This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Apache Software Foundation, which is being celebrated at the annual ApacheCon U.S. event. Microsoft is proud to be a platinum sponsor of both the ASF and ApacheCon 2009.
The Apache community is an important one for Microsoft and, as ASF President Justin Erenkrantz noted recently, Microsoft is now contributing to at least four Apache projects: HBase, Stonehenge, QPid, and POI.
"This really continues the significant sea change from within the organization - Microsoft now isn't afraid of having their employees contribute to Apache projects on Microsoft's time. Committers from Microsoft sign the same legal agreements that we require from all of our contributors. Microsoft's involvement in these specific communities range from having their employees being core contributors driving the project, to having folks contributing patches or ideas on our mailing lists, to even commissioning a third-party to contribute to our project as a work-for-hire. In other words, Microsoft is now actively participating within Apache projects in a broad range of way," Erenkrantz said.
A number of Microsoft folks representing the Interoperability, App Plat, DPE, Open Source Technology Center and Platform Strategy teams will be on-site and participating in a number of events.
We will also have a booth and be demoing:
In addition, Sandy Gupta, the Director of Platform Strategy, will participate in a Business Panel today, titled: "The Business of Open Source - Power, Prestige, and Propulsion," while Kent Brown and David Ingham will be giving a technical session on Project Stonehenge and Qpid.
Garrett Serack from the Open Source Technology Center gave two BarCamp sessions earlier this week ("How the heck do I get help from Microsoft?" and "The Road Less Travelled" about the new CoApp he has developed,) while David gave a BarCamp presentation on AMQP and Qpid and Kent did one on Stonehenge.
David also led a MeetUp about Qpid on Windows on Tuesday night; while Kent and the team will give a Lightening Talk on Thursday.
We look forward to meeting those of you attending ApacheCon, and please feel free to stop by the booth.