Apache Software Foundation Advances Enterprise App Development With Top Level Projects

Sean Michael

Updated · Apr 24, 2019

Open source is often at the core of modern enterprise applications and few if any organizations have as much impact as the Apache Software Foundation (ASF).

The Apache Software Foundation runs its open source projects on a hierarchy of principally three levels, top-level projects (TLPs), sub-projects and incubated projects. Achieving the TLP status is a major milestone for an open source effort. Among the projects that have recently achieved TLP status is the Apache Netbeans Java Integrated Developer Environment (IDE) and the Apache Skywalking application performance monitoring (APM) efforts.

NetBeansApache NetBeans

The NetBeans IDE was originally developed by Sun Microsystems and moved to Oracle’s control in 2010 after Sun was acquired. NetBeans in its early day was a vibrant competitor to the Eclipse IDE, which is run by the Eclipse Foundation.

Back in September 2016, Oracle decided to contribute the NetBeans project to the ASF. For the last two and a half years, NetBeans has grown under the Apache model, expanding the base of contributions and community.

On April 4, Apache NetBeans 11.0 was released, marking the third major release for the project since joining the ASF. On April 24, the ASF formally announced that NetBean was graduating to the TLP status level.

“Being part of the ASF means that NetBeans is now not only free and Open Source software: it is also, uniquely, and for the first time, part of a foundation specifically focused on enabling open governance,” Geertjan Wielenga, Vice President of Apache NetBeans, wrote in a statement. “Every contributor to the project now has equal say over the roadmap and direction of NetBeans.”

SkyWalkingApache SkyWalking

The Apache SkyWalking project was also voted to become a TLP on April 24. SkyWalking joined the Apache incubator in December 2017 and has quickly gained adoption across multiple projects and organizations looking for an integrated approach for application performance monitoring (APM) in container and cloud-native environments.

SkyWalking is a distributed tracing based APM technology that provides visualization and insight to developer into how applications are performing.

“The original agenda behind SkyWalking was to help newcomers understand what is distributed tracing, and the community has grown bigger and stronger since we entered the Apache Incubator,” Sheng Wu, Vice President of Apache SkyWalking, wrote in a statement. “Through The Apache Way, SkyWalking has a very active and diverse community, is used by over 70 companies, and has over 100 source contributors from dozens of different organizations.”

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at EnterpriseAppsToday and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

Sean Michael
Sean Michael

Sean Michael is a writer who focuses on innovation and how science and technology intersect with industry, technology Wordpress, VMware Salesforce, And Application tech. TechCrunch Europas shortlisted her for the best tech journalist award. She enjoys finding stories that open people's eyes. She graduated from the University of California.

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