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Ergertert
Ergertert
http://httpd.apache.org/
February 2002
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
David Robinson
Robert S. Thau
Roy T. Fielding
Cliff Skolnick
Andrew Wilson
Rob Hartill
Randy Terbush
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
Apache Emeritus (old group members now off doing other things)
Ryan Bloom
Rob Hartill
David Robinson
California
Internet Movie DB, UK
Cambridge University, UK
Robert S. Thau
Andrew Wilson
MIT, Massachusetts
Freelance Consultant, UK