Apache Foundation faces name opposition from American Indian activists. (UPDATED)
I didn't see this coming. But, then, I'm a baby boomer white guy, so I was born with blinders on. So, I didn't see Natives in Tech's protest against the Apache Software Foundation's (ASF) name coming. I get it now.
According to Natives in Tech members Adam Recvlohe, Holly Grimm, and Desiree Kane, the ASF appropriated indigenous culture for branding purposes by using the name Apache.
In particular, this naming "threatens critical rights around Indigenous sovereignty, self-determination, and respect."
Personally, I'd always thought that the name had little to do with the Apache tribes and everything to do with a joke. That shows how much I know. The story, as I heard it, was that since the "Apache HTTP Server grew from patches applied to the NCSA Server, a pun on the name quickly spread amongst members of the community, with the rumor being that 'Apache' actually stood for 'a ‘patchy’ server.'"
UPDATE
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Native Group Calls for Apache Software Foundation Name Change
The Natives in Tech group has called on the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) to change its name, saying the “frankly outdated spaghetti-Western” representation is “as ignorant as it is offensive.”
In a blog post, the group urges the foundation “to take the necessary steps needed to express the ally-ship they promote so deeply on their website, to act in accordance with their own code of conduct, to “be careful in the words that [they] choose,” and change their name."
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Indigenous tech group asks Apache Foundation to change its name | Ars Technica
A group representing Indigenous people in technology is calling on the Apache Software Foundation to change its name, based in part on the foundation's code of conduct.
Nonprofit group Natives in Tech writes in a blog post that while many organizations have appropriated indigenous culture, "none of them are as large, prestigious, or well-known as The Apache Software Foundation is in software circles." The organization takes issue with Apache co-creator Brian Behlendorf's explanation for why he suggested the name and its "Spaghetti Western" tropes, as well as the Foundation's feather logo and its stated "reverence and appreciation" for a singular, broadly described "Apache" identity.
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Native Americans ask Apache foundation to change name • The Register
Natives in Tech, a US-based non-profit organization, has called upon the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) to change its name, out of respect for indigenous American peoples and to live up to its own code of conduct.
In a blog post, Natives in Tech members Adam Recvlohe, Holly Grimm, and Desiree Kane have accused the ASF of appropriating Indigenous culture for branding purposes.