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diff --git a/ABOUT_APACHE b/ABOUT_APACHE deleted file mode 100644 index 6d47a5a882..0000000000 --- a/ABOUT_APACHE +++ /dev/null @@ -1,267 +0,0 @@ - - The Apache HTTP Server Project - - http://www.apache.org/httpd - - July 2000 - -The Apache Project is a collaborative software development effort aimed -at creating a robust, commercial-grade, featureful, and freely-available -source code implementation of an HTTP (Web) server. The project is -jointly managed by a group of volunteers located around the world, using -the Internet and the Web to communicate, plan, and develop the server and -its related documentation. These volunteers are known as the Apache Group. -In addition, hundreds of users have contributed ideas, code, and -documentation to the project. This file is intended to briefly describe -the history of the Apache Group, recognize the many contributors, and -explain how you can join the fun too. - -In February of 1995, the most popular server software on the Web was the -public domain HTTP daemon developed by Rob McCool at the National Center -for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. -However, development of that httpd had stalled after Rob left NCSA in -mid-1994, and many webmasters had developed their own extensions and bug -fixes that were in need of a common distribution. A small group of these -webmasters, contacted via private e-mail, gathered together for the purpose -of coordinating their changes (in the form of "patches"). Brian Behlendorf -and Cliff Skolnick put together a mailing list, shared information space, -and logins for the core developers on a machine in the California Bay Area, -with bandwidth and diskspace donated by HotWired and Organic Online. -By the end of February, eight core contributors formed the foundation -of the original Apache Group: - - Brian Behlendorf Roy T. Fielding Rob Hartill - David Robinson Cliff Skolnick Randy Terbush - Robert S. Thau Andrew Wilson - -with additional contributions from - - Eric Hagberg Frank Peters Nicolas Pioch - -Using NCSA httpd 1.3 as a base, we added all of the published bug fixes -and worthwhile enhancements we could find, tested the result on our own -servers, and made the first official public release (0.6.2) of the Apache -server in April 1995. By coincidence, NCSA restarted their own development -during the same period, and Brandon Long and Beth Frank of the NCSA Server -Development Team joined the list in March as honorary members so that the -two projects could share ideas and fixes. - -The early Apache server was a big hit, but we all knew that the codebase -needed a general overhaul and redesign. During May-June 1995, while -Rob Hartill and the rest of the group focused on implementing new features -for 0.7.x (like pre-forked child processes) and supporting the rapidly growing -Apache user community, Robert Thau designed a new server architecture -(code-named Shambhala) which included a modular structure and API for better -extensibility, pool-based memory allocation, and an adaptive pre-forking -process model. The group switched to this new server base in July and added -the features from 0.7.x, resulting in Apache 0.8.8 (and its brethren) -in August. - -After extensive beta testing, many ports to obscure platforms, a new set -of documentation (by David Robinson), and the addition of many features -in the form of our standard modules, Apache 1.0 was released on -December 1, 1995. - -Less than a year after the group was formed, the Apache server passed -NCSA's httpd as the #1 server on the Internet. - -The survey by Netcraft (http://www.netcraft.com/survey/) shows that Apache -is today more widely used than all other web servers combined. - - ============================================================================ - -Current Apache Group in alphabetical order as of 27 July 2000: - - Brian Behlendorf Collab.Net, California - Ryan Bloom Covalent Technologies, California - Ken Coar IBM Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA - Mark J. Cox Red Hat, England - Lars Eilebrecht CyberSolutions, Munich, Germany - Ralf S. Engelschall Munich, Germany. - Roy T. Fielding eBuilt, California - Tony Finch Covalent Technologies, California - Dean Gaudet Transmeta Corporation, California - Dirk-Willem van Gulik Covalent Technologies, California - Brian Havard Australia - Ben Hyde Gensym, Massachusetts - Jim Jagielski jaguNET Access Services, Maryland - Manoj Kasichainula Collab.Net, California - Alexei Kosut Stanford University, California - Martin Kraemer Munich, Germany - Ben Laurie Freelance Consultant, UK - Rasmus Lerdorf Linuxcare, California - Daniel Lopez Ridruejo Covalent Technologies, California - Doug MacEachern Covalent Technologies, California - Aram W. Mirzadeh CableVision, New York - Chuck Murcko The Topsail Group, Pennsylvania - Sameer Parekh California - David Reid UK - William A. Rowe, Jr. Covalent, Illinois - Wilfredo Sanchez Apple Computer, California - Cliff Skolnick California - Marc Slemko Canada - Greg Stein California - Bill Stoddard IBM Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC - Paul Sutton Seattle - Randy Terbush Covalent Technologies, California - -Apache Emeritus (old group members now off doing other things) - - Rob Hartill Internet Movie DB, UK - David Robinson Cambridge University, UK - Robert S. Thau MIT, Massachusetts - Andrew Wilson Freelance Consultant, UK - -Other major contributors - - Howard Fear (mod_include), Florent Guillaume (language negotiation), - Koen Holtman (rewrite of mod_negotiation), - Kevin Hughes (creator of all those nifty icons), - Brandon Long and Beth Frank (NCSA Server Development Team, post-1.3), - Ambarish Malpani (Beginning of the NT port), - Rob McCool (original author of the NCSA httpd 1.3), - Paul Richards (convinced the group to use remote CVS after 1.0), - Garey Smiley (OS/2 port), Henry Spencer (author of the regex library). - -Many 3rd-party modules, frequently used and recommended, are also -freely-available and linked from the related projects page: -<http://modules.apache.org/>, and their authors frequently -contribute ideas, patches, and testing. - -Hundreds of people have made individual contributions to the Apache -project. Patch contributors are listed in the src/CHANGES file. -Frequent contributors have included Petr Lampa, Tom Tromey, James H. -Cloos Jr., Ed Korthof, Nathan Neulinger, Jason S. Clary, Jason A. Dour, -Michael Douglass, Tony Sanders, Brian Tao, Michael Smith, Adam Sussman, -Nathan Schrenk, Matthew Gray, and John Heidemann. - - ============================================================================ - -How to become involved in the Apache project - -There are several levels of contributing. If you just want to send -in an occasional suggestion/fix, then you can just use the bug reporting -form at <http://www.apache.org/bug_report.html>. You can also subscribe -to the announcements mailing list (apache-announce@apache.org) which we -use to broadcast information about new releases, bugfixes, and upcoming -events. There's a lot of information about the development process (much -of it in serious need of updating) to be found at <http://dev.apache.org/>. - -If you'd like to become an active contributor to the Apache project (the -group of volunteers who vote on changes to the distributed server), then -you need to start by subscribing to the new-httpd@apache.org mailing list. -One warning though: traffic is high, 1000 to 1500 messages/month. -To subscribe to the list, send "subscribe new-httpd" in the body of -a message to <majordomo@apache.org>. We recommend reading the list for -a while before trying to jump in to development. - - NOTE: The developer mailing list (new-httpd@apache.org) is not - a user support forum; it is for people actively working on development - of the server code and documentation, and for planning future - directions. If you have user/configuration questions, send them - to the USENET newsgroup "comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix", or for - Windows users, "comp.infosystems.www.servers.ms-windows". - -There is a core group of contributors (informally called the "core") -which was formed from the project founders and is augmented from time -to time when core members nominate outstanding contributors and the -rest of the core members agree. The core group focus is more on -"business" issues and limited-circulation things like security problems -than on mainstream code development. The term "The Apache Group" -technically refers to this core of project contributors. - -The Apache project is a meritocracy -- the more work you have done, the more -you are allowed to do. The group founders set the original rules, but -they can be changed by vote of the active members. There is a group -of people who have logins on our server (apache.org) and access to the -CVS repository. Everyone has access to the CVS snapshots. Changes to -the code are proposed on the mailing list and usually voted on by active -members -- three +1 (yes votes) and no -1 (no votes, or vetoes) are needed -to commit a code change during a release cycle; docs are usually committed -first and then changed as needed, with conflicts resolved by majority vote. - -Our primary method of communication is our mailing list. Approximately 40 -messages a day flow over the list, and are typically very conversational in -tone. We discuss new features to add, bug fixes, user problems, developments -in the web server community, release dates, etc. The actual code development -takes place on the developers' local machines, with proposed changes -communicated using a patch (output of a unified "diff -u oldfile newfile" -command), and committed to the source repository by one of the core -developers using remote CVS. Anyone on the mailing list can vote on a -particular issue, but we only count those made by active members or people -who are known to be experts on that part of the server. Vetoes must be -accompanied by a convincing explanation. - -New members of the Apache Group are added when a frequent contributor is -nominated by one member and unanimously approved by the voting members. -In most cases, this "new" member has been actively contributing to the -group's work for over six months, so it's usually an easy decision. - -The above describes our past and current (as of July 2000) guidelines, -which will probably change over time as the membership of the group -changes and our development/coordination tools improve. - - ============================================================================ - -The Apache Software Foundation (www.apache.org) - -The Apache Software Foundation exists to provide organizational, legal, -and financial support for the Apache open-source software projects. -Founded in June 1999 by the Apache Group, the Foundation has been -incorporated as a membership-based, not-for-profit corporation in order -to ensure that the Apache projects continue to exist beyond the participation -of individual volunteers, to enable contributions of intellectual property -and funds on a sound basis, and to provide a vehicle for limiting legal -exposure while participating in open-source software projects. - -You are invited to participate in The Apache Software Foundation. We welcome -contributions in many forms. Our membership consists of those individuals -who have demonstrated a commitment to collaborative open-source software -development through sustained participation and contributions within the -Foundation's projects. Many people and companies have contributed towards -the success of the Apache projects. - - ============================================================================ - -Why Apache Is Free - -Apache exists to provide a robust and commercial-grade reference -implementation of the HTTP protocol. It must remain a platform upon which -individuals and institutions can build reliable systems, both for -experimental purposes and for mission-critical purposes. We believe the -tools of online publishing should be in the hands of everyone, and -software companies should make their money providing value-added services -such as specialized modules and support, amongst other things. We realize -that it is often seen as an economic advantage for one company to "own" a -market - in the software industry that means to control tightly a -particular conduit such that all others must pay. This is typically done -by "owning" the protocols through which companies conduct business, at the -expense of all those other companies. To the extent that the protocols of -the World Wide Web remain "unowned" by a single company, the Web will -remain a level playing field for companies large and small. Thus, -"ownership" of the protocol must be prevented, and the existence of a -robust reference implementation of the protocol, available absolutely for -free to all companies, is a tremendously good thing. - -Furthermore, Apache is an organic entity; those who benefit from it -by using it often contribute back to it by providing feature enhancements, -bug fixes, and support for others in public newsgroups. The amount of -effort expended by any particular individual is usually fairly light, but -the resulting product is made very strong. This kind of community can -only happen with freeware -- when someone pays for software, they usually -aren't willing to fix its bugs. One can argue, then, that Apache's -strength comes from the fact that it's free, and if it were made "not -free" it would suffer tremendously, even if that money were spent on a -real development team. - -We want to see Apache used very widely -- by large companies, small -companies, research institutions, schools, individuals, in the intranet -environment, everywhere -- even though this may mean that companies who -could afford commercial software, and would pay for it without blinking, -might get a "free ride" by using Apache. We would even be happy if some -commercial software companies completely dropped their own HTTP server -development plans and used Apache as a base, with the proper attributions -as described in the LICENSE file. - -Thanks for using Apache! - |