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Most reports of Internet collaboration refer to small scale operations among a few authors or designers. However, several projects have shown that the Internet can also be the locus for large scale collaboration. In these projects, contributors from around the world combine their individual forces and develop a product that rivals those of multibillion dollar corporations. The Apache HTTP Server Project is a case in point. This collaborative software development effort has created a robust, feature-rich HTTP server software package that currently dominates the public Internet market (46 percent compared with 16 percent for Microsoft and 12 percent for Netscape, according to a June 1997 survey published by Netcraft). The software and its source code are free, but Apache's popularity is more often attributed to performance than price. The project is managed by the Apache Group, a geographically distributed group of volunteers who use the Internet and Web to communicate, develop, and distribute the server and its related documentation. In addition, hundreds of users have contributed ideas, code, and documentation to the project.
Fielding et al. (Wed,) studied this question.