Eight Years Of Apache

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Posted by timothy on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @03:03PM from the that's-a-lot-of-hits dept.

Kyle Hamilton writes "The Apache Software Foundation today announced that its HTTP Server platform has reached a milestone of eight consecutive years of World Wide Web technology leadership. Since its first release in April of 1995, the Apache HTTP Server has become as pervasive as the Web itself. According to two separate and independent surveys, the Apache HTTP Server, which originally established itself as the leading web server technology in April 1996, continues to acquire even greater market, growing faster than all other competing web server technologies. Achieving eight straight years of technology leadership confirms that the open source model works. Apache is now successfully deployed in a diverse set of environments, from large commercial entities to small nonprofit organizations. We are grateful to the community for their continued support and participation in the development process, said Sander Striker, Vice President of the Apache HTTP Server Project. We are firmly committed to continuing to provide the most accessible and standards-compliant Web server platform in existence."

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Milestone by Meiyo+Neko · 2004-05-11 15:33 · Score: 4, Funny

Congrats! Here's to another 010!
1. Re:Milestone by rabbit994 · 2004-05-11 15:45 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  Don't you mean another 1010? Thanks Apache for providing a webhosting solution to us all. Even us who are running Windows.
2. Re:Milestone by Meiyo+Neko · 2004-05-11 15:51 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Getting warmmmerrrr
3. Re:Milestone by NetFu · 2004-05-18 17:32 · Score: 1
  
  No, he means "1000":
  
  0001=1
  0010=2
  0011=3
  0100=4
  0101=5
  0110=6
  0111=7
  1000=8
  
  Damn, you can't be a Slashdot geek if you can't do binary!
  
  1010=10!
4. Re:Milestone by Anonymous Coward · 2004-05-19 04:05 · Score: 0
  
  Don't you imagine he meant octal?
5. Re:Milestone by QBasicer · 2004-05-21 15:25 · Score: 1
  
  Or, you can:
  1 x 8
  0 x 4
  1 x 2
  0 x 1
  
  2 + 8 = 10
  
  --
  x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
6. Re:Milestone by Anonymous Coward · 2004-05-24 20:36 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  well, in octal, the OP is correct since
  
  010 == 0 * 8^0 + 1 * 8^1 == 8 base10
  
  note that in C, octal numbers are indicated by a 'zero' prefix. whcih, incidentally, bit me once when i tried to be tidy and write stuff like
  #define KILO (1000) #define CENTI (0100) #define DECA (0010)
Hip-hip Hoorah by agent+dero · 2004-05-11 15:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

The Apache HTTP project is a great project at that, but let's not forget apache's other AWESOME projects, Ant, jakarta, XML, PHP.
The List

Thanks to the success of the HTTP project, we've gained these, sounds like we should 'pay' tribute: http://www.apache.org/foundation/contributing.html

--
Error 407 - No creative sig found
1. Re:Hip-hip Hoorah by tolan-b · 2004-05-12 01:42 · Score: 1
  
  Ah, I don't think they mean that XML and PHP are their projects :)
2. Re:Hip-hip Hoorah by tha_mink · 2004-05-13 01:24 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Ah, I don't think they mean that XML and PHP are their projects :)
  
  But they are APACHE projects. From the PHP website..."PHP is a project of the Apache Software Foundation."
  
  --
  You'll have that sometimes...
3. Re:Hip-hip Hoorah by tolan-b · 2004-05-13 03:08 · Score: 1
  
  Ok PHP is, but it's news to me :)
  
  XML however isn't.
4. Re:Hip-hip Hoorah by tha_mink · 2004-05-13 23:35 · Score: 1
  
  http://xml.apache.org/
  
  --
  You'll have that sometimes...
5. Re:Hip-hip Hoorah by tolan-b · 2004-05-14 03:32 · Score: 1
  
  Yes Apache has *an* XML project, but XML isn't an Apache project.
6. Re:Hip-hip Hoorah by JoScherl · 2004-05-16 20:02 · Score: 1
  
  But they are APACHE projects. From the PHP website..."PHP is a project of the Apache Software Foundation."
  
  Afaik there have been some license issues (like PHP not taking the Apache 2.0 License etc) lately so PHP isn't an Apache project anymore, but I'm not sure about the current state - just looked at apache.org and there it is said that PHP is a "sister project"
Isn't it more like 11 years? by Meowing · 2004-05-11 16:26 · Score: 5, Interesting

I always thought of Apache as a continuation of NCSA httpd. Wasn't that more like 1993?
1. Re:Isn't it more like 11 years? by cow+ninja · 2004-05-12 01:46 · Score: 1
  
  heh.. We still have an old HP9000 server running NCSA httpd.
quick - kill it! kill it! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-05-11 16:58 · Score: 1, Interesting

I'm one of many who has dropped Apache in favor of thttpd.

So the next time you're setting up a webserver and Apache is being a pain in the ass - kill it and switch to thttpd. You'll thank me.
1. Re:quick - kill it! kill it! by wirelessbuzzers · 2004-05-11 17:22 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I'm one of many who has dropped Apache in favor of thttpd.
  
  So the next time you're setting up a webserver and Apache is being a pain in the ass - kill it and switch to thttpd. You'll thank me.
  
  Well, thttpd is certainly faster and probably easier for images and other static files, but it is also certainly not faster for PHP and many other dynamic types. It also doesn't support SSL, which is a must in many cases.
  
  --
  I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
2. Re:quick - kill it! kill it! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-05-11 17:45 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  thttpd is for niche applications. Take the Drudge Report for example -- all static HTML files, yet TONS and TONS of traffic. You need something that will dump the text out there, with little overhead.
  
  thttpd would make a great "images.whatever.com" server. :)
3. Re:quick - kill it! kill it! by Edgewize · 2004-05-11 21:38 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  A word of caution: thttpd is not the brilliant solution that a lot of people think that it is. The best features of thttpd are its low CPU and memory footprints, and its simplicity for virtual hosting. But those are pretty much its only features.
  
  For sites without too many dependencies per page (javascript, images), it's great. But for most people, there's a huge shortcoming: it does not support persistant (Keep-Alive) connections. Every file request has to wait for a new TCP connection to be established. When your average ping time is 250+ ms, that hurts BAD. Broadband users don't notice so much but modem users get shafted.
  
  Also, thttpd has serious issues if your total fileset exceeds 1GB. It keeps a cache of last-used files via mmap(), but if you exceed your VM address space (lets say, a couple dozen 200 MB videos), you're in a world of hurt.
  
  There are commercial versions like Premium THTTPD that cure many of these shortcomings, and include a host of other features like FastCGI for running PHP, etc.
  
  But in the realm of free software, there is no one-size-fits-all best server. Apache isn't THAT hard to configure, and it beats thttpd in a lot of important areas.
4. Re:quick - kill it! kill it! by Edgewize · 2004-05-13 19:15 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Thanks to my parent (modded -1?) for this link, looks like a fork of thttpd with performance-enhancing updates. Still not ideal for large filesets but a lot more efficient than plain thttpd, and full keep-alive support.
  
  http://xoomer.virgilio.it/adefacc/httpd/thttpd/tht tpd-2.21b-pNN/index.html
5. Re:quick - kill it! kill it! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-05-14 05:10 · Score: 0
  
  So the next time you're setting up a webserver and Apache is being a pain in the ass - kill it and switch to thttpd. You'll thank me.
  No. Next time I'm setting up a webserver and Apache is being a pain in the ass - I'll read the goddamn manual and figure out what I missed. So should you.
6. Re:quick - kill it! kill it! by subzerorz · 2004-05-15 02:43 · Score: 1
  
  I agree.
  
  --
  Subzerorz
  More Articles
7. Re:quick - kill it! kill it! by Mysticalfruit · 2004-05-19 07:57 · Score: 1
  
  And why would you need to be serving a couple dozen 200meg videos anyway... oh I can only imagine why.
  
  Oh wait, I don't need to imagine, mplayer is explaining succinctly.
  
  --
  Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
8. Re:quick - kill it! kill it! by ovoskeuiks · 2004-05-21 17:50 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  The comparison chart on their website -> Last updated 12jul98. It'll take a little more than a 6 year old chart to convince me it's a superior webserver
9. Re:quick - kill it! kill it! by RinkSpringer · 2004-05-23 05:09 · Score: 1
  
  A very good alternative is xs-httpd. It is very fast, it supports PHP, CGI, HTTPS and IPv6.
  Granted, the documentation is a bit poor, but once you get the hang of it, it's very nice to use. It's worth checking this out.
10. Re:quick - kill it! kill it! by nandhp · 2004-05-24 05:05 · Score: 1
  
  But does it serve gopher?
11. Re:quick - kill it! kill it! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-05-24 21:19 · Score: 0
  
  Check out Cherokee as well. It's got Keepalives, Deflating, and the other stuff you need while being slim and fast.
Celebrate with a new version by h3 · 2004-05-11 19:37 · Score: 4, Informative

Seems like 1.3.31 was officially released today (11 May) after last week's premature 'announcement' here.

Here's the official announcement/changelog.

A new version of modssl to go with it too- just in time for the new server I had to set up today :).

-h3
1. Re:Celebrate with a new version by Prowl · 2004-05-13 11:18 · Score: 1
  
  CAN-2003-0987 (cve.mitre.org)
  In mod_digest, verify whether the nonce returned in the client response is one we issued ourselves. This problem does not affect mod_auth_digest.
  
  clearly/hopefully the term nonce was not coined by a british developer...
  
  --
  That man tried to kill mah Daddy
8 years of redundancy by billcopc · 2004-05-12 04:53 · Score: 2, Interesting

Apache rocks the shiznit all right, but to me this means 8 years of being forked halfway-to-hell because the core Apache group is so adamant about dismissing user-submitted patches. Don't get me wrong, I love Apache. I just hate having to custom-tweak it to get it working in a logical way (for me). Stuff like easily-refreshed configs for hosting providers, and non-broken child spawning logic (because I'm still on 1.3x), and a few other ridiculous nags that have been ignored for the sake of "purity".

This is going to end up something like Mozilla, where the 3rd-party forks are more popular than the original.

--
-Billco, Fnarg.com
1. Re:8 years of redundancy by TheSunborn · 2004-05-12 10:05 · Score: 1
  
  What does easily-refreshed configs for hosting? I always just use apachectl graceful.
2. Re:8 years of redundancy by dirkx · 2004-05-13 00:02 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Apache group is so adamant about dismissing user-submitted patches
  
  I'd hate to dispell the lore - but the web server is in fact largely build from quality checked and polished versions of those submitted patches. Sure - a patch which fixes 1 thing and breaks 3 others; or optimizes for one rare case at the expense for 2 common cases may need some work - but over those 8 years very few patches and suggestions have gone to waste. If they where good they typically pop up at some point later if they where too radical at the time of first posting.
  Soo keep them coming !
  Dw.
3. Re:8 years of redundancy by billcopc · 2004-05-15 03:00 · Score: 1
  
  I guess one could work out a system with #included files and apachectl dancing. I'm just used to changing things in real-time on other servers and seeing the result immediately. Some form of connection monitoring would also be nice (e.g. to see what work is being done on socket X). Logs will tell you what happened, but a live peek inside the brain will let you target that one mofo that keeps chugging all your bandwidth and/or runs a truckload of exploit tests.
  
  --
  -Billco, Fnarg.com
4. Re:8 years of redundancy by billcopc · 2004-05-15 03:58 · Score: 1
  
  All I seem to hear is flame stories about the apache devs totally blasting some poor little hacker and his clever tweak. Luddites, I tell you!
  
  --
  -Billco, Fnarg.com
Re: press release is about apache's 8 years by Anonymous Coward · 2004-05-12 18:30 · Score: 0

yes, the apache http server is a continuation of ncsa httpd, but the press release is specifically about the 8 years apache http server has been #1 in the market.
Well done by Anonymous Coward · 2004-05-14 16:28 · Score: 0

I have used Apache since Feb, 2004 for my site http://itres.dynup.net It's really nice.
9 years by Anonymous Coward · 2004-05-21 10:18 · Score: 0

uhm April 1995 -> May 2004 = 9 years, not 8.
2 thumbs up by Beuno · 2004-05-25 11:13 · Score: 1

As a converted-from-IIS Apache fan, all I can say is keep up the good work virtually changing the *engine* internet works on.
Ignore This by Anonymous Coward · 2004-05-26 07:20 · Score: 0

Testing a slashdot link.