On October 24, 2022, SegmentFault announced the open-sourcing of its Q&A platform software, Answer 1. Today, exactly one year later, the Answer community announced2 that the project has passed its vote — a unanimous yes — and officially entered the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) Incubator.
As the founding team behind Answer and a new-generation tech Q&A community in China, SegmentFault has long been an active advocate for open source and an embrace of the open-source ecosystem. We’ve published many well-received open-source features and interviews, launched the signature “China Open Source Pioneers 33” list, and been a driving force behind numerous local open-source events — helping organize and run CommunityOverCode Asia (formerly ApacheCon Asia), OpenInfra Days China, Open Source Summer, the Mulan Open Source Summit, the OSCAR Open Source Industry Conference, and more. Through our community’s non-profit open-source support program, we’ve also provided media coverage and event promotion for many open-source projects, growing together with open-source projects and open-source startups across the community.
Answer is like a gift that distills years of the SegmentFault team’s hard work — one year ago, on 1024 Programmer’s Day (October 24, a date beloved by Chinese developers), we gave back to the community by open-sourcing our years of exploration in technical Q&A and community building. One year later, we’ve decided to donate it to the Apache Software Foundation — to embrace a more open and transparent governance model, to build a fair, diverse, and inclusive community together with developers everywhere, to deliver a better Q&A community product for our users, and to welcome more contributors to join us in advancing the open-source cause!
The original announcement from the Answer community:
On October 9, Answer — the Q&A software open-sourced by the SegmentFault team — passed its vote with a unanimous result and officially entered the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) Incubator.
On September 21, a discussion about whether to accept Answer into the Apache Incubator was initiated on the ASF mailing list. On October 9, according to the ASF mailing list, Answer passed the vote with 22 votes in favor — including 18 binding votes and 4 non-binding votes — with no abstentions or opposing votes. On October 18, the Answer project was officially transferred to the Apache Software Foundation.
After entering the Apache Incubator, Answer will actively practice the Apache Way, maintain open governance, and continue building a fair, diverse, and inclusive community — delivering a better Q&A community product for our users, and welcoming more contributors to join us in advancing the open-source cause!
Answer, the open-source Q&A software
Answer is a knowledge-based Q&A platform, officially open-sourced by the SegmentFault team on October 24, 2022. You can use Answer for free to efficiently set up a Q&A platform for product and technical Q&A, customer support, user communities, and more.
As a leading new-generation tech Q&A community in China, the SegmentFault team has accumulated years of experience in community building. Answer not only comes with the foundational features of a Q&A platform, but also embeds the development team’s thinking on community growth into its product design — turning that experience into product features such as tag-based content management and a badge-and-reputation system.
We hope to help every organization easily build its own Q&A community, harness collective intelligence, and drive the industry forward!
Key project milestones
- October 24, 2022 — Answer was officially open-sourced on GitHub
- October 27, 2022 — Answer hit GitHub Trending, ranking Top 1 overall and in the Go language chart
- December 2022 — Answer 1.0 officially released
- October 2023 — Answer passed its vote and officially entered the ASF Incubator
Answer product highlights
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An easy-to-use Q&A community
Answer is easy to use — non-experts can get it running with the help of our documentation. In a knowledge Q&A community built with Answer, anyone can quickly ask and answer questions and jump right into the community, boosting its activity. Answer is also fully responsive, so you get the same great experience on mobile as on desktop.
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Efficient content management
Administrators can use tags to organize questions and content, making content management easy and efficient. Users can also search by tag to quickly find the answers they need. By following tags, users can keep up with the content they care about and arrange it however they like.
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A rich plugin ecosystem
Users can extend Answer with plugins — adding new features and capabilities to make their knowledge Q&A community more powerful and versatile. Through plugins, users can customize Answer to their needs, making it more flexible and better suited to their workflows.
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A fun user incentive system
We make Q&A communities more engaging through reputation. In a knowledge Q&A community built with Answer, users earn reputation by contributing high-quality content, having their answers accepted, and receiving votes from other users. This not only helps ensure content quality and timeliness, but also encourages users to build a professional reputation and influence within the community. Community members can find fun and a sense of accomplishment through collaboration.
Answer community updates
Over the past year, Answer has gradually built up a small community for user and developer exchange.
Since going open source, Answer has shipped 19 releases, earned 7.9K+ GitHub stars, and surpassed 10,000 cumulative downloads. We’ve collaborated with 37 code contributors and 59 volunteers from around the world, received 221 PRs in total, and Answer has been translated into 15 different languages.
Below are the Initial Committers of the Answer project, who made outstanding contributions to its early development:
- Ning Qi https://github.com/joyqi
- Feng Dong https://github.com/fenbox
- Fengjun Lv https://github.com/mingcheng
- Enxin Xie https://github.com/LinkinStars
- Guangfu Yang https://github.com/kumfo
- Yubin Ren https://github.com/robinv8
- Shuailing Li https://github.com/shuashuai
- Haitao Jia https://github.com/haitaoo
- Chenyang Ai https://github.com/aichy126
- Bo Jiang https://github.com/jiangbonadia
- Anna Primma https://github.com/PrimmaAnna
About the Apache Incubator
Founded in 2002, the Apache Incubator serves projects that wish to enter the Apache Software Foundation (ASF).
As the world’s largest open-source foundation, ASF’s open-source software is widely used around the globe, with over 8,400 contributors active across more than 320 projects. According to Apache’s own estimates, the Apache Software Foundation’s open-source software and projects are worth over $20 billion, spanning web servers and big data processing to distributed storage and machine learning. All of these projects are freely available to developers and benefit billions of users worldwide.
The Apache Incubator assigns mentors to each incubating project (podling). They assist projects joining the ASF, guiding them as they grow toward independent operation under the ASF’s governance model and processes, helping them make use of ASF-provided services, and fostering the growth and operation of the incubating projects. Only after a series of stages and evaluations can an incubating project graduate to become an Apache Top-Level Project (TLP).
The following 4 Incubator mentors will serve as Mentors for the Answer project, guiding its growth under the ASF’s governance model and processes:
- Willem Jiang (Jiang Ning), Director of the Apache Software Foundation, Incubator Mentor
- Zili Chen (tison), Member of the Apache Software Foundation, Incubator Mentor
- Justin Mclean, Director of the Apache Software Foundation, VP of the Incubator
- Christofer Dutz, Director of the Apache Software Foundation, Incubator Mentor
Acknowledgments and reflections
Since its launch in June 2022, Answer has passed several exciting milestones, and we’re now thrilled to see it become an incubating project of the Apache Software Foundation — undoubtedly a moment of great significance for the entire Answer open-source community. As a member of Answer’s founding team, I want to thank the developers and users who have accompanied us along the way; without your support, we could not have achieved what we have today. A new platform raises the bar for the project’s development, and I hope we can push Answer to new heights together.
— Ning Qi, Founder & CTO of SegmentFault, Co-founder and Initial Committer of Answer
Entering the Apache Incubator is an important milestone on Answer’s journey, and it also marks the beginning of new challenges. Thanks to our project Champion Willem Jiang, and to our mentors tison, Justin, and Christofer, who devoted so much time and effort during the proposal phase and helped us take this important step. Going forward, under the guidance of our mentors, we will actively practice the Apache Way and work hard to find the path that best fits Answer’s long-term, healthy development — collaborating with more open-source communities, attracting more outstanding contributors, and helping more users, teams, and companies build their own knowledge Q&A platforms to harness and preserve collective intelligence.
— Bo Jiang, COO of SegmentFault, Co-founder and Initial Committer of Answer
Join us
Every feature of Answer is designed and built by the talented developers in our community. Answer is still under active development and welcomes contributions of all kinds. If you like this kind of atmosphere, come join us! If you like the project, give us a 🌟 on GitHub!
You can find more of our resources here:
- Official website: http://answer.apache.org/
- Code repository: https://github.com/apache/incubator-answer
- Documentation: https://answer.apache.org/docs
- User community: https://meta.answer.dev/
- Discord: https://discord.gg/c537sFxu
- SegmentFault announces the open-sourcing of its Q&A platform software Answer, https://segmentfault.com/a/1190000042680141↩
- Answer community announcement, https://answer.apache.org/blog/2023/10/24/answer-enters-apache-incubator/↩