Understanding New Open Source Communities in The Apache Software Foundation (Evolution of Poddlings in the Apache Incubator)

by Oscar Castaneda for Google's Open Source Programs Office

New open source communities in the Apache Incubator are groups of individuals contributing to the evolution of a software codebase. Some contributors volunteer time and efforts while others are paid to develop software. They seldom meet but often collaborate through shared infrastructure on the Internet. Still they organize in communities to collectively develop enterprise grade software and eventually become full-fledged open source communities. The question behind this project is: 'how?'