The Apache Foundation is one of my favorite examples when I explain how open source works because the Apache projects have been wildly successful – as a volunteer, non-commercial entity. Not all open source software projects need to follow the Apache model, but it is proof that an entirely volunteer, democratic, open source organization with many projects can be successful. This year, the Apache Foundation released some very interesting numbers. Some highlights quoted from Ross Gardler's post:

• 1765 committers
• 662,663 changes submitted to Subversion
• 65 world class projects
• an expenditure of only $181,202 in the 2007 fiscal year
• no ties to any commercial bodies (note: some of the committers are employed by companies)
• documentation, user support and bug reporting are equally valued alongside coding

Twenty years ago nobody would have believed this was possible. It's still an amazing story.