2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maeder

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maeder The Apache HTTP Server Project

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maeder

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maeder http://www.apache.org/httpd

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maeder

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maeder July 2000

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maeder

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian MaederThe Apache Project is a collaborative software development effort aimed

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maederat creating a robust, commercial-grade, featureful, and freely-available

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maedersource code implementation of an HTTP (Web) server. The project is

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maederjointly managed by a group of volunteers located around the world, using

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maederthe Internet and the Web to communicate, plan, and develop the server and

6cb518d88084543c13aa7e56db767c14ee97ab77Christian Maederits related documentation. These volunteers are known as the Apache Group.

946f62de1b188898dde0c472f2a8a6fb86f4d2f5Christian MaederIn addition, hundreds of users have contributed ideas, code, and

6cb518d88084543c13aa7e56db767c14ee97ab77Christian Maederdocumentation to the project. This file is intended to briefly describe

e13ee09381f136f5eadaabdb9699773c0052cf3dChristian Maederthe history of the Apache Group, recognize the many contributors, and

6cb518d88084543c13aa7e56db767c14ee97ab77Christian Maederexplain how you can join the fun too.

946f62de1b188898dde0c472f2a8a6fb86f4d2f5Christian Maeder

e13ee09381f136f5eadaabdb9699773c0052cf3dChristian MaederIn February of 1995, the most popular server software on the Web was the

946f62de1b188898dde0c472f2a8a6fb86f4d2f5Christian Maederpublic domain HTTP daemon developed by Rob McCool at the National Center

946f62de1b188898dde0c472f2a8a6fb86f4d2f5Christian Maederfor Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

946f62de1b188898dde0c472f2a8a6fb86f4d2f5Christian MaederHowever, development of that httpd had stalled after Rob left NCSA in

6cb518d88084543c13aa7e56db767c14ee97ab77Christian Maedermid-1994, and many webmasters had developed their own extensions and bug

6cb518d88084543c13aa7e56db767c14ee97ab77Christian Maederfixes that were in need of a common distribution. A small group of these

6cb518d88084543c13aa7e56db767c14ee97ab77Christian Maederwebmasters, contacted via private e-mail, gathered together for the purpose

6cb518d88084543c13aa7e56db767c14ee97ab77Christian Maederof coordinating their changes (in the form of "patches"). Brian Behlendorf

6cb518d88084543c13aa7e56db767c14ee97ab77Christian Maederand Cliff Skolnick put together a mailing list, shared information space,

6cb518d88084543c13aa7e56db767c14ee97ab77Christian Maederand logins for the core developers on a machine in the California Bay Area,

6cb518d88084543c13aa7e56db767c14ee97ab77Christian Maederwith bandwidth and diskspace donated by HotWired and Organic Online.

6cb518d88084543c13aa7e56db767c14ee97ab77Christian MaederBy the end of February, eight core contributors formed the foundation

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maederof the original Apache Group:

e13ee09381f136f5eadaabdb9699773c0052cf3dChristian Maeder

6cb518d88084543c13aa7e56db767c14ee97ab77Christian Maeder Brian Behlendorf Roy T. Fielding Rob Hartill

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maeder David Robinson Cliff Skolnick Randy Terbush

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maeder Robert S. Thau Andrew Wilson

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maeder

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maederwith additional contributions from

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maeder

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maeder Eric Hagberg Frank Peters Nicolas Pioch

b06572b54fcf9d6976cfff57da22672f996b4748Christian Maeder

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian MaederUsing NCSA httpd 1.3 as a base, we added all of the published bug fixes

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maederand worthwhile enhancements we could find, tested the result on our own

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maederservers, and made the first official public release (0.6.2) of the Apache

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maederserver in April 1995. By coincidence, NCSA restarted their own development

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maederduring the same period, and Brandon Long and Beth Frank of the NCSA Server

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian MaederDevelopment Team joined the list in March as honorary members so that the

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maedertwo projects could share ideas and fixes.

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian Maeder

2f6324a12df5979e1e0e3dfcec95c0546fc37c30Christian MaederThe early Apache server was a big hit, but we all knew that the codebase

needed a general overhaul and redesign. During May-June 1995, while

Rob Hartill and the rest of the group focused on implementing new features

for 0.7.x (like pre-forked child processes) and supporting the rapidly growing

Apache user community, Robert Thau designed a new server architecture

(code-named Shambhala) which included a modular structure and API for better

extensibility, pool-based memory allocation, and an adaptive pre-forking

process model. The group switched to this new server base in July and added

the features from 0.7.x, resulting in Apache 0.8.8 (and its brethren)

in August.

After extensive beta testing, many ports to obscure platforms, a new set

of documentation (by David Robinson), and the addition of many features

in the form of our standard modules, Apache 1.0 was released on

December 1, 1995.

Less than a year after the group was formed, the Apache server passed

NCSA's httpd as the #1 server on the Internet.

The survey by Netcraft (http://www.netcraft.com/survey/) shows that Apache

is today more widely used than all other web servers combined.

============================================================================

Current Apache Group in alphabetical order as of 2 October 2001:

Brian Behlendorf Collab.Net, California

Ryan Bloom Covalent Technologies, California

Ken Coar IBM Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA

Mark J. Cox Red Hat, England

Lars Eilebrecht Parc Technologies, Munich, Germany

Ralf S. Engelschall Munich, Germany

Justin Erenkrantz eBuilt, California

Roy T. Fielding eBuilt, California

Tony Finch Covalent Technologies, California

Dean Gaudet Transmeta Corporation, California

Dirk-Willem van Gulik Covalent Technologies, California

Brian Havard Australia

Ben Hyde Gensym, Massachusetts

Jim Jagielski jaguNET Access Services, Maryland

Manoj Kasichainula Collab.Net, California

Alexei Kosut Stanford University, California

Martin Kraemer Munich, Germany

Ben Laurie Freelance Consultant, UK

Rasmus Lerdorf Linuxcare, California

Daniel Lopez Ridruejo Covalent Technologies, California

Doug MacEachern Covalent Technologies, California

Aram W. Mirzadeh CableVision, New York

Chuck Murcko The Topsail Group, Pennsylvania

Sameer Parekh California

David Reid UK

William A. Rowe, Jr. Covalent, Illinois

Wilfredo Sanchez Apple Computer, California

Cliff Skolnick California

Marc Slemko Canada

Joshua Slive Canada

Greg Stein California

Bill Stoddard IBM Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC

Paul Sutton Seattle

Randy Terbush Covalent Technologies, California

Jeff Trawick IBM Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC

Cliff Woolley University of Virginia

Apache Emeritus (old group members now off doing other things)

Rob Hartill Internet Movie DB, UK

David Robinson Cambridge University, UK

Robert S. Thau MIT, Massachusetts

Andrew Wilson Freelance Consultant, UK

Other major contributors

Howard Fear (mod_include), Florent Guillaume (language negotiation),

Koen Holtman (rewrite of mod_negotiation),

Kevin Hughes (creator of all those nifty icons),

Brandon Long and Beth Frank (NCSA Server Development Team, post-1.3),

Ambarish Malpani (Beginning of the NT port),

Rob McCool (original author of the NCSA httpd 1.3),

Paul Richards (convinced the group to use remote CVS after 1.0),

Garey Smiley (OS/2 port), Henry Spencer (author of the regex library).

Many 3rd-party modules, frequently used and recommended, are also

freely-available and linked from the related projects page:

<http://modules.apache.org/>, and their authors frequently

contribute ideas, patches, and testing.

Hundreds of people have made individual contributions to the Apache

project. Patch contributors are listed in the src/CHANGES file.

Frequent contributors have included Petr Lampa, Tom Tromey, James H.

Cloos Jr., Ed Korthof, Nathan Neulinger, Jason S. Clary, Jason A. Dour,

Michael Douglass, Tony Sanders, Brian Tao, Michael Smith, Adam Sussman,

Nathan Schrenk, Matthew Gray, and John Heidemann.

============================================================================

How to become involved in the Apache project

There are several levels of contributing. If you just want to send

in an occasional suggestion/fix, then you can just use the bug reporting

form at <http://www.apache.org/bug_report.html>. You can also subscribe

to the announcements mailing list (apache-announce@apache.org) which we

use to broadcast information about new releases, bugfixes, and upcoming

events. There's a lot of information about the development process (much

of it in serious need of updating) to be found at <http://dev.apache.org/>.

If you'd like to become an active contributor to the Apache project (the

group of volunteers who vote on changes to the distributed server), then

you need to start by subscribing to the dev@httpd.apache.org mailing list.

One warning though: traffic is high, 1000 to 1500 messages/month.

To subscribe to the list, send an email to dev-subscribe@httpd.apache.org.

We recommend reading the list for a while before trying to jump in to

development.

NOTE: The developer mailing list (dev@httpd.apache.org) is not

a user support forum; it is for people actively working on development

of the server code and documentation, and for planning future

directions. If you have user/configuration questions, send them

to the USENET newsgroup "comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix", or for

Windows users, "comp.infosystems.www.servers.ms-windows".

There is a core group of contributors (informally called the "core")

which was formed from the project founders and is augmented from time

to time when core members nominate outstanding contributors and the

rest of the core members agree. The core group focus is more on

"business" issues and limited-circulation things like security problems

than on mainstream code development. The term "The Apache Group"

technically refers to this core of project contributors.

The Apache project is a meritocracy -- the more work you have done, the more

you are allowed to do. The group founders set the original rules, but

they can be changed by vote of the active members. There is a group

of people who have logins on our server (apache.org) and access to the

CVS repository. Everyone has access to the CVS snapshots. Changes to

the code are proposed on the mailing list and usually voted on by active

members -- three +1 (yes votes) and no -1 (no votes, or vetoes) are needed

to commit a code change during a release cycle; docs are usually committed

first and then changed as needed, with conflicts resolved by majority vote.

Our primary method of communication is our mailing list. Approximately 40

messages a day flow over the list, and are typically very conversational in

tone. We discuss new features to add, bug fixes, user problems, developments

in the web server community, release dates, etc. The actual code development

takes place on the developers' local machines, with proposed changes

communicated using a patch (output of a unified "diff -u oldfile newfile"

command), and committed to the source repository by one of the core

developers using remote CVS. Anyone on the mailing list can vote on a

particular issue, but we only count those made by active members or people

who are known to be experts on that part of the server. Vetoes must be

accompanied by a convincing explanation.

New members of the Apache Group are added when a frequent contributor is

nominated by one member and unanimously approved by the voting members.

In most cases, this "new" member has been actively contributing to the

group's work for over six months, so it's usually an easy decision.

The above describes our past and current (as of July 2000) guidelines,

which will probably change over time as the membership of the group

changes and our development/coordination tools improve.

============================================================================

The Apache Software Foundation (www.apache.org)

The Apache Software Foundation exists to provide organizational, legal,

and financial support for the Apache open-source software projects.

Founded in June 1999 by the Apache Group, the Foundation has been

incorporated as a membership-based, not-for-profit corporation in order

to ensure that the Apache projects continue to exist beyond the participation

of individual volunteers, to enable contributions of intellectual property

and funds on a sound basis, and to provide a vehicle for limiting legal

exposure while participating in open-source software projects.

You are invited to participate in The Apache Software Foundation. We welcome

contributions in many forms. Our membership consists of those individuals

who have demonstrated a commitment to collaborative open-source software

development through sustained participation and contributions within the

Foundation's projects. Many people and companies have contributed towards

the success of the Apache projects.

============================================================================

Why Apache Is Free

Apache exists to provide a robust and commercial-grade reference

implementation of the HTTP protocol. It must remain a platform upon which

individuals and institutions can build reliable systems, both for

experimental purposes and for mission-critical purposes. We believe the

tools of online publishing should be in the hands of everyone, and

software companies should make their money providing value-added services

such as specialized modules and support, amongst other things. We realize

that it is often seen as an economic advantage for one company to "own" a

market - in the software industry that means to control tightly a

particular conduit such that all others must pay. This is typically done

by "owning" the protocols through which companies conduct business, at the

expense of all those other companies. To the extent that the protocols of

the World Wide Web remain "unowned" by a single company, the Web will

remain a level playing field for companies large and small. Thus,

"ownership" of the protocol must be prevented, and the existence of a

robust reference implementation of the protocol, available absolutely for

free to all companies, is a tremendously good thing.

Furthermore, Apache is an organic entity; those who benefit from it

by using it often contribute back to it by providing feature enhancements,

bug fixes, and support for others in public newsgroups. The amount of

effort expended by any particular individual is usually fairly light, but

the resulting product is made very strong. This kind of community can

only happen with freeware -- when someone pays for software, they usually

aren't willing to fix its bugs. One can argue, then, that Apache's

strength comes from the fact that it's free, and if it were made "not

free" it would suffer tremendously, even if that money were spent on a

real development team.

We want to see Apache used very widely -- by large companies, small

companies, research institutions, schools, individuals, in the intranet

environment, everywhere -- even though this may mean that companies who

could afford commercial software, and would pay for it without blinking,

might get a "free ride" by using Apache. We would even be happy if some

commercial software companies completely dropped their own HTTP server

development plans and used Apache as a base, with the proper attributions

as described in the LICENSE file.

Thanks for using Apache!