I was chatting with Chris Mattmann earlier today, and was doing some
archeology to determine when the serf project was really started. The answer
to that is September, 2001.
But here is where it gets more interesting...
Serf was actually started as "apr-serf". A project within the APR household
to create an HTTP client library. Coding happened in APR between June 2002
and September 2003. But APR decided that serf didn't fit within its
"portability" realm, so the ASF created a TLP called "Apache Commons". That
was nominally for various common-functionality libraries like serf and
specifically like Apache Jakarta Commons. Serf moved over to Commons that
September [2003].
Well... Commons never really worked. Only Justin and I were committing to
Serf, and that certainly doesn't meet the ASF's "three +1's" rule. Commons
never really took off because the Jakarta Commons people felt the "Commons"
brand had been stolen from them, so they didn't join in. So... Commons got
shut down, and in August 2004, Serf moved to a private svn repository that
was being run on svn.webdav.org. It later moved to Google Code right after
it was launched in July 2006. That's where it has lived ever since.
But here is one of the more interesting facts... not so apparent in the
above history:
Apache Commons, and more specifically serf, decided to be the guinea pig for
Subversion running at the ASF:
gstein:~/src/svn$ svn log -r 1 ^/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r1 | gstein | 2003-01-15 06:46:49 -0500 (Wed, 15 Jan 2003) | 1 line
initial check-in to set up Apache Commons
------------------------------------------------------------------------
and the first serf commit, as a result of an imported cvs2svn:
gstein:~/src/svn$ svn log -r 5 ^/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r5 | rbb | 2001-09-29 01:20:55 -0400 (Sat, 29 Sep 2001) | 2 lines
Initial revision
------------------------------------------------------------------------
and the *very first piece of code* committed to the ASF Subversion
repository:
gstein:~/src/svn$ svn log -r 10 ^/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r10 | jerenkrantz | 2002-06-19 06:34:51 -0400 (Wed, 19 Jun 2002) | 5 lines
This provides a starting point for a concrete discussion of the API.
It is by no means correct or even valid. It's just lets us start to
coordinate the API somewhat.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Serf and Subversion have had a long history, much of it revolving around the
ASF. One day, Serf may return. All of its committers sign ICLAs with the
ASF. Its community and usage is growing to where it may be sustainable as an
Apache community.
Hope y'all have enjoyed this little archeology expedition. Few people ask
how Subversion actually got brought into the ASF. Well... there's your
answer :-)
Have fun,
-g
Received on 2011-07-14 08:08:03 CEST