ApacheCon EU 2014

The ""Apache Way"" is the process by which Apache Software Foundation projects are managed. It has evolved over many years and has produced over 100 highly successful open source projects. But what is it and how does it work?

In this session we'll discover at how an Apache project is (and isn't!) managed. We will see how the foundation provides an technical and legal infrastructure for each project, and how the Apache Way provides the governance scaffolding for individual projects. This provides the framework for Apache projects which are then free to apply the Apache Way to ensure their project succeeds.

Having attended this session you will have a better understanding of the inner workings of both the foundation and its projects. With this understanding you will be better equipped to engage with and benefit from Apache projects.

Despite the success of Android and the rise of Tizen and Firefox OS, there seems to be no good open productivity tool on mobiles, inexplicable, given the interest and given the enormous population about to start using mobiles daily, as their default computing device.

But first: Mobiles are not desktops. To exploit the plusses offered we must abandon legacies, such as huge library dependencies, GUI toolkits designed in the 90s, and application architectures whose main effect now is to slow things down and make the mobile user think she is using a bad laptop, at best.

Mobile’s strengths start with the obvious: its mobile. But it also offers a simpler, more direct experience. For the developer at Apache, a mobile productivity tool, such as we have designed with UX Write, can leverage the code and open standards that annul vendor lock-in and obsolescence, while still providing acce

Every year companies spend large amounts of money looking for and evaluating an ERP to install for their business.

The Apache Open For Business (OFBiz) codebase may be robust and the data model impeccable but it is the Business End Users and not necessarily the Technical teams that choose what will be implemented.

OFBiz is a free open source ERP which is good value budget-wise – so when the end users come looking – what do they see? Is it what they want or expect?

In this presentation Sharan Foga will take a look at OFBiz through the eyes of the business end users and discuss the key things they see as most important when evaluating an ERP.

Apache OFBiz is an integrated suite of business applications for Small and Medium Enterprises, enabling uses in domains like CRM, Supply Chain Management, Manufacturing Management, Inventory and Warehouse Management, Project Management and Accounting. As such Apache OFBiz can be deployed in companies active in any area of the manufacturing sector, e.g. assembly, mining, food & beverages,.

Pierre will present a case study of the implementation of Apache OFBiz in a small European brewery and will highlight the challenges, opportunities and business aspects.

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) excels at many things - fostering strong open source communities, creating excellent software, providing infrastructure to do the work, and providing a framework to verify the software before it's released.

But many projects want more from a foundation. In particular, they want to ensure that the world knows about the good work that they're doing, and the contributors want a foundation to provide resources to help take on tasks that developers typically do not enjoy or do well.

In this talk, Brockmeier will make the case for marketing FOSS projects in general, and specifically why Apache needs to evolve to help not only create software for the public good, but promote its projects as well.

So, your business has already opened sourced some of it's code? Great! But now, someone's asking you about giving it to these Apache people? What's up with that, and why isn't just being open source enough?

In this talk, we'll look at several real world examples of where companies have chosen to contribute their existing open source code to the Apache Software Foundation. We'll see the advantages they got from it, the problems they faced along the way, why they did it, and how it helped their business. We'll also look briefly at where it may not be the right fit.

Wondering about how to take your business's open source involvement to the next level, and if contributing to projects at the Apache Software Foundation will deliver RoI, then this is the talk for you!

Does your company want to capitalize on the Apache brand? Are you interested in seeing how closely you can tie your marketing into the latest Apache projects? Do you recognize the importance of supporting the Apache ecosystem, not just with code contributions but other actions?

As VP of Brand Management for all Apache projects, I can help show business and technical leaders some of the ways they can respectfully and successfully market and position their own services in relation to Apache project brands.

The key message is: Apache project governance is independent; but we are happy to have businesses build their software and services on any Apache software products. You may incorporate Apache brands within your brands, but in specific ways that still give our communities credit.

Wondering what to do about the new BestHadoopNews.com website? Don't know how to approach your employer's plans to launch BigCo's SuperLucene product? Need help advising your clients on branding Apache project related services or training or documentation or...? Brand policing and dealing with third parties improperly using your Apache project's brands is a difficult topic to raise. Find out about the existing PMC Branding Reporting Guidelines, and have a chance to ask the expert questions on how to approach third parties. Learn about the kinds of uses of Apache project brands that are not an issue, or are nominative use, and learn how important it is to defend our project logos. The strong reputation of your project and Apache overall relies on every PMC policing their own brand effectively and fairly. Get help here!

At the Denver ApacheCon last April, I presented on the evolution of OpenOffice, and the need for a good quality, compatible solution for mobile devices.

Participants suggested establishing a project in Apache Labs to address this problem. It would depart from existing architectures but could reuse some elements from OpenOffice where appropriate. It would be lightweight, portable, and independent of legacy code.

A good starting point would be UX Write, developed by Peter Kelly. It only runs on iOS at present, but most of the code is cross-platform, and could be made to work on Android and other systems. Peter and I have discussed the idea of open-sourcing parts of the app under the Apache 2.0 license. The app uses HTML natively, and WebKit for displaying documents on-screen, and supports import/export of .docx, export of LaTeX, and could be further extended to support ODF.

The ""build more"" in this case means building line-of-business enterprise applications, the stuff that's the operational heart of your organisation.

And the ""with less"" means less resources, in other words in less time, with fewer developers, faster time to market.

But the ""how"" is the interesting bit. In 2012 Jeroen approached Dan with a problem... he wanted to write a bespoke application for his client, a European multi-billion property management company that operates over 60 shopping malls. For various reasons, Jeroen wanted to explore whether Apache Isis could be used as the platform on which to build a bespoke replacement.

Fast forward two years and Estatio (also open source) is in production, and it took about 2 man years (Jeroen and Dan, part-time) to write. We don't think there's a Java framework out there to match Isis for productivity. Let us fill in the blanks.