Apache in the News 2000

Since becoming the #1 Web server, Apache has featured in a number of reviews and articles. Here are the ones for the year 2000 If you have seen a story about Apache on the Web or in the press let us know so that we can include it here.

InfoWorld.com, 17th November 2000 "Brian Behlendorf: Apache co-founder talks about open source"

"the fact that we don't have a multibillion-dollar marketing organization means that, sure, Microsoft is going to be able to claim things or do things that we can't, but that hasn't hurt us so far."

InfoWorld.com, 13th November 2000 "Apache founders hit Vegas in search of cash"

"Behlendorf said the ASF may need to look for a little cash to keep up with the demands that developing the leading Web server requires"

Apache Week, 3rd November 2000 "Report from ApacheCon Europe 2000"

" As in all conferences, there were various technical glitches when presentation laptops froze and batteries ran out, some inexperienced speakers, and not enough seats but these were all minor issues considering the excellent detailed technical knowledge that was imparted by the speakers."

Apache Today, 30th October 2000 "Apache Guide: ApacheCon Europe"

"Last week, I was in London for ApacheCon 2000. In a break from my usual subjects, this will be a brief overview of the conference, touching on the highlights and some of the things that were talked about there."

NetworkWorldFusion, 26th October 2000 "Tips on pitching Apache to the big wigs"

"Apache cares about trademarks and it's helped us maintain a pretty good product," Behlendorf said.

NetworkWorldFusion, 25th October 2000 "IBM pitches its open source side"

"IBM Tuesday set out its open source agenda at ApacheCon Europe 2000. The message seemed to boil down to the notion that in a networked world, open source is good and IBM not only knows that but embraces the open-source programming community."

NetworkWorldFusion, 24th October 2000 "Sun says Java moving towards full open source"

"Sun is moving toward making its Java technology fully open source, a company executive said Tuesday, addressing an audience of programmers here at the ApacheCon Europe 2000."

Network Computing, October 2000 "The 10 Most Important Products of the Decade"

"...Apache Web Server earns its place for changing the rules on the server side. The future of Apache hinges on its ability to function as an e-commerce server. If the past five years are any indication, Apache Web Server will deliver the whole shopping cart--and probably sooner than its competitors do."

InfoWorld, October 2000 "E-business innovators"

"By general acclaim, it has done more to stimulate Web development -- and therefore e-commerce -- than any other Web-based server."

Edd Dumbill's Weblog (O'Reilly) , 10th July 2000 "Dynamics of the Apache XML Project"

Edd Dumbill, editor of XML.com, writes about the "Dynamics of the Apache Group" in his Weblog. The focus of the article is on news that the Apache XML project could create another parser and looks at the the internal dynamics of the group members and some of the conflicts. "IBM and Lotus in particular are responsible for the XML parser, Xerces, and the XSLT processor, Xalan. Sun also play a significant part in Apache's Java projects. Though nobody has suggested that Apache is in any way in the sway of these organizations as a consequence of their donations, it seems inevitable that the corporate and hacker cultures may well clash. This weekend seems a good example of this."

Qube Corner, 26th June 2000 "AOLserver faster than Apache?"

Qube Quorner reveal that Apache 1.3.12 comes second to AOLserver 3.0 in terms of requests/second and transfer speeds. Benchmarks do not give a true picture of the speed of a web server, since they provide an environment unlike the real use of the software. Commercial software is often tuned to perform well in benchmarks, so a good performance simply indicates that the software works well for that benchmark, not that it has good real-world performance.

News Alert, 20th June 2000 "US Toyota and Lexus dealers adopt Apache technology"

Over the last week, there have been a large number of stories about Internet Appliances for both home and business use. An increasing number of these units are now being run on open source platforms such as Linux. Dell have announced that Toyota in the US are to be equipped with Dell PowerApp.web servers to provide customised content to their dealer network.

C|Net News.com, 1st June 2000 "IBM donates Net communications technology "

As reported by C|Net, the Apache Software Foundation has received technology from IBM which will help developers create services using an open, vendor-neutral process. IBM's Java-built Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) will be contributed to the open source Apache XML project. The system provides a simple method of using XML to send message and access web services across distributed networks. "We want to move at Internet speed and respond to the needs of the developer community by making it available to the open-source community," said Marie Wieck, IBM's director of e-markets infrastructure. "It's valuable to further adoption."

CNet Investor, 1st June 2000 "Apache Software Foundation join Java commmittee"

CNet Investor reported that Sun Microsystems have set up two executive committees to oversee their Java Community Process(SM) community-based Java technology development programmes. The first committee will oversee the Java technologies for the desktop/server space and the other will oversee the Java technologies for the consumer/embedded space. "As is evident by the depth, diversity and strength of the JCP program's Executive Committee members, the future of Java technology specifications is in capable and caring hands," said George Paolini, vice president of Java Community Development at Sun Microsystems, Inc.

ZD Net, 18th May 2000 "Red Hat Leads The Way To IA-64 Itanium Linux"

Red Hat Inc. this week released public alpha code of a full version of Linux for Intel's new IA-64 Itanium processor. The release of the software combined with the release of Intel's "Itanium Processor Microarchitecture Reference" gives developers access to all the information they need to start working on Itanium development. "On May 17, Red Hat Inc. released an alpha version of a complete IA-64 Linux distribution to developers. This edition, built within the Trillian Project, is the first alpha public code release of a full IA-64 Linux from kernel to drivers to such popular applications as Apache."

ZDNet, 4th May 2000 "Picking The Right Web Server Is Key"

ZDNet examine web server platforms in their article, "Picking the Right Server is Key". They compare Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Netware 5.1, Red Hat Linux using Apache, Solaris using iPlanet, and Solaris using Apache. "There are other compelling reasons to choose Linux/Apache. For one thing, you'll never find a back door, as with the recent IIS debacle, in open-source code. And it's getting so easy to install that the hardcore Linux gurus are grumbling about dumbing down."

SecuritySpace.com, 1st May 2000 "April Web Server Survey"

If you are a regular reader of Apache Week you'll know that Apache has been the top web server in all the probe-based web surveys for some time, now with over 60% market share. The April survey from E-Soft also gives some other interesting statistics for modules in use; the most popular being the PHP scripting language in use on 29% of Apache sites. "The Apache module report documents the market share of Apache, internet's most popular web server, for a variety of add-on modules. Since most add on modules modify the web server "signature" that is returned on each web page, we are able to see who's using PHP, perl, SSL mods, language converters, language mods, etc."

Userland, 24th April 2000 "Scripting News / Manila"

UserLand hosts an interesting open forum about commercial software, which originally started as an email discussion between Dave Winer and Brian Behlendorf. In Dave's own comments he picks out some of the discussion and his own point of view, accusing Apache of being boring. "Apache is like MS-DOS. Lots of people use it, we do too. But where's the Lotus 1-2-3? Apache is boring! Where's the revolution for writers and thinkers?"

Linux Today, 21st April 2000 "VNU Net: Apache Server Commentary [Book Review]"

A short review of the new book "Apache Server Commentary" is available. The book is aimed at developers and contains source code listings of the Apache server. "This is one in a series of books which sets out to give an insight into the various Open Source products currently on the market. It is aimed at those who either want to write extension modules to Apache or customise the underlying code. In fact, Apache Server Commentary appears to be little more than a reference guide for those who already understand the concept of Apache and just want help on specific modules. It certainly isn't the architectural document I was expecting."

InformationWeek.com, 10th April 2000 "Open Source Moves To The Mainstream"

The article discusses the secure server survey from e-soft which shows Apache with 63% market share but notes that the "battle over E-commerce territory has been a little more difficult for open source, perhaps an indication that security-minded companies prefer to use commercial products". "One of the leading open-source success stories is the Apache Web server, which for many sites is the backbone of Web applications. Apache is a flagship open-source project, continually developed by a self-selected group of coordinated volunteer programmers. It costs nothing to use. As of March, Apache is deployed on more than 7.8 million domains, or some 60% of Internet Web sites."

INRIA, 4th April 2000 "Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithms: ECC2K-108 - SOLVED!"

Apache Week reported in issue 180 on the attempt to solve the Elliptic Curve Challenge from Certicom. The solution was found at the end of March, and the Apache Software Foundation will receive a donation of US$8000 from the prize. "The biggest public-key crypto crack ever has just finished! Certicom have confirmed that the solution is correct."

Linux Magazine, April 2000 "Brian Behlendorf on the Apache name"

Linux magazine have an interview with Brian Behlendorf, one of the initial Apache group founders. In addition to talking about the founding and sucess of Apache, Brian explains that the Apache name never meant "A patchy server", instead it "just sort of connoted: 'Take no prisoners. Be kind of aggressive and kick some ass.'" "While there would still be a World Wide Web without the Apache Web server, pundits have suggested that it would belong to Microsoft. Since drawing up the plan for the Apache project in 1993, Apache Software Foundation President Brian Behlendorf has helped lead the volunteer development team that proved that you can take on Microsoft and win -- just so long as you change the rules."

Linux Magazine, April 2000 "A Conversation With the Man Behind the Animal Books"

The article discusses the evolving open source industry and pays particular attention to Apache. "I think Apache plays an enormously important role here. Because it has dominant market share, it keeps the Internet open. I think it's more important for Apache to have dominant market share than for Linux. If Linux is dominant too, that's better, but I'd hate to see us lose Apache. That's a really important battleground."

ZD Net - EWeek, 20th March 2000 "Solaris 8 weds reliability to must-have upgrades"

PC Week mention Apache being bundled with Solaris in Solaris 8 weds reliability to must-have upgrades. "Apache Web server is also bundled with Solaris 8, but neither PC Week Labs nor Sun recommends its use in high-transaction environments."

Slashdot, 18th March 2000 "Reflections On ApacheCon 2000"

ASF member Jim Jagielski gives his personal opinion of ApacheCon 2000 in "Reflections on ApacheCon 2000". "It's been a week now since ApacheCon 2000 ended. There's been some discussion over the events, with the release of Apache 2.0a being the main topic of conversation. But AC2K was more than just the venue that 2.0a was announced. It was an important and noteworthy conference in it's own right."

NetWorldFusion, 13th March 2000 "The Netware Version Of Apache"

The NetWare version of Apache is examined in a Network World Fusion Newsletter. Over the past few years Novell have shipped a couple of different Web servers with NetWare, but now Apache is available for this system. "The NetWare version of Apache 1.3 is still in the "experimental" stage, and it (so far) only runs on NetWare 5 or 5.1. Nevertheless, if you support a major Web site and ... if you want to take advantage of the hundreds of Web server applications available (also for free) for Apache - it would be worth your effort to download and test the new Apache in your environment."

Apache Week, 10th March 2000 "Report from ApacheCon 2000"

" In total, just over 1000 people attended the conference and this included a large number of Apache Software Foundation members. At the very first session of the conference, the opening plenary, the previous record for the most Apache developers in the same place at the same time was broken."

Melbourne Linux Users Group Inc, 10th March 2000 "ApacheCon 2000"

The Melbourne Linux Users Group posted a number of pictures from the conference. "The ApacheCon show was very well done. The exhibit floor featured many cool companies and the keynote and PHP presentations I attended were very informative. Here are some pics of the event."

Open Source IT, March 2000 "The Buzz At Apache Conference: World Domination"

ApacheCon 2000 is still in the news as Open Source IT reports on ApacheCon 2000 in "The Buzz at Apache Conference: World Domination". "More than 1,000 Apache developers and users gathered at ApacheCon 2000 in Orlando last week to discuss -- among other things -- the progress the Apache Web server is making towards World Domination."

O'Reilly, March 2000 "ApacheCon 2000: Day One, Day Two, DayThree"

O'Reilly published a detailed report on each day of the conference; Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. "The conference is being held at the Caribe Royale Resort Suites, which despite a strong conference turnout, is mainly inhabited by lots of parents and their young children, due to the proximity to Disney World."

LinuxPlanet, March 2000 "ApacheCon: Fuelling The Web Revolution"

The article gives a brief overview of the conference and highlights one of the popular talks on open source from IBM. "ApacheCon is the yearly convention dedicated to Apache and Apache products. There are over 1,000 visitors this year, and the show creators were sitting around saying things to me like, "Wow, this is going so mainstream so fast." God, I hope so. It'd be a terrible thing for something that has captured 60 percent of the Internet Web-server market share to not be mainstream."

Wired.com News, 14th February 2000 "A Patchy Start: Apache's Strong"

The article examines why Apache is not as well known as other projects such as Linux and finds that the companies providing support and services based on Apache are not as visible. "Apache is the Web's most widely used and -- outside of the Nerd Zone -- its most unknown application. It has achieved dominance in a crucial market that Microsoft and Netscape have struggled mightily to conquer. Both companies have invested massive amounts of money and programming skills into server software programs -- and yet it's Apache, a freeware application, that is installed on just over half of all publicly accessible Web servers."