13 ASF Practices

People often mention “Apache Rules”. We don’t actually have a rule book, but if we did, here’s what I believe might be the top thirteen practices.

0

Projects must be managed in a collaborative, meritocratic way, so that new volunteers are encouraged to join the project group, and so that the volunteers doing the work are the volunteers who make the decisions.

1

A project’s primary web site and mailing lists must be maintained on ASF hardware. Resources maintained elsewhere are not ASF resources, even if maintained by ASF committers.

2

Code and documentation donated to the ASF must be maintained on ASF hardware.

3

Project source code and documentation must be donated to the ASF under a Contributor’s License Agreement.

4

Donated source code and documentation must carry the ASF copyright and be placed under the Apache License.

5

Other libraries included with a distribution must be redistributable under the Apache license.

6

PMC members can veto a product change with a technical justification.

7

An ASF release must be approved by at least three members of the PMC. A release cannot be vetoed.

8

Releases must be digitally signed by a release manager.

9

The PMC chair/Project VP must submit a status report to the ASF board every three months

A

PMC members are encouraged to nominate qualified contributors as new committers. ASF Members are encouraged to nominate qualified committers as new members.

B

Obtaining a non-exclusive ASF copyright on all material in the ASF repository is encouraged.

C

Author tags in source code are discouraged but permitted.



Of course, there are other customs, but I believe that most other ASF practices would stem from this initial set. And, as with all things ASF, YMMV! :)