In this issue

Don't panic (in large friendly letters) if you are not going to make it to ApacheCon 2000 in London next week. Apache Week will be there and we will have an extended report from the conference over the next issues. You'll kick yourself when you hear what you've missed out on though; free coffee mugs, free conference bags, and free massages (fortunately not given by the Apache group). You'll also miss Douglas Adams who'll be on hand to give a keynote, and Bop Ad who will be signing books.

If you are attending, the Apache Week staff will be more than willing to accept your hospitality in the local pub. After all, it'd be rude not to.

Apache Site: www.apache.org/httpd
Release: 1.3.14 (Released 13^th October 2000) (local download sites)
Beta: None
Alpha: 2.0a7 (Released 9^th October 2000) (local download sites)

Apache 1.3.14 is the current stable release. Users of Apache 1.3.12 and earlier on Unix and Windows systems should upgrade to this version. Read the Guide to 1.3.14, 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.

These bugs have been found in 1.3.14 and will be fixed in the next release.

• The mod_auth_dbm.c workaround for glibc 2.1 systems fails on Red Hat Linux 7, which is based on a beta glibc 2.2, and has headers and libraries in different places.
• The binary building script is broken on Tru64 5.0 and HPUX 11.00
• The recent security fix to mod_rewrite broke some of the functionality. PR#6671
• NetWare is a case insensitive file system so all directory and file names must be compared in a case insensitive manner to avoid security holes.
• Some media types need to be updated. PR#6613, PR#4600

The MIT Sloan School of Management together with The Boston Consulting Group have completed a study of question answering in the Apache Usenet community, "How Open Source software works: Free user-to-user assistance" ( available in full in PDF format). They make a number of findings in their paper: around a quarter of all questions posted do not get answered, but of those that are answered, they are generally responded to quickly and with a high quality of response. The paper is well worth a read as it is full of interesting information and has looked at over four years of Usenet history.

PHP3 users should be aware of a format bug in the logging code of the mod_php3 module. The bug allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary shell commands on the server if PHP error logging is enabled. More information is available

InfoWorld have released a list of the top E-Business Innovators; "the people who have developed, evangelized, and shepherded technology that has made a significant contribution to the New Economy". The Apache Group was selected for the work on the Apache Server Project.

The big difference is that Apache doesn't just talk the talk about being a meritocracy; it walks it

Apache 2.0 may still be in alpha release, but an eagle-eyed subscriber noticed that the high-profile Napster web site is running on 2.0a6.

In this section we highlight some of the articles on the web that are of interest to Apache users.

SuSE give a guide to Installation of a Secure Web Server. They cover zones of security and give a step-by-step guide to create a secure platform on which to run a server. Although the information is geared towards SuSE Linux, the principles remain the same no matter what operating system you use.

Remember OOP (Object-Oriented Programming)? C++ and Java are two of the popular object-oriented programming languages around although SIMULA was the first object-oriented language providing objects, classes and inheritance. In "Back To Class", the Developer Shed show you how PHP supports classes and objects which are powerful OOP concepts, with examples of a table builder, and a guestbook. Written in its usual lighthearted and clear style, this article will resolve any doubts you have about classes in PHP.