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.
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