How about this for an idea, the more you know, the more skilled you are in applying your knowledge, and the more adept you are at persuading your colleagues, then the higher you will rise in an organization. These principles alone form the basis of a system of governance. There is no nepotism, and in theory no favoritism, since all aspects of projects and work assignments are decided upon by the voting members. Wealth in the traditional sense does not come into play, since power is directly proportional to a kind of ‘intellectual capital’ you are able to build. This model, as idealistic and pie-in-the-sky as anyone could imagine, has managed to crank out the world’s most successful web-server, and industry standard software libraries for 10 years and running. The organization is called the Apache Foundation, and they own the rights to the source code.
So what is a web-server?
Web-servers are, taken at the system level, the most basic building block of the Internet. Pretty much all of the content loaded into your browsers, no matter which browser you are using, comes directly from a web-server.
The fact that Apache controls market share for the web-server is borne out by Netcraft. They spend their time surveying the Internet to find out all of the relevant web-server statistics, including which brand is the most used. The last survey conducted, April 2008 showed that the Apache’s was used 50.69 percent of the 165,719,150 websites surveyed (pretty much all of the publicly accessible Internet). Their closest competitor, Microsoft, held 35.47 percent.
The fact that Apache Foundation owns the rights to the source code for the most popular web-server going makes them a huge cog in the Internet machine. Let’s put it this way. If there was some crippling bug in the Apache code that caused all of their servers to fail, then the Internet itself would become a wasteland of broken links and timeouts. The equivalent of a cybernetic meltdown.
The reason for this is because of the connectedness of the Internet, which simply means that any significant page of content that you are reading at a given time, if it isn’t being served by an Apache server, most certainly has link on it that is being served by an Apache server. And if that isn’t convincing enough then consider the fact that almost every major software vendor that sells something called an application server, which is the big brother of a web-server, has the Apache source code at its core.
Apache Foundation has enough penetration to make any of the big players green with envy. Interestingly enough, no one at Apache draws a paycheck, and presumably all of the Apache income (mostly donations) is re-invested in infrastructure so they can continue their work. Apache Foundation describe themselves as a meritocracy. Certainly this bears more investigation.
The First Meritocracy
The idea of meritocracy as a system of government has a somewhat dubious origin. The concept was first described by Michael Young in his book The Rise of Meritocracy. In it he paints a bleak picture for it’s meritocratic citizens.
Young was a British sociologist, social activist and politician who was born in 1915. He studied Economics and eventually wrote the Labour party’s manifesto in 1945. He founded over 60 institutions, and his central theme was to “give people more say over running their lives and institutions”ยน. It was in a particular state of disillusionment that he penned Rise of The Meritocracy, a satirical look at society. He originally intended the work to be a purely academic endeavour, but had trouble getting any publisher to accept it. Perhaps his work was cutting a little too close to home. One of the rebuffs he received from an English publishing house stated that “it was not in the business of publishing PhD theses”. So the piece was reworked as a satire, set it in the future (2034), given a plot, a heroine, and finally a tragic outcome, which just happened to be the collapse of society itself.
Eventually his friend, while walking on the beach, agreed to publish the work in 1958. Ironically the book’s initial success infuriated Young, as it became popular because people were intrigued by the prospect of a meritocracy as a viable system of governance. Young had not intended his work to be taken seriously, rather he was trying to illustrate the evils of a society that values ‘merit’, which he defined as “IQ+effort”, above all else.
Young’s central theme, which can be viewed in the book’s updated introduction, is that in a system where IQ and effort are the only tools you need, does eventually lead individuals to positions of power. And in the absence of any other checks and balances the temptation to use that power to gain their own ends is too overwhelming. His characters succumb to that temptation, with disastrous results.
Apache’s Meritocracy
So what is power in the Apache Foundation? How does one gain ‘merit’ in the ASF? Here is the explanation in their words:
As the group started to develop their own version of the software, moving away from the NCSA version, more people were attracted and started to help out, first by sending little patches, or suggestions, or replying to email on the mail list, later by more important contributions.
When the group felt that the person had “earned” the merit to be part of the development community, they granted direct access to the code repository, thus increasing the group and increasing the ability of the group to develop the program, and to maintain and develop it more effectively.
Power in the Apache meritocracy is somewhat akin to that in Micheal Young’s. Apache peers marvel in each other’s ability to create beautiful code, and to make their system better. As younger peers make more changes, they are allowed to bubble up through the organization, eventually leading to decision making status, and begin to help guide the Apache flagship. Apache members are motivated to make their product better. They understand that their tiny changes put together and put into action as a whole will improve the very fabric of the Internet itself.
Apache members are motivated by recognition of the larger software industry. Experience making Apache code changes, and showing Apache membership on your CV is making a statement. This motivation and dedication to their craft is the kind not easily seen in the regular standard software houses where motivation is derived from work-for-pay.
In fact, the Apache model, which follows many other work-for-free software societies, has overturned the traditional software market. Microsoft who is listed as a distant second in the Netcraft survey, has demonstrated a consistent inability to compete. It is not a huge stretch to say that the Apache code, that which has been fostered and nurtured by a loyal gang of craftsmen, is far superior to anything they could derive from the legions of their work-for-pay denizens. Meanwhile the biggest players, including IBM, HP, and Oracle have accepted reality and become re-sellers of the Apache code.
Consider these aspects of the Apache meritocracy:
- Apache communication is by email, there are rarely ever meetings. Decisions are reached by consensus of an over arching board. Patches are submitted and tested by members.
- No one is paid – ever. The foundation is careful to spell this out. The reason is that Apache does not want outside companies to influence decision making. Apache receives donations and uses the money to keep development servers running.
- The Apache group, officially the Apache Software Foundation, has spun off hundreds of sub projects with similar success stories. Most notably is the Apache Commons libraries, a set of software libraries that are freely available and recognized as industry standard for web based software development work.
What started as small band of committed organized software developers have created one of the most respected software houses in the world, and continues to pioneer the Internet itself. There are over 800 Apache members listed today. Apache literally charts the direction that web based software will take, with huge multi-national software houses in their wake.
I wonder what Michael Young would think about all of this.
References
- Rise of the Meritocracy, Michael Dunlop Young (1958)
Tags: Apache, meritocracy