Apache

In February 1995, a group of Webmasters "got together" via mailing list to support the NCSA HTTPd product. They combined their patches and bug fixes, and by April 1995 they made the first official public release of the Apache server (version 0.6.2). Because of all the patches, it was "a patchy server"—I'm afraid that's where the name came from.

The Webmasters developed a methodology for making changes to the core, a method of "lazy consensus," in which no changes could be checked into the archive without a number of "Yes" votes and an absence of "No" votes. You got voting rights by being recognized as a useful contributor to Apache development.

Using this methodology for working together, the Apache group started improving the server. Version 0.7 involved various new features, but version 0.8 had a new server architecture incorporating features for speed (e.g., spinning off new processes before they were needed) and extensibility (e.g., a clearly defined application programming interface [API] and a modular structure). After lots more work, Apache version 1.0 came out in December 1995, extensively tested, ported to lots of UNIX platforms, and adequately documented. Within a year, it was the most popular server on the Web, and it has held that leadership position since. Some 6 million sites run Apache, including Amazon.com, Hewlett-Packard, the Financial Times, and the English royal family (www.royal.gov.uk).

Apache runs on Linux, FreeBSD, on other UNIX variants, on Windows NT, MacOS X, OS/2, and now on OpenVMS. Compaq, VMS's proprietor at the time, created the Apache port. The current version is CSWS 1.2 (based on Apache 1.3.20, mod_ssl 2.8.4, and OpenSSL 0.9.5a). The CSWS engineers are working with the Apache Software Foundation to get their port checked in to the official CVS repository.

Apache 2.0, currently in test, is a rewritten server organized with the platform-specific services isolated in the Apache run-time library (APR) and multiprocessing modules (MPM). The rest of the code is platform-independent. This should considerably simplify the process of porting 2.0 for a later release of CSWS.