William Rowe
Developer at Independent
Cary, Illinois, United States
Summary
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RockstarWilliam Rowe is a seasoned software engineer with 26 years of experience specializing in cross-platform network and server software, notably long-term contributions to the Apache HTTP Server and a key role in porting and hardening cloud-native Envoy Proxy for Windows. He blends deep systems-level expertise—refactoring httpd for Win32 and improving logging, I/O and platform compatibility—with project leadership across product, sales, and support teams. A committed open-source steward, he has served as an Apache Software Foundation Director, VP of major projects, security team member and conference chair, and remains an active contributor and mentor. William’s background spans diverse domains from revenue document imaging to Kubernetes ecosystem integration, giving him unusual breadth across legacy systems and modern cloud-native architectures. Based in Cary, Illinois, he continues independent development work while driving platform portability and build-system resilience in high-performance networking software.
26 years of coding experience
34 years of employment as a software developer
Github Skills (19)
c-language10
http10
build-system10
c1110
cicd10
c1710
bazel10
apache-http-server10
cprogramming-language10
winapi9
dockers9
wp-api9
cmake9
docker9
ws-api9
Programming languages (12)
Github contributions (5)
apache/httpd
Apr 2000 - Feb 2022
Mirror of Apache HTTP Server. Issues: http://issues.apache.org
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:4351 commits, 2 comments in 22 years 1 month
Contributions summary:William contributed to the Apache HTTP Server (httpd) project, focusing on enhancements to various components. They addressed bugs in the win32 ISAPI module, improved the accuracy of HTTP status code reporting, and implemented features such as a customizable directory character set for FTP listings. Additionally, they worked on optimizing the codebase, including performance improvements to the logging system and the addition of a flexible I/O system.
apache-httpapacheapache-http-serverhttpdhtaccess
envoyproxy/envoy
Oct 2019 - Oct 2022
Cloud-native high-performance edge/middle/service proxy
Role in this project:Back-end & DevOps Engineer
Back-end & DevOps EngineerContributions:323 reviews, 46 commits, 159 PRs in 3 years
Contributions summary:William primarily contributed to build system improvements and Windows platform compatibility within the Envoy proxy project. Their work involved modifying build scripts, patching dependencies like curl and nghttp2, and resolving compilation issues. They also implemented Windows-specific fixes for tests, addressed broken symlinks, and optimized file path lengths to ensure successful builds on the platform. Furthermore, the user worked on incorporating the updated yaml-cpp and bump the abseil dependency for correct debugging and faster builds.
nanoservicesmore-catsgolangcontainersproxy
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