The Final Release of Apache HTTP Server 1.3

Kyle Hamilton writes "The Apache Software Foundation and the Apache HTTP Server Project are pleased to announce the release of version 1.3.42 of the Apache HTTP Server ('Apache'). This release is intended as the final release of version 1.3 of the Apache HTTP Server, which has reached end of life status There will be no more full releases of Apache HTTP Server 1.3. However, critical security updates may be made available."

Re:Open Source

[Chris Lawrence]

But it's their time to spend as they want. There are people working on a new port of Firefox to Mac OS 9 (Classilla). That's an operating system that hasn't been updated in 10 years. But if people are having fun doing this, that's great. If the product was closed source, there would simply be no option.

Re:web servers to app servers

[h4rr4r]

Just wait, it will come back. The wheel of computing just goes around and around, now we are reinventing thin clients via netbooks used only to use webapps. In another 5-10 years people will want thick clients again and websites that are actually usable and informative.

Will Slashdot Upgrade?

[swajr]

I wonder if slashdot is actually going to upgrade now...

Re:web servers to app servers

[Anonymous Coward]

What you're heralding is nothing short of the eradication of a publicly accessible information pool. The registered-users-only part of Web 2.0 is basically opaque to external search engines. Links are nondescript blobs - short, short-lived and with at least one redirection through a slow third party server. If Web 1.0 was a library, Web 2.0 is a shopping mall. Banter and business, but hardly any real information.

I've recently shown a friend how to set up a web page the old fashioned way, i.e. write HTML with a text editor, edit, resize and prune images locally, upload through (S)FTP. He wouldn't have it any other way now. I know because I've tried integrating a common ad content management system. It was just too complicated: In the end, a multi-megabyte online script and database system was replaced with a handful of static files. The whole site is lightning fast, has absolutely no attack surface, is trivially easy to backup, works unmodified with every web space and doesn't overload the server, not even when the site is featured on high-traffic aggregators (i.e. slashdotted).

I think the advantages of static files are lost on people because they simply don't know any other way but online content management systems. When you "buy" web space nowadays, the feature list is full of pre-installed this, pre-installed that. In the end, most web pages are completely static and the servers are pointlessly creating a "dynamic" page from a static menu and static content on every page view. Nothing gained but a hard to maintain, always online content management system, which has poorly thought out security and a worse implementation. To call Web 2.0 the Windows of the web would be an insult to Windows.

Re:web servers to app servers

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea who cares about:
- redirects
- URL remapping
- mod_php
- mod_perl
- mod_svn
- web dav
- https

Re:web servers to app servers

[Eil]

It seems that basic web sites made by uploading html and other files are going extinct, in favor of web apps like CMSs and blogs. As a result, the majority of the functionality provided by web servers like Apache is becoming unnecessary.

Not so. Apache is a general-purpose HTTP server. It has a lot more power and capability than what 99% of websites use it for, which is serving static content and CGI script output. There are loads of web servers that are capable of these menial tasks and they use a fraction of the resources that Apache does. Apache is only as popular as it is because it's what most web hosting companies, documentation, and sysadmins default to.

The reason you see CMSs and blogs adopting alternative HTTP daemons is because they want to reduce the complexity of their software stack and configuration. Apache is big and somewhat unwieldy. It's like using a 30-volt industrial electric screwdriver change a video card.

Apache's popularity might wane as lighter, more application-focused HTTP daemons become more common but it will never go away until HTTP does. It's just too darn flexible, even if it can't (usually) scale to millions of hits per second like newer servers can.

Re:web servers to app servers

[Annymouse Cowherd]

The PIII means you set it up recently enough that you could've had it running 2.0. Why do you do these things...

Re:How could they!

[coolgeek]

Not really, when you consider they only got mod_perl for 2.x into a production release about 2-3 years ago.

Re:Open Source

[Richard_at_work]

If it forces people to upgrade to a better alternative, then maybe it is. Think IE6 - would it be better to maintain that ongoing (considering that many of the things the Slashdot groupthink wants to fix with IE6 are the explicit reasons why some companies are keeping it around) or kill it dead and have people upgrade?