In this issue

Apache Site: www.apache.org/httpd
Release: 1.3.12 (Released 25^th February 2000) (local download sites)
Beta: None
Alpha: 2.0a1 (Released 10^th March 2000) (local download sites)

Apache 1.3.12 is the current stable release. Users of Apache 1.3.11 and earlier on Unix and Windows systems should upgrade to this version. Read the Guide to 1.3.12, the Guide to 1.3.11 for information about changes between 1.3.9 and 1.3.11 and the Guide to 1.3.9 for information about changes between 1.3.6 and 1.3.9.

Most bugs listed below include a link to the entry in the Apache bug database where the problem is being tracked. These entries are called "PR"s (Problem Reports). Some bugs do not correspond to problem reports if they are found by developers.

• Proxying https requests on Windows platforms does not work.
• Problems when handling service names that include spaces on Windows NT platforms.
• Apache ignores the case of a filename on platforms that have case-insensitive file systems (such as Windows and OS/2), however this causes problems for Java class files published by WebDAV for example.
• Apache did not change to the correct directory when starting as a service on Windows, causing problems with modules that loaded third-party DLLs (such as mod_dav)
• Various problems with the digest authentication module, mod_auth_digest. The fixes include: reworked handling of the MD5 password hashing, ability for independant servers to share the same realm, and fixes in handling the Authorization header.

Patches for bugs in Apache 1.3.12 will be made available in the apply_to_1.3.12 subdirectory of the patches directory on the Apache site. Some new features and other unofficial patches are available in the 1.3 patches directory. For details of all previously reported bugs, see the Apache bug database and known bugs pages. Many common configuration questions are answered in the Apache FAQ.

The majority of development work is now being focused on Apache 2.0, with the hopes of an updated alpha-test version towards the end of March 2000.

A number of additions and fixes have been made to the alpha version of Apache 2.0 which was released a couple of weeks ago. These include documentation changes, fixes to some of the major bugs such as inability to work on BSD systems, updates for Windows, an updated MPM for BeOS, and the backporting of the CSS security fixes in Apache 1.3.12. There have also been changes to the syntax of two directives, CacheNegotiatedDocs and ErrorDocument. The change to ErrorDocument has been made to make automated or graphical configuration of Apache easier, but has consequently broken backward compatibility with Apache 1.3. These changes will be documented with the next release.

ApacheCon 2000 is still in the news as Open Source IT reports on ApacheCon 2000 in "The Buzz at Apache Conference: World Domination". ASF member Jim Jagielski gives his personal opinion of ApacheCon 2000 in "Reflections on ApacheCon 2000".

Datamation have published a survey of salaries and contract rates for Apache server professionals. The majority of jobs they found to be available were for web developers and systems administrators with Apache knowledge. The average salaries vary considerably with job location; the highest average rates being for jobs based in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and New York. In San Francisco the average salary for a permanent position was US$85,000, and in New York a contractor would get on average US$90 an hour. Datamation have also produced surveys for other open-source technologies and an interesting comparison is that people with Apache skills command on average higher salaries than those with Perl or Linux skills (although the demand for Apache skills is lower).