Justin Erenkrantz, President, Apache Software Foundation
(Credit: Matt Asay/CNET)There's something different about the Apache Software Foundation. While Apache hosts some of the world's most important software development, its members seem more concerned with good code than good politics.
It's no secret that I've become enamored lately with the Apache License, but it's less well-known what first attracted me to the license: the wonderfully nice people affiliated with Apache. From Greg Stein to Geir Magnusson to Brian Behlendorf, it's hard to find a jerk at Apache. I'm sure they exist, but they hide pretty well.
In fact, in a presentation today I attended at SAP in Walldorf, Germany, Apache Software Foundation President Justin Erenkrantz called out the importance of good manners to good governance at Apache:
There are going to be people on an open mailing list who are idiots, or maybe they're just having a bad day. Don't feed the trolls. Don't become a poisonous person.
It seems like reasonable advice, but it's discouraging to see this basic rule of polite society regularly broken within the wider open-source community. Some feel that a license to code is a license to shout others down. It's not. At least, not at Apache.
Perhaps this is particularly important to Apache because of the way it manages project development. It's one thing to be open source but, as I've written recently and as Erenkrantz highlighted in his presentation, open source doesn't necessarily equate to real openness:
You see a lot of people doing open source, but not a lot of people doing open development...At some open-source projects [Erenkrantz mentioned Mozilla], all of the technical decisions, even if the license is open source, are not subject to public comment. At Apache, everything is done in the open over public forums.
Or, as Day Software's Roy Fielding says, "If it doesn't happen on-list, it didn't happen."
Such transparent development creates great software, given that it fosters a true meritocracy. You know exactly who's doing what at Apache: it's all on the mailing lists.
Erenkrantz also noted a few other interesting aspects of Apache:
- Each Apache project is independent, which means that status on one Apache project is not fungible to another Apache project. I can be a core committer on the Apache HTTP project and it won't get me any brownie points with the Apache Cocoon project.
- Microsoft was a sponsor before it was a contributor. Its sponsorship was meant to send a message to Microsoft internally that it was OK to contribute to Apache projects.
- Erenkrantz stressed that Apache developers tend to believe that code, not licensing, should motivate contributions. Apache doesn't believe in forcing contributions through licensing or other mechanisms.
It's a great way to do development and, as Day Software and other companies have discovered, it's also a great way to do business. Open-source development, done openly.
And no jerks allowed.
It's increasingly common for prominent open-source developers to leave IBM or other open-source-friendly companies to try their luck at Microsoft. It's not common at all for them to blog about it before actually getting a formal offer.
Yet that is what Sam Ruby, prominent Apache Software Foundation director and Atom developer, has done on his blog. Ruby was hired by IBM directly from Christopher Newport University in 1981 and has never left.
Until now. Or, rather, in about two weeks from now. Ruby writes:
I expect to receive a credible offer from Microsoft in the next two weeks. I, in no way, initiated the conversation, nor am I an any way unhappy with IBM.
We've discussed a number of possible roles, most of them focusing on open Web activities, either advocating their increased and correct use within Microsoft, and/or engaging in open Web communities on Microsoft's behalf.
Whatever the open-source development community's opinion of Microsoft, I've talked with other open-source "expats" that have ended up in Redmond, such as Tom Hanrahan, also formerly of IBM and the Linux Foundation, and Microsoft has provided interesting, engaging work for them. I'm sure that Sam's case will be no different.
But why post about the job before receiving a formal offer? Ruby notes that he is "very comfortable in (his) current job, so the most (he is) placing in jeopardy by posting (his interest in working for Microsoft) is the opportunity costs of a better job."
In many ways, Ruby's transparency is a great way for him to prepare his open-source compatriots for what might superficially appear to be an abandonment of his ideals. IBM might prefer that he not talk openly about it, but considering Ruby's stature in the open-source community, this is probably the best way to announce his imminent departure for Microsoft.
It's also a good advertisement for the changes Microsoft is making as it grows increasingly open to open source. Ruby reminds his blog readers that when he joined IBM in 1981, Big Blue, not Microsoft, was the "evil empire."
Times change. So do companies. And maybe, just maybe, Ruby will be one of the key individuals to help shape a new era at Microsoft.
Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.
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