In this issue

Justin Erenkrantz co-ordinated a new release of Apache 2.0 this week, 2.0.32, after going through a test cycle on the server at apache.org. The release has been dubbed alpha quality whilst more developers test the code; already several votes have arrived that this should become a new 2.0 beta.

Anyone visiting the Apache documentation site recently may have been surprised to find they were presented with a non-English language version of some pages. The Apache documentation has been translated into many different languages; the combination of the mod_negotiation module and a properly configured web browser will allow a user's preferred translation of a page to be automatically served according to their browser settings. A bug in 2.0's mod_negotiation meant that some browsers which had no language preferences configured would be served a seemingly random translation of some pages. This was fixed in the 2.0.32 release.

A couple of problems with the new mod_proxy code included in the Apache 1.3.23 release have emerged and been fixed by Graham Leggett; the handling of responses with several headers of the same name being a particular issue for many proxy users since sites which use cookies may rely on sending several Set-Cookie headers to browsers.

The Apache conference committee have good news!

The Apache Software Foundation has completed the search for a conference management company for the ApacheCon shows, and we are getting back on track right now. More information will be forthcoming, but here's a quick point that may be of interest; registration for the next ApacheCon will be well under US$1,000!

We need some feedback from you: If we hold the next ApacheCon at the beginning of August 2002, in Las Vegas, Nevada, do you think you'll attend?

We're asking because we're looking at the first full week of August, which would allow us to have ApacheCon right after the BlackHat and Def Con computer security conferences, also in Las Vegas around the same time. However, the USENIX Security conference in San Francisco is also happening then, the O'Reilly open-source convention is in San Diego in July, and LinuxWorld is in San Francisco in the middle of August. No matter where you look, the event schedule is crowded.

So, with all those conferences so close together, would you come to ApacheCon? We don't want to pick a date and venue and then not have enough people able to attend!

Please let us know by sending an email to coar@apache.org.

This issue marks the sixth anniversary of Apache Week. Issue one was published on 9th February 1996, although it was only available on the Web until we started an email subscription option with issue 6.

When issue one was published, Apache version 1.0.0 had been out for just over a month. The current stable version was 1.0.2. According to Netcraft, Apache became the most widely used server in the April 1996 survey, reported in issue 9. Today Apache-based servers are on use on over 60% of the world's Internet sites.

The Apache 1.2 beta cycle started in December 1996 with 1.2b1 and continued until Apache 1.2 was released in June 1997 (issue 68). The 1.3 beta cycle started in October 1997 (issue 87) and continued until Apache 1.3.0 was released in June 1998 (issue 118) Whilst 1.3.0 was highly stable on Unix systems, it was much less developed on Windows.

In August 1998 the Netcraft Server Survey showed for the first time that Apache was in use on more than half the world's internet servers, and Ralf Engelschall released the first version of the popular mod_ssl module. In October the first official Apache conference, ApacheCon 98, was held in San Fransisco and was a huge sucess drawing nearly 500 registrations (issue 134) Three more Apache conferences have been held since then, with the most recent in Santa Clara giving attendees a unique opportunity to talk to the people behind the software.

Towards the end of 1998, Apache was recognised by Microsoft as a real and credible threat to their business in their leaked memos (issue 137). A few years later this was proven when the Garner Group suggested all IIS users switch to something more secure, like Apache.

In July 1999 (issue 165) the Apache Software Foundation was formed with the aim to provide a legal framework for Apache and related open-source projects such as the Jakarta and XML projects.

Apache 1.3 remains the stable branch of the Apache software, now at 1.3.23 (released 24th January 2002). Although the new releases are designed mostly for bug fixes there have been a significant number of new features added in the last year and some important security fixes.

The Apache group have been working on Apache 2.0 for a long time, with initial plans reported in February 1998 (issue 102). In September 1999 (issue 173) we published an Apache 2.0 preview and stated that a beta version should be available in late 1999 or early 2000, although it was to take until April of 2001 before the first beta was released. Apache Week launched an Apache 2.0 information center to co-incide with the first beta release. A full release of Apache 2.0 is expected later in 2002.

Apache Week will continue to bring you the latest news about Apache and its development, as it happens. We will also monitor how Apache is being reported in the news, and where appropriate respond with corrections or clarifications.

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

It is back to the basics this week as this article kicks off a new series based on the Apache Web server. A nice refresher piece which talks about what makes Apache special and shows us how to install, configure, start Apache, and rotate its log files.

Stefano Mazzocchi, the creator of Cocoon looks back on its birth in 1998 and then proceeds to introduce Cocoon 2.0, the second generation. Apache Cocoon is an XML publishing framework designed around pipelined SAX processing for building dynamic XML server applications.

"Using objects to create an application" is a PHP tutorial that attempts to teach important software engineering and design concepts that are applicable across a wide range of programming languages. You need to have some knowledge of PHP MySQL functions, and PHP's OO syntax before you read this.