Apache Software Foundation is World's Largest Open Source Foundation, having 300+ Top-Level Projects and 45 incubating projects at the time of recording this video.
It has around 39,000+ code contributors. So how these contributors communicate with each other, the answer is "mailing list".
The mailing list concept is very common in Open Source world and is great channel for communication.
A one of the key motto at Apache is:
“If it didn’t happen on the mailing list, it didn’t happen.”
Everything inside the Apache world needs to occur asynchronously and be archived.
Email is the best platform for this. Mailing lists are the public records of all Apache interactions.
Every projects have their mailing lists, where the respective project community interact with each other, this list are typically called Dev, Users, Issue & Commits
Dev list
Dev list (dev@<project-name>.apache.org) is used to discuss the design and development related discussion of the project. e.g. dev@httpd.apache.org
User List
This list (users@<project-name>.apache.org) is for User support and questions, so if you are using any Apache projects and having query, this is appropriate list to be used.
e.g. users@httpd.apache.org
Issues list
The Apache Projects use the issue trackers like Jira, or GitHub issues, the notification of activities happened on these tools goes to issues list.
e.g. bugs@httpd.apache.org, notifications@ofbiz.apache.org
Commits List
This list (usually commits@<project-name>.apache.org) is used to send notification related to code changes in the project repository. So, If you want to keep updated on the code changes happening in the project you should subscribe to this list. e.g. commits@ofbiz.apache.org
These general mailing list used by Apache Projects, but based on use case specific any Apache Project may have more mailing list, you can visit the project site for their mailing list details.
Apart from project specific list, there are some foundation wise mail list like,
Apache News and Announcements The Apache Announcements list announce@apache.org contains news and announcements about the foundation and its projects. Community Mailing List The dev@community.apache.org mailing list is used by the participants in the ASF to discuss community-related foundation-wide topics. Foundation Infrastructure Mailing List The users@infra.apache.org mailing list is used by the Foundation's infrastructure team to discuss about the operation of the overall ASF infrastructure systems. Foundation Legal Discussion Mailing List The legal-discuss@apache.org is a forum for questions that have a legal aspect to them.
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