In this issue

This week the question was raised of when a stable Apache 2.0 release is going to be made. In Apache, as in most Open Source projects, such questions have no real answer, although several group members expressed the opinion that the API is now stable enough that module authors can start porting modules over from the Apache 1.3 interface - an important milestone for the 2.0 project in gaining a wider user base.

Work on improving the handling of signals and server restarts in 2.0 has continued with several commits from Jeff Trawick. The 2.0.18 alpha release was made available for download.

The first ever Apache conference was held in October 1998 in San Francisco. In 2000 there were two other highly successful conferences in Orlando and England. Earlier this month ApacheCon stormed Santa Clara. Now it's back to Europe for the second conference in 2001.

The next ApacheCon will be held in Dublin, Ireland on the 15-17 October 2001. The conference follows hot on the heels of ApacheCon in London last October and the recent ApacheCon in Santa Clara, during which the Apache Web Server beta 2.0 was launched. The location for this ApacheCon couldn't be better, being set in Ireland's largest hotel just minutes away from the lively city centre, and with it's own night club and Irish Cabaret.

Make a date in your diary, and stay tuned to Apache Week for more information about the event. We'll be there to cover ApacheCon as well as to drink our way through the Guinness. Find out more at the conference web site, or read our account of ApacheCon 2001 Santa Clara.

San Diego, California plays host to this conference between July 23rd and 27th, and brings together the leaders of more than 14 critical open source technologies - including Apache - to give you an inside look at how to configure, optimise, code, and manage them.

Apache Week will be there again this year (Read our account of the 2000 convention). Notable Apache-bods on the speakers list include Stas Bekman, Ryan Bloom, Ask Bjoern Hansen, Rasmus Lerdorf, Doug MacEachern, and Jon Stevens. If all those names are not enough to tempt you how about a live debate between Microsoft and Open Source?

Register now, or find out more at the conference web site. There is only a week left to qualify for the early registration discount.

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

Interested in setting up your own Net radio stations? Start then by reading this introduction to mod_mp3, a module that optimises the Apache Web server for streaming MP3s. Although mod_mp3 is still in its infancy, it already supports file-sharing and all the basic webcasting functions, with many more ambitious features in the pipeline.

This second of a three part Apache Web server tutorial talks briefly about Apache DSO (Dynamic Shared Object) support and highlights the importance of the sequence in which modules are loaded. It then continues to describe all the directives in the main server configuration.