In this issue

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.

• Threads in Netware should be allocated in their own group
• The processing of the Expect header is not consistant with the HTTP specification. Apache needs to make sure that modules have a chance to be able to handle an Expect extension token before returning an error to the client.
• When using mass virtual hosting the cgi-bin directory is treated specially even if there are no VirtualScriptAlias directives. PR#6829

The following bugs are specific to the Windows versions of Apache

• There are problems with intepreters failing to run cgi scripts that have slash delimiters
• There is a handle leak problem if a child process fails to be created
• Apache needs to flag console processes as a service on Win9x platforms in order to avoid them being shut down when a user logs off.
• Most Win9x problems have been caused when Apache creates a child process to handle CGI scripts. Apache creates a 16 bit CGI process with it's own console window, but this is known to not correctly close it's pipes
• Incorrect status messages are displayed when starting and restarting Apache as a service on Win9x platforms
• Not all script interpeters like long path names, so Apache needs to decide if cgi script paths are to be converted or not.
• When Apache reads the registry to find the script intepreter it needs to be able to to environment variable expansion

Infoworld report how the "Apache founders hit Vegas in search of cash". The Apache Software Foundation "may need to look for a little cash to keep up with the demands that developing the leading Web server requires".

Also at Comdex last week, "Apache co-founder talks about open source". Brian Behlendorf said, "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."

Another Award for the Apache group this month. The Apache XML project won Readers Choice 2000: Best Web Software. Other nominees for the award included PHP4, Mozilla, Zope, and Enhydra. Meanwhile the Apache web server has been selected for consideration in the Web Tools Awards.

If you're searching for the perfect Christmas present how about a web-based remote control robot powered by Apache and Linux? According to Linux Today, the robots head "contains sensors and a webcam so that it can navigate around objects and relay pictures of what it 'sees' via the web".

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

Webreview.com have a guide to Installing a Linux web server. In addition to the basic components of Linux, they show how to install and configure Apache, a PostgreSQL database server, Perl, and PHP.

The O'Reilly Apache devcenter looks at how to get Python working inside Apache in their article Module Tour: Embedding Python with mod_python and mod_snake.

Linux Magazine walk through the creation of a web-based press release engine using dynamic web pages in Working Wonders on the Web. Their system is based on Apache, PHP, and MySQL.

Thanks to the 700 of you who entered the competition, and congratulations to Lewis Francis in the USA who won the autographed copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy kindly donated by Covalent. We asked which book was not written by Douglas Adams. The correct answer was of course 42, but we also accepted option "C", the "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Japan".