The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) was formally incorporated on March 25, 1999, with 21 founding members including Brian Behlendorf, Ken Coar, Mark Cox, Lars Eilebrecht, Ralf S. Engelschall, Roy T. Fielding, Dean Gaudet, Ben Hyde, Jim Jagielski, Alexei Kosut, Martin Kraemer, Ben Laurie, Doug MacEachern, Aram Mirzadeh, Sameer Parekh, Cliff Skolnick, Marc Slemko, William (Bill) Stoddard, Paul Sutton, Randy Terbush, and Dirk-Willem van Gulik (this list is approximate; the exact founding membership is documented in ASF records).
Background: The Apache HTTP Server and the "Apache Group"
The Apache HTTP Server had existed since 1995, emerging from a group of webmasters who had been applying patches to the NCSA HTTPd server (whose original developer had moved on). The informal "Apache Group" coordinated development via email; the name "Apache" was chosen to indicate "a patchy server" (the patches to NCSA HTTPd), though some accounts dispute this etymology.
By 1999, Apache was the most widely deployed web server on the internet, powering the majority of websites during the critical early years of the World Wide Web. The server's dominance demonstrated the bazaar-model at scale: distributed, volunteer-coordinated development producing mission-critical infrastructure that outperformed commercial alternatives.
The ASF Governance Model
The ASF institutionalized a meritocratic governance structure that has become one of the most influential templates in FOSS:
Significance to FOSS Governance
The ASF model represented a distinct approach from the two other prominent models of the era:
The ASF model was specifically designed to prevent both single-leader dependency and mission drift from commercial pressure. The "Apache Way" emphasized that no single company should dominate an Apache project — a rule that created friction with corporate sponsors who wanted more control but that preserved the foundation's independence.
The ASF model has been widely adopted: the Eclipse Foundation, GNOME Foundation, and many others have used ASF-style governance as a template. The Linux Foundation has adopted some similar elements while differing in others.
The Apache License
The Apache License — initially an early BSD-style permissive license with advertising clauses — has evolved through versions. The Apache License 2.0 (2004) is now one of the most widely used permissive open source licenses. It is OSI-certified, FSF-approved (though noted as GPL-incompatible in version 1.x), and widely accepted by corporate legal departments. Its explicit patent grant (contributors grant a patent license for contributions) makes it more corporate-friendly than the MIT or BSD licenses, which are silent on patents.
The ASF's founding belongs to the open-source-schism-and-dotcom-1998-2004 era and represents the period's institutional maturation: the movement was developing not just terminology and definitions (osi-founding-1998) but durable organizational models for governing large, collaborative projects.