Last week, after a tricky period passed traveling for my daily consultancy activities at TAI Solutions, I had to visit different cities to join meetings with some colleagues and customers.

I started my journey on Tuesday going to Florence, then I went in Pisa on Wednesday and in Naples on Thursday for finally returning in Rome the same day. I was literally shocked when after dinner I saw a new email dropped in my mailbox titled Invitation to join The Apache Software Foundation Membership.

I can't describe how I feel honored and grateful for this huge nomination. This award means a lot for me considering that my contributions were well accepted and what I have done for the Foundation in the last year was completely shared, voted and accepted, it was enough for me :)

I'm very happy to be part of the ASF and I hope that my ongoing and future contributions will help everyone, not only for solving their problems but also for trying to involve more people inside the Foundation. We can do the difference together for the public good.

I would like to thank all the ASF members that made this possible for the nomination and then for voting me, this is absolutely awesome!

Contribution path at ASF

If you are wondering what it means becoming an Apache Member, you find a very short description of a typical contribution path that anyone can follow at ASF:

User: you typically start using one of the ASF projects
Contributor: you send patches for code or docs / you support users in the official channels (mailing list, IRC, etc...). You can't access directly to any resources provided by the ASF.
Committer: if you contribute in a constant way, you can be invited by the Project Management Committee (PMC) to become a Committer. This will give you direct access for submitting code, documentation or updating the website.
PMC Member: if you put a lot of effort in the project, you can be invited to become a PMC Member. Now you can participate and decide together with other PMC Members the direction to follow for this project: you can vote for every decision and release and now your vote counts!
Project Chair: a PMC Member will be nominated to be the official interface with the ASF Board for leading the project. If you are a Project Chair you also are an Apache Member.
Apache Member: a Committer or a PMC Member that is taking care of ASF investing effort for the Foundation itself or he is contributing in more than one project. The nomination and the vote process is done by other ASF Members. Each member is legally a shareholder of the entire foundation and he can vote for the ASF Board.

For more informations about all the responsabilities behind each role, please visit the How it works page in the ASF website.

19th anniversary of "The Apache Way"

I was also so happy that in the same week I was nominated as an Apache Member, the Foundation is celebrating its 19th anniversary! This is a special moment for the ASF as confirmed by the recent quote from Merv Adrian (Gartner):

"The Apache Software Foundation’s extraordinary contribution to the economic refactoring of software stacks seems to be gaining more momentum with every passing year," wrote Merv Adrian, Analyst and Research Vice President at Gartner. "...the role of the ASF remains so important: by providing a vehicle for developers to work 'in the open,' while keeping the playing field level in many respects, the ASF has enabled the rapid development and pervasive spread of key layers that everyone benefits from." https://blogs.gartner.com/merv-adrian/?p=1213