Announcing apache-extras.org

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has had a profound influence on everything I’ve worked on over the last decade, and a new partnership with them is a great opportunity for saying “thanks” and giving back. Today we’re announcing the launch of apache-extras.org. Much like our launch of eclipselabs.org earlier this year, we’re creating a separate instance of Project Hosting specifically for ASF-related projects to congregate around.

Back in 2000, when the Subversion project was in its nascent stages, we first few committers were all made members of the APR (Apache Portable Runtime) project; Subversion and Apache HTTPD shared this common portability layer. Over the following years, I was pulled ever closer to the workings of the ASF — attending Apachecon conventions and meeting members from other ASF projects. And because the Subversion project started out with a significant number of developers from the Apache community, its own processes came to mimic the same classic consensus-driven culture that the ASF champions.

Years after that, Google Code’s Project Hosting service was also started by ASF members working at Google. So it’s not surprise that those of us who still work on the product share the ASF’s core philosophy: that open source projects aren’t just buckets of code, but are all about people. A codebase without a living, breathing community is a dead project.

So what can we do, as a company, to support open source communities? Providing hosting infrastructure certainly helps, but we can even go a step further. Successful open source software projects are rarely islands of development; larger projects tend to develop ecosystems of related but “unofficial” projects around them. It’s sometimes hard to identify these sub-communities, and so we can help by bolstering their presence: give them a clearer sense of identity and location by inviting them to live under a common banner.

This is why we’re excited to launch apache-extras.org today. By working under a common logo and domain name, we hope these projects can gain more visibility and grow into their own thriving community.

And to the ASF: a great big “thanks” for doing what you do.

[If you already have a project on Google Code and would like to migrate it to the apache-extras instance, you can fill out this request form.]

Stanton on Owning It

“Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility.”

–Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
American activist, writer and editor

Sales math…

If you’re not earning the income you’d like to earn, ask yourself…

“Am I working like someone who makes $X thousand a year… someone who makes roughly $Y every money hour* of the day?”

Are you valuing your time at that level? If not, who will?

  • $50,000 = $25 every money hour
  • $75,000 = $37 every money hour
  • $100,000 = $50 every money hour (almost $1 a minute)
  • $120,000 = $60 every money hour ($1 a minute)
  • $150,000 = $75 every money hour
  • $200,000 = $100 every money hour
  • $250,000 = $125 every money hour (more than $2 a minute)

Greater than $250,000 = You probably don’t need the reminder. (“Rich enough not to waste time.”)

*money hours: hours during the sales day where you can talk with prospects and customers

(email this math)

Get up 10 minutes earlier each day and get back 60 hours each year. Be inspired on this by one of my favorites from Nike.

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Leaders: Join Sam (co-founder of JustSell.com) in a short talk on Thursday morning on how to keep your team from going through the motions in 2011.