Dirk-willem Van Gulik
Owner at The Apache Software Foundation
Leiden, South Holland, Netherlands
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolDirk-Willem Van Gulik is a veteran internet engineer, CTO and founder with 27 years of experience helping startups and large organisations build scalable, interoperable systems. He combines hands‑on engineering—contributing to high-profile open source projects like the Apache HTTP Server and the Arduino ESP32 core—with strategic leadership roles including founding and presiding over the Apache Software Foundation. Known for delivering multidisciplinary programs that span storage, metadata and SOA architectures, he focuses on reliable, reproducible operational characteristics and clear total cost of ownership. Dirk‑Willem leads by example, rapidly assembling small expert teams to tackle webserver, security and scalability challenges while aligning stakeholders and culture. He also brings public-policy savvy from vice‑presidential roles at the ASF and practical government advisory experience during the Dutch COVID response. Based in Leiden, his background in physics and decades of internet-scale work give him a rare blend of low-level technical depth and high-level architectural judgment.
27 years of coding experience
15 years of employment as a software developer
Physics (Technische Natuurkunde Biophysics/Medical Physics Engineering), Physics (Technische Natuurkunde Biophysics/Medical Physics Engineering) at University of Twente
Dutch, English
Stackoverflow
7,666reputation
2.1mreached
130answers
18questions
openssl
top-5%
rsa
top-5%
ssl
top-1%
apache
top-5%
svn
top-5%
java
top-5%
Github Skills (34)
ssl10
http10
c1110
c1710
iot10
sys10
esp3210
esp-idf10
embedded10
apache-http-server10
arduino10
iot-devkit10
apache9
svn9
c-language9
Programming languages (23)
Github contributions (5)
apache/httpd
Jul 1998 - Mar 2009
Mirror of Apache HTTP Server. Issues: http://issues.apache.org
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:109 commits in 10 years 10 months
Contributions summary:Dirk-willem contributed to the Apache HTTP Server codebase by addressing various documentation and code-related issues. Their work included modifying documentation related to the `htpasswd` utility within `mod_auth`, correcting omissions in the `directive-dict.html` file, and removing outdated code from `mod_auth_anon.html`. Furthermore, the user implemented changes in the `mod_log_config.html` file and made backwards-incompatible modifications to the `mod_negotiation.c` and `http_core.c` modules, impacting configuration and error handling.
apache-httpapacheapache-http-serverhttpdhtaccess
espressif/arduino-esp32
Oct 2020 - Oct 2021
Arduino core for the ESP32
Role in this project:Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT Developer
Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT DeveloperContributions:2 reviews, 2 commits, 6 PRs in 11 months
Contributions summary:Dirk-willem contributed to the Arduino core for the ESP32 by modifying the RMT (Remote Control Transceiver) driver. Their work involved adding an argument to the RMT callback function for more flexible handling, which included example updates and API fixes. Further contributions include improved error handling and socket management within the WiFiClientSecure library, along with implementing functionalities for peer certificate retrieval, improving the security posture of the library. These changes indicate a focus on improving low-level hardware interaction and security within the ESP32 ecosystem.
arduino-coreesp8266arduinoplatformioesp-idf
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