Another oar in the water

Posted on: 2020-01-05 18:54:30+00:00

The Infrastructure team (Infra) works behind the scenes to make it possible for Apache's galaxy of committers to do the cool stuff they do, and for the open-source world to get, use, and rely on applications Apache projects produce. Infra supports additions to code repositories, a constant stream of conversation among project committers and contributors, and about 100 terabytes a month of software downloads.

Infra provides not just services, but knowledge. Infra's team and project committers rely on clear and accurate documentation about everything from how to update personal information to how to keep the Apache servers online, secure, and speedy.

Over 20 years of work, however, Infra has built up a substantial quantity of documentation that may be hard for its intended audience to find, out of date, or no longer relevant. So, in December, 2019, the ASF hired Andrew Wetmore as a part-time Technical Writer-Editor. His job is to curate the existing documentation and, in coordination with the rest of the Infra team and the wider ASF community, extend and improve it.

Andrew is a member of the PMC of Apache Royale, and spent fifteen years leading QA and documentation teams for software projects ranging from kitchen-table startups to major corporations. He lives in rural Nova Scotia, on the east coast of Canada, where he is the editor of a small publishing house.