Things I Like About Working on Apache Qpid

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been working on the Apache Qpid project, particularly on its port to Windows, first available in the M4 release. I also work on other open source projects related to networked applications programming (primarily, ACE). Since no two customers’ needs are the same, it pays to have multiple tools in order to get the best solution for the situation.

Although Qpid graduated as a Apache top-level project (TLP) some time ago, Apache issued a press release about it this week. As I was reading the release, I was reminded of some of the reasons I really enjoy working with the Apache Qpid team.

• Meritocracy: the Apache way of working forces contributors to demonstrate their skills and desire to contribute over time before being admitted to the set of people who can commit to the source code repository. Prior to this step, code must be vetted by more senior members who assist with integrating and testing as well as helping newcomers along on the path the committership.
• Intellectual property rights handling: Lawyers get the sweats when dealing with some open source projects because of the fear of intellectual property rights issues which may arise down the road. Apache has put a very nice system in place for ensuring that contributions to the project have all intellectual property rights properly assigned so there are no issues that users need to worry about.
• Quality: I’ve been very impressed by the experience, skill, and professionalism of the Apache Qpid development and project team. I’m proud to be a part of this team and they inspire me daily to reach higher and make Qpid the best it can be.

I’m pleased to have customers that see the value in sponsoring work on Qpid because the resulting product provides fantastic enterprise messaging functionality without the exorbitant enterprise messaging price tag. I’m currently working to improve the Qpid user experience for Windows developers as well as reworking the build system to make it easier to keep the Windows and Linux/UNIX builds in synch. Much of the Windows improvements (build the libraries as DLLs, produce an installable prebuilt kit) will be available at the next release (M5) in a month or so. The build improvements will get worked into the development stream after M5.

Tags: amqp, apache, message queuing, networked, qpid