A look at the Apache Software Foundation
Digital Incubator

© Lead Image © Aleksey Mnogosmyslov, 123RF.com
Apache incubates hundreds of major software projects and brings together thousands of developers – all without ensuing chaos. How do they manage it?
Apache projects such as Hadoop [1], Cassandra [2], Tomcat [3], and Spark [4] have enjoyed great popularity in data centers for years, but the venerable HTTP server [5] is the tool that laid the foundation of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) [6].
The HTTP daemon (httpd
) from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) [7] was the precursor to the Apache server. Rob McCool worked at NCSA in the early 1990s and was awarded the contract to develop a web server that was not as complex as the one CERN preferred to use at the time. He collected the code in the fledgling Internet.
The server was pretty much neglected when McCool left NCSA to start a new job. Just a few users kept sending their own patches to keep it alive. Brian Behlendorf collected them, which is how "A patchy server" came to being. It remains unclear whether the Apache server is named after this play on words, or after the Native American tribal group.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Linux Kernel 6.16 Released with Minor Fixes
The latest Linux kernel doesn't really include any big-ticket features, just a lot of lines of code.
-
EU Sovereign Tech Fund Gains Traction
OpenForum Europe recently released a report regarding a sovereign tech fund with backing from several significant entities.
-
FreeBSD Promises a Full Desktop Installer
FreeBSD has lacked an option to include a full desktop environment during installation.
-
Linux Hits an Important Milestone
If you pay attention to the news in the Linux-sphere, you've probably heard that the open source operating system recently crashed through a ceiling no one thought possible.
-
Plasma Bigscreen Returns
A developer discovered that the Plasma Bigscreen feature had been sitting untouched, so he decided to do something about it.
-
CachyOS Now Lets Users Choose Their Shell
Imagine getting the opportunity to select which shell you want during the installation of your favorite Linux distribution. That's now a thing.
-
Wayland 1.24 Released with Fixes and New Features
Wayland continues to move forward, while X11 slowly vanishes into the shadows, and the latest release includes plenty of improvements.
-
Bugs Found in sudo
Two critical flaws allow users to gain access to root privileges.
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.