Overview

This page describes some of the factors to consider before submitting a project to Apache and what issues should be addressed in a project proposal.

This is currently a draft, and has no official status.

References

Here is a list of other pages around apache.org with information that may be helpful:

• http://jakarta.apache.org/site/newproject.html

• http://xml.apache.org/guidelines.html

• http://www.apache.org/dev/project-creation.html

Factors to Consider Prior to Proposing a Project

== The Code Base ==

• Does it exist?
  • If not, you're in the wrong place.
• Is it understandable?
• Are you willing to let go?
• Are you willing to hang on?
  • Developer involvement
  • Single code base

== The Communtiy ==

• Does it exist?
• If not, where will it come from?
• Who are your initial committers?
• Which Apache project are you targeting?

The Business Decision

• Why would a for-profit company ever give away its code?
• Why shouldn't a company give away its code?
• What are some of the impacts on a company after starting an Apache project?

== The Legal Decision ==

• Who owns the copyright to the initial codebase?
• Who owns the copyright of future individual contributions?
• How does licensing work?

• Questions about licesing to licensing@apache.org

• Contributing work that you didn't create, with less restrictive licenses.

==

Contributors to this document :

• Cliff Schmidt (cliff@bea.com)