Becoming an ASF Member: Insights into Apache Foundation Governance and Tencent’s Open‑Source Practices

On April 1, Tencent Cloud’s big‑data and AI product researcher Du Junping was invited to become an Apache Software Foundation Member (ASF Member), marking his official entry into the open‑source world.

Since 2011 Du has been contributing patches to the early versions of Apache Hadoop, becoming a committer in 2013 and a PMC member in 2015. This year he was promoted to ASF Member, a role that carries voting rights on the Foundation’s board and broader responsibilities across more than 350 Apache projects.

There are currently 883 ASF Members worldwide, only 13 of whom are from China. ASF Members receive quarterly reports from all Apache projects and are expected to participate in cross‑project governance, mentor new incubating projects, and help shape the Foundation’s direction.

The article explains the hierarchical roles within the Apache community:

User – consumes one or more Apache projects.

Contributor – submits code or documentation patches and supports users via mailing lists, IRC, etc.

Committer – consistently contributes and gains direct commit access after nomination and voting.

PMC Member – participates in a project’s management committee, influencing its roadmap.

ASF Member – holds voting rights on the Foundation’s board and contributes to multiple projects.

It also describes the dynamic nature of the Apache Foundation’s operation model, noting how transparency, detailed documentation, and well‑defined processes enable the community to function across time zones and cultures for over two decades.

Turning to Tencent, the piece outlines how the company’s Open‑Source Alliance (TOSA) mirrors the Apache model. Established in mid‑2018, TOSA includes an Open‑Source Compliance Group, a TPMC (Tencent Project Management Committee), and a mentorship system to guide projects through the Apache incubation pipeline.

Du, as chairman of TOSA, has set three main goals:

Improve Tencent’s open‑source review workflow by publishing a unified, transparent platform and introducing a mentor system for project quality and documentation.

Help projects build external ecosystems, including contributing patches to Hadoop and offering cloud‑native services for open‑source software.

Establish a rigorous evaluation framework for Tencent’s open‑source initiatives, moving beyond simple star counts to a more professional assessment of project health and community impact.

The article concludes with recommended reading links and a call to join the Cloud+ community.