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| Next-generation Apache |
Apache-IBM marriage bears childrenThe offspring will support NT and multithreadingSummaryBy Niall McKay |
|
ow
that the honeymoon is over, the marriage between IBM and the
Apache Project is bearing its first offspring.
The computer giant completed Apache for Windows NT, is lending some legal muscle to the project, and is assisting in the development of version 2.0 of the world's most popular HTTP server software.
"We decided to get involved in the Apache Project because the server supports a wide variety of execution platforms and that fits very well with our view of the world," says Paraic Sweeney, IBM's vice president of server marketing.
Not that the Apache Project really needed IBM's help -- quite the contrary. According to Netcraft surveys, Apache has a 54 percent marketshare and over 2.4 million domains under its belt. It runs some of the world's most heavily trafficked Web sites, including the Internet search engine and portal Yahoo!. Even Apple Computer is working on a version of Apache for the Mac X operating system platform.
Now it's time for the Apache Group to get serious. It's working hard on the multithreading model for version 2.0. It's also looking to provide some legal protection for its developers, and is even considering some form of nonprofit incorporation.
"We need to create some sort of legal basis to indemnify the developers from legal actions," says Brian Behlendorf, cofounder of the Apache Project. "It would be a shame to run into trouble because somebody managed to find a patent loophole."
The Apache Group hasn't yet worked out what type of organization is best suited for the open source community. However, open source advocates needn't worry that it is considering a for-profit business model. "Apache will never be a commercial entity," says Behlendorf. "We are well past that point."
Rather, the idea behind incorporating is that it would provide a structure on which to build legal protections for its members, formalize some of the processes, and guarantee a future for the group should its membership change.
And change it will. The membership of the core development team has been changing since Behlendorf and friends took the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) HTTP daemon back in 1995 and began rewriting it.
Since then, some of the members have enjoyed a significant degree of commercial success. Rob Hartill, for instance, was on the original team that created the Internet Movie Database, a lucrative project by all accounts.
"Many of us were commercial Web developers in 1995 and some have made a great deal of money from our day jobs," says Behlendorf, who was a Webmaster at HotWired in San Francisco at the time.
Behlendorf himself isn't quite ready for early retirement. He left HotWired for the Web consultancy Organic and has recently become CTO of new technology for computer book publisher O'Reilly & Associates.
"I do pretty well for a college dropout," he says. "I am paid to do what I love and that's not bad."
In the meantime, Apache 2.0 is soaking up most of the group's time. The new version will be multithreaded and may include an updated configuration language, such as XML.
A stitch in time
Multithreading will bring the Apache server to new levels of
performance and reliability. Currently, if something goes wrong with
the server, a Webmaster must take it down, fix the problem, and restart
it again. In a multithreading model, problems can be tackled while the
server is still running.
"When we started the Apache Project, Web servers did not have to be as reliable as they do now," says Behlendorf. "We are getting to the stage where 99-percent reliability is just not good enough."
Once the Apache Group decided to include multithreading for version 2.0, its next problem was to find a model suitable for Apache. Portability was the biggest consideration. The new model has to support all flavors of Unix, Windows NT, and even IBM's AS/400.
What have you done for me lately?
The Apache Group settled on the Netscape Portable RunTime (NSPR) -- a
layer of abstraction over the local operating system. NSPR is part of
the Netscape Mozilla project and is perfectly suited to Apache's
needs. There is only one problem: the license.
Under the terms of the Apache license, anybody can use all or part of the server as long as they: (1) don't use the Apache name directly; and (2) give credit to the Apache Project.
However, Netscape's Mozilla license is far more restrictive, according to Behlendorf.
This little legal problem has held up development of version 2.0 for the time being. However, with the assistance of IBM's lawyers, development should continue shortly.
"I don't think that it will be such a great problem," says Behlendorf. "Netscape has been very helpful and we are discussing a solution with them at the moment."
Not only has the Apache Project benefited from access to IBM's army of corporate lawyer, it has also received a great deal of development assistance from the computer giant.
Its first task was to complete the development of, and iron out any problems with, Apache for Windows NT. It completed the task in months, and since then, the Window NT version has become the fastest growing segment for Apache. In July 1998, just 700 sites were running Apache on NT. Since then, the number has grown to more than 18,000.
In addition, IBM added cache acceleration to the server, which has dramatically improved performance, according to Sweeney.
The company has also produced an AS/400 version of Apache, and is dedicating development time to porting NSPR to Apache.
But what does a commercial software company like IBM want with an open source alliance like Apache?
What's in it for Big Blue?
"We wanted to spend our time and money developing software at the
application level rather than fragment the HTTP market even further,"
says Sweeney.
Anne Thomas, analyst for the Patricia Seybold Group in Boston, believes IBM opted for Apache because it was free and an easier path than trying to acquire yet another technology company.
"Frankly, Apache was a better alternative to what IBM had at its disposal at the time," she says. "It's a very reliable server and still runs really well on even a 486 computer."
The deal has rewarded IBM handsomely. The company bundles Apache with its WebSphere application-server middleware product. While IBM does not charge for the Apache code, it does charge for support and for add-ons, such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).
Furthermore, Apache has become a core component of IBM's middleware product --it's an integrated part of WebSphere at the low end and Component Broker Object Request Broker software at the high end.
However, unlike some HTTP servers that seemed to grow overnight into applications, Apache will not become middleware. Instead, developers will continue to create Apache plugins, providing the ability to run middleware software, such as server-side Java objects.
"I think one of the reasons Apache has been so successful is because we have kept the core code very simple," Behlendorf says. If developers want to add whistles and bells to Apache, they are welcome to do so, but only as software modules. For instance, both Perl and the Java modules are available for Apache today.
Paul Risenhoover, CEO of x-radio, a Web-based music site in San Francisco, opened his servers for business in 1995 and needed to provide the ability to process credit card orders over the Internet. "There was just one electronic-commerce software available that I could use at the time," he says. "I was already using Apache, so I just wrote my own modules."
The more things change...
At least for the time being, the core Apache Group will continue
developing the server just as it has for the last four
years.
About 20 people have editing rights to an open source version-tracking tool called CVS. When one developer makes a change to the code tree, that change is mailed to the other 19 developers. If nobody vetoes the change, then it becomes part of the source code. (For more information on CVS, see the Tapping the Source server software roundup.)
"Using this method, we can develop code faster than most corporations because there is no one person who has all the control," says Behlendorf.
Because bug fixes can be made extremely quickly, Apache's development method -- and the ability to provide all users with the source code -- has helped it become the most popular Web server in the world.
"If there is a problem, the software developer can have a quick look at the source code and see what is causing the trouble," Behlendorf says. "That way you don't have to spend days trying to figure out which application programming interface is the source of the trouble."
Wouldn't it be nice if commercial software companies took a leaf out of the open source rule book?
Now the big question is, apart from version 2.0, what is next for Apache? And what, if anything, has Behlendorf's move to O'Reilly got to do with the new organization or incorporation of the Apache Project?
Certainly the computer book publisher is becoming increasingly prominent in the open source community. In the past year, O'Reilly has hired both Behlendorf and Perl's Larry Wall, and has been promoting its open source agenda through both its book publishing activities and its conferences.
Can we expect an O'Reilly-sponsored Web-based organization or corporation supporting the open source community?
Only time will tell.
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About the author
Niall McKay is a San Francisco-based columnist
for the Irish Times. He also writes for Wired magazine.