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Apache 2.0 vs. IIS
TonyG writes: "According to an item on InternetNews, the impending release of Apache 2.0 could very well mean the demise of IIS. Interestingly, the article asserts that Microsoft have already given up on IIS, the proof being its absence in XP Home and its non-standard presence in XP Pro. Apache.Net? Sounds catchy..." That's a silly argument by the internetnews.com writer - IIS isn't in the Home edition because Microsoft wants to charge more for "server" operating systems, not because they're "admitting defeat". But it's a decent look at the upcoming Apache 2.0.
Kudos for the apache team on 2.0 but until it's as easy to configure and add onto as IIS it will continue to be a battle with Microsoft.
Have a Happy.
Give me a break.
It's well integrated into Windows and it's still running many many sites using ASP (the equivalent of PHP).
With ASP.Net we may even see it start to compete against more powerful web development environment such as Java Server Pages (JSP) and Apple's WebObjects.
[)amien
...I actually find IIS easier to work with. I don't like this fact at all. I'm hoping Apache 2.0 does knock IIS's sock.c off.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
And although .NET is much more than web services, they are a fairly important part of the whole system and IIS is a critical part of providing those web services so I would certainly expect microsoft to continue working on IIS.
And also apache is nice in many ways, but if you just want to put up a couple files on an intranet or something, it's so easy just to right click on the directory and choose "Web Sharing" to create a virtual IIS web directory that it certainly has it's place.
Sig is taking a break!
A missing piece in the acticle is the importance of Apache 2.0 for WebDAV. WebDAV is a HTTP-extension making the HTTP-server a real fileserver - Apache 2.0 comes with full WebDAV support. As WebDAV is quite flexible and allows stuff like meta-data, versioning and different authentication mechanisms (that are unfortunately not finalized yet) it is a possible successor for both NFS and SMB/Cifs.
WindowsXP supports the mounting of WebDAV shares, as does Linux with the help of the DAV filesystem driver. And Apache could be the standard fileserver... scary.
Microsoft will not be ditching IIS. It is not an option in Windows XP Home because the average XP Home user isn't creating database-driven Web sites in ASP or Perl/CGI (you'd be lucky to find an XP Home user that knows HTML, I'd wager). Further, IIS is not a pre-installed option in Windows 2000 Professional, so why should it be in Windows XP Professional? Most XP Professional users are not Web developers (though many Web developers are XP Professional users) that don't need IIS installed on their system.
I suppose anti-Microsoft fanatics will also say that IIS on XP Professional being limited to 10 concurrent connections is further proof that Microsoft is dropping IIS. (Windows 2000 Professional is also limited to 10 concurrent connections.) But really this is just a way for Microsoft to ensure that people buy their more expensive Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Advanced Server (and their forthcoming Windows.NET Server and Windows.NET Advanced Server).
Just because something isn't included in the Home version and isn't installed (by default) in the Workstation version of a product doesn't mean it is being dropped.
Anyone who argues that Microsoft is giving up their fight to be dominant in the Web server market doesn't know anything about Microsoft strategy and obviously knows nothing about their .NET campaign.
What the GNU community has to do now is create quality configuration tools for our text based config files.
My opinion is that text based configuration for servers is far superior to the Microsoft GUI approach. Here are some of reasons why:
- No need to run some sort of windowing protocol over the network, be it X or PC Anywhere or whatever. These are SLOW. Hell, on Linux/Unix servers there is no need for any sort of GUI.
- Please explain how you grep a GUI interface to find that key coniguration parameter you want to change?
- Want to experiment with a configuration change? cp the text file to a backup copy, and hack away secure in the knowledge that reversion is just another cp away!
- GUI configuration tools under Microsoft are very misleading because they do not give you access to the whole story. Example - what does it take to install another service using port 80 on a Win2K server? You have to hit the command line!
There are many others.
The ulitmate proof of my argument is that there have been a number of projects to develop GUI configuration tools for Apache. Does anyone use them? No! Why? Because text configuration if far superior.