Facebook Joins Apache Foundation

Facebook joined the Apache Software Foundation as a Gold sponsor, which means that the company has committed to making an annual donation to the foundation of at least $40,000.

Facebook Web site is built on open source technologies including Linux, Apache, PHP, memcached and MySQL. Facebook has also three projects active in the Apache Software Foundation; Thrift, Hive and Cassandra.

(Photo CC-BY pshab)

"With Open Source in its DNA, Facebook is an enthusiastic champion and active contributor to the ASF, including the Hive subproject of Apache Hadoop, as well as the popular incubating projects Thrift and Cassandra—all originally developed at Facebook." wrote ASF chairman Jim Jagielski in a statement.

"Sponsoring the ASF helps us grow existing projects, incubate new initiatives, promote community development, host user events, expand our outreach, and provide the infrastructure that keeps the Foundation running on a day-to-day basis. We are grateful for the generous support of Facebook as Gold Sponsors,"

The Apache Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation to support Apache software projects, including the Apache HTTP Server. The software they produce is distributed under the terms of the Apache License.