---

InternetNews.com: Apache Software Foundation Releases Apache 2.0 Alpha

By Scott Clark, InternetNews.com

The Apache Software
Foundation
last week at the ApacheCon 2000 conference in
Orlando, Fla., unveiled the alpha release of Apache 2.0.

In a move that was probably designed to fan the fires of the
Open Source community, Apache made the announcement by posting the
news on the Slashdot.org web site, which was projected on a
viewscreen in front of the closing ceremony audience.

This pre-release version of Apache 2.0a provides several
improvements over the previous (1.3) release, including:

  • Unix Threading – for Unix systems with POSIX threads support,
    Apache will be able to operate in a hybrid multiprocess,
    multithreaded mode; this should improve scalability
  • New Build System – the build system has been rewritten from
    scratch to be based on autoconf and libtool; this makes
    configuration system for Apache more similar to that of other
    packages, and thus, easier to use
  • Multiprotocol Support – this release of Apache has some
    infrastructure in place which will support the serving of multiple
    protocols; mod_echo has been written as just such an example
  • Better support for non-Unix platforms – this release should be
    faster and more stable on non-Unix platforms such as BeOS, OS/2,
    and Windows; with the introduction of platform-specific
    multiprocessing modules and the Apache Portable Runtime, these
    platforms will be able to avoid using POSIX-emulation functions
    that can tend to be buggy and hurt the web server’s
    performance
  • New API – the API for modules has been significantly changed
    for this release; many of the module-ordering problems from 1.3
    should be gone; much of this is accomplished automatically, and
    module ordering is done per-hook to enable additional flexibility;
    new calls have been added that should enable modules to do more
    without requiring patching of the core Apache server

For additional information, or to download the Alpha release, visit
the Apache Server
Project
Web site.

Get the Free Newsletter!

Subscribe to Developer Insider for top news, trends, & analysis