts extolling the assumed decrease in the viability and "reason" for the Apache Software Foundation. It's always fashionable to lump all FOSS foundations, and related entities (such as Github), into one combined group and pick out the "winners" and "losers" and those whose stars are rising and those whose glory days are fading away. With the hubbub around DVCS and git/Github, people look at the ASF, and our measured approach to incorporating git into our workflow policies, and declare that since we have not drank the Kool-Aid, the ASF's days are done.

But all this misses the point about what the ASF is, and who we are, and why we are. I hope this blog post will clarify some things.

Posted by Jim Jagielski in ASF at 23:04

Today we released the first public beta of the next-gen version of Apache httpd, version 2.4.

This release is officially called Apache httpd-2.3.11-beta, since we use odd/even numbering (for the minor version number) to signify alpha/beta vs. stable releases.

Most work has been done in improving performance and stability, but as well as adding lots of useful features, especially as we see the demands placed on web servers by cloud environments. This means that the (reverse) proxy module had gotten a lot of special care and attention. But there are also modules to help with more fine-grained control over timeouts and even a basic bandwidth limiting module bundled in.

With this release and the coming of Apache httpd 2.4 GA, you'll see the popularity and usage of Apache increase even more, as it becomes the web server for the cloud, bar none.

Cheers!

Posted by Jim Jagielski in ASF at 09:05

... and Oracle killed it.

By this time, most people know that the ASF has resigned from the JCP EC.

What was posted was our final version of the notice, but I'd also like to share with the community an earlier, rougher and more "emotional" version. It says the same, but in a more face-to-face conversational way. I feel that both versions represent the disappointment, anger and sadness over this whole issue, which has been fostering since 2006. The below just captures it from a different point of view:

The Apache Software Foundation is resigning from the Java Community Process (JCP) Executive Committee (EC).

On December 7, 2010, by a vote of 12 YES and 3 NO votes, the EC approved the Java 7 and Java 8 JSRs and TCKs under license terms which are fundamentally incompatible with open source. The results of the Java7/8 JSR votes from yesterday mean that the EC has just approved a major fundamental JCP specification which, along with its TCK license, makes distribution of a tested, compatible implementation impossible under any open source license by anyone other than Oracle. The EC, by voting in favor of the Java 7/8 JSRs, have given Oracle, who openly ignored the letter of the law as well as the repeatedly stated intent of the community, tacit approval to willfully ignore its contractual obligations, despite any "protests" within their "YES" vote comments. This approval was at the direct expense of a fellow EC member as well as the Java community at large.

Yesterday's vote is the final straw in an issue which has been ongoing since August 2006 and as described in our Open Letter dated April 10, 2007. The withholding of an acceptable, FOU-free TCK by Sun, and now Oracle, is against both the spirit and the letter of the JSPA.

What is not new is that Oracle continues to violate and not honor the JSPA agreements, which are a foundation of the JCP. What is new is that the EC, by fact of their vote, has allowed them to do it. It is obvious that the JCP is not a standards forum, nor a community process at all, but rather a cabal to control the Java ecosystem. The ASF can no longer justify its continued involvement within this entity.

As such, the ASF is removing all official representatives from any and all JSRs. In addition, we will refuse any renewal of our JCP membership and, of course, our EC position.

The ASF is saddened to have to make this move, but we feel that the JCP is completely broken and makes a mockery of the term "community," a concept which has great value to Apache.

Of course, we had hoped that our previous blog post would have spun up more support, but being the pragmatists that we are, we also knew that the other EC members were being seriously pressured by Oracle to vote YES, and so we held out little hope. We also hoped for a better response from Oracle, but what we got was basically self-serving lip-service with what is most likely the funniest and yet most inaccurate line yet in the whole ordeal:

"Oracle provides TCK licenses under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms consistent with its obligations under the JSPA."

If that little nugget doesn't show that Accuracy and Oracle don't mix, I don't know what will. The JSPA says, in 5.C.III, that a spec lead can't:

"impose any contractual condition or covenant that would limit or restrict the right of any licensee to create or distribute such Independent Implementations"

and, of course, the FOU restriction does exactly that. And as far as "non-discriminatory", well, Oracle has deemed that OpenJDK (*their* distribution) not have any FOU restrictions on the TCK, but that the ASF's (Harmony) will. And that isn't discrimination?

And so, the JCP is dead... All that remains is a zombie, walking the streets of the Java ecosystem, looking for brains...

But maybe, from this death, a new, true community process might arise somewhere, with a different collection of people, one with no entity "more equal than others". That is something I think the ASF would be quite interested in seeing.

Posted by Jim Jagielski in ASF at 15:16

If you look at the projects within the ASF, you'll notice right off the bat that the vast majority are Java. We do have a handful of other projects based on other languages but, for better or worse, most of 'em are Java.

But if you look at the code that powers the ASF you'll notice a big difference. For one thing, for the most part, we do not run anything that requires a JVM (well, we prefer not to). Also, we prefer all of our sites be as static as possible, which makes mirroring them easier. But the biggest surprise might be just how much we use scripting languages for all the tasks/applications/tools that we need. We use a suite of Perl, Python and Ruby, with Perl being the clear frontrunner (mostly since JoeS is such a Perl monger).

What I think is so useful about all this is that it gives a true, clear perspective on how real infrastructure is architectured (my word). People tend to focus, unjustly, on the applications themselves, and give little thought or credence on the infra required to truly support and implement all that. And this skewed perspective can easily result in bad, dangerous mistakes when making the transition from one architectural design to another, because it ignores a big, big part of the puzzle.

As people look at, investigate and migrate into the cloud, this will become even more of an issue. And a concern.

Posted by Jim Jagielski in ASF at 09:35

Today, I (as Release Manager for the project) released the latest, and what is expected to be the last, alpha version of the NextGen release of Apache httpd.

This is pretty exciting news because for now on we'll be focusing on pushing out beta releases in anticipation of a quick trip to 2.4.0-GA.

Certainly, Apache httpd 2.4.0 has been a long time coming, but it will be well worth the wait. The new features, especially related to MPMS, Authn/Authz and the Proxy module, will continue to be the reference standards for web servers. I'm really excited by all the mod_proxy improvements because that's an area which I, and others, have been giving special attention to. You combine that with the various async changes, the Event and (for the time-being still experimental) Simple MPMs and you have a killer server.

So download and try it out and give us your feedback.

Cheers!

Posted by Jim Jagielski in ASF at 10:40

The ASF uses an ssh-based voting tool, mostly developed by Roy, to handle the new member and new director voting process. New members are elected in using a simple yes/no/abstain whereas directors are voted in using the STV system. The tool is great, but it had the requirement of actually having to ssh into a specific machine to cast your votes.

Well, after some discussions on the members mailing list, our illustrious SysAdmin Joe (with some patches from others) created this exceptional GUI front-end for the tool, which makes casting votes even easier. Hopefully, with this front-end, the voter tool will be used for a bunch of other things...

As far as setting up the voter tool, well, I just use a bunch of scripts I hacked together years ago... Not fully automated, but good enough.

Posted by Jim Jagielski in ASF at 11:15

I've made my ApacheCon US 2008 slides available at:

• people.apache.org/~jim/presos/ACUS08/

There will also be available on Slideshare shortly as well.

Posted by Jim Jagielski in ASF at 10:04

On Sunday, I'll be leaving to attend ApacheCon US 2008, which is located in New Orleans. I'm really looking forward to the conference, which I'll also be presenting at as well. In fact, this is one of the busier ApacheCons, having 4 presentations (the State Of The Feather, Apache Nuts to Bolts (which I'm co-presenting with Bill Rowe and Rich Bowen), Sponsoring the ASF and Advanced Reverse Proxy in Apache 2.2). Plus, it looks like a lot of meetings, interviews and other brikabrak going on as well, so it promises to be a pretty full week.

As always, I'm also looking forward to seeing and spending time with so many friends, people who I don't get the opportunity to see nearly often enough. As much as I really enjoy the technical exchange, I also like the deep social aspects of ApacheCon as well. We know how to code, but we also know how to kick back and enjoy ourselves.

Are you going to ApacheCon? You should!

Posted by Jim Jagielski in ASF at 15:57

I was so busy traveling and pushing out 2.2.10 that I didn't even blog about it.

Well, better late than never: Apache HTTP Server 2.2.10 is released... enjoy.

Posted by Jim Jagielski in ASF at 13:06

Hot off the stove: Apache HTTP Server 2.2.9.

Yum. Good pudding.

Posted by Jim Jagielski in ASF at 07:45

The ASF just finished our annual members meeting. During the meeting we elected in a new board and new members. The list of new members isn't public yet, allowing time for them to be contacted, etc... But the roster of the new board can be announced now. It is:

   Bertrand Delacretaz    Justin Erenkrantz        J. Aaron Farr

   Jim Jagielski          Geir Magnusson Jr.       William A. Rowe, Jr.

   Sam Ruby               Henning Schmiedehausen   Greg Stein

Of the above, Bertrand is the "new guy", taking over for Henri Yandell who decided not to run again this year.

Congrats!

Posted by Jim Jagielski in ASF at 12:42

If you follow PlanetApache, the fashionable thing to be doing now is talking about ApacheCon EU 2008, either regarding one's preparations on getting there, what you will be doing while there or comments regarding the ongoing, internal discussions regarding ApacheCon in general.... think I'll jump right on in!

For me, the hardest part about getting prepared is syncing my MacBook and MacPro. I use my MacBook pretty much only when traveling, and do everything else on my MacPro. So when it's time to be away for awhile, I need to rsync a bunch of stuff. And this takes time. A loooooonnnnnnngggggg time. I'm sure there are easier ways to do this, but I do it so infrequently that I deal with the pain and move on.

Then of course there is the actual event of traveling itself. As I've previously blogged about, this is very much a non-productive time for me. So I see travel time pretty much as wasted time, and, to be honest, when things are busy, I can't waste any of it. So even though I try, I know that I'm falling behind. Combine this with the facts that (1) traveling is no longer fun or easy and (2) I get quite anxious flying, especially large distances, that "getting there" is the worse part about "being there."

Once at Amsterdam, I'm looking forward to the week. As with most people, I'll be staying at the Moevenpick, Amsterdam City Centre. Look for me. In addition to my 2 talks, I'm going to be attending several sessions (reminder to self: sign up to be session chair!) and will be hanging out at the Covalent/SpringSource booth when I can.

I'm sure I owe you a beer!

Posted by Jim Jagielski in ASF at 10:06

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Marc responded to my blog entry. Although it appears that despite my (tongue-in-cheek) suggestion, the ASF will not be receiving an ASF sponsorship check from him anytime soon, Marc does make a few comments which I feel need to be addressed (and one "comment" which I won't even honor with so much as another word).

His 4 main points appear to be: (1) How can people claim to speak for the "community" when that is such a nebulous term; (2) that the concept of "community over code" is a mistake (at least, this is my interpretation of some of Marc's post, an interpretation shared by others; (3) that the ASF has some sort of historical hostility to Java and (4) that the BSD-type license is wrong, or, at least, has not proven to be a viable license.

Items 2 and 4 deserve a post of their own, so I won't bother addressing them here, but the remaining 2 are easy to clarify.

First of all, the ASF does not claim to speak for "the" community but rather for "our" community. The entire Open Source community is more varied and beautiful than just a single interpretation of "community." In fact, I liken the FOSS community as an analog to nature itself; with different species and forms combining to create a rich tapestry. But certainly, continuing with the nature-analogy, one can speak for the "mammalian class" without claiming to speak for others as well. That is what the ASF does; it speaks for a class of the FOSS community that shares a core set of fundamentals, and, as such, has shown itself to be a very successful class. No more, no less.

And finally, how anyone can look at the ASF of today and claim that there is some sort of "hostility" or "bias" towards Java is mind-boggling. In fact, I would claim that the ASF's involvement within the JCP and the JCP EC have done more to help Java that any other open source "community" out there. Why an organization which is "hostile" to a technology would go to such pains to ensure the continued viability and universality of that technology flies in the face of logic and common sense. Maybe this perceived "hostility" is due to the fact that, for the most part, ASF developers are self-thinkers, and realize that as great as Java is, it has warts; that as with all languages and technologies, it has advantages and disadvantages; that languages are tools and some tools are better for some tasks than others. I don't consider the fact that people who use Java also know (and use and love) Python, or Groovy, or Ruby or what-have-you as being "hostile" to Java at all. The fact that the ASF is language neutral, that "we" welcome codebases based on lots of languages is not hostility, it's openness.

Posted by Jim Jagielski in ASF at 08:43

Today is the 2nd day of ApacheCon... well, maybe I should say "2nd" day, because it's only the 2nd day of the conference itself, but not the full AC event itself. And for me, having arrived on Monday, it's day "4". OK, I admit it, I have no idea what day it is. Sounds like a successful conference, right?

In fact, AC US really is a success. It seems that people are generally very happy and pleased with the diversity of sessions and the quality of the presentations (and presenters). I know that every session I've attended, I've learned at least one very useful thing and, much more often than not, learned a bunch of new stuff.

Personally, I have 2 out of my 3 talks done. The 1st was the State of the Feather and I went through that more quickly that I would have liked, but I wanted to give Doc Searls his full time slot, and my talk ending up starting a bit later than expected. My 2nd talk was this morning and the ungodly hour of 9am. Even so, I had a packed room, which was unexpected but very very nice. My third and last is tomorrow in the afternoon. It's about the "cool new" load balancing proxy features of Apache 2.2, but the irony is that Paul Querna added a new module to trunk called mod_serf which is a (at present) bare-bones proxy module built using serf. It certainly doesn't have nearly the feature set of 2.2 and trunk's proxy module, but it is a cool initial step. I think he did it to spite me

Posted by Jim Jagielski in ASF at 12:07