Several server side technologies exist today. The first solution to bringing dynamic data to the 

Web was CGI, the Common Gateway Interface. CGI provided a simple way to create a Web 

application that accepts user input, queries a database, and returns responses to the client. 

Then, both Microsoft and Netscape developed proprietary, server specific API's to answer 

inefficiencies of CGI (especially its poor scalability). However, these API's were limited to a 

particular platform. Furthermore, these API's reduced the stability of the server due to the fact 

that their programs had to run within the same process as the Web server. The next step in the 

continuing development of server side technologies was Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP), 

and Sun's Java Servlets and Java Server Pages (JSP). Implementations for JSP and Servlets 

are available on many platforms, and they provide a good way of separating code and HTML to 

increase maintainability. JSP and Servlets have become today's most popular way of server 

side programming for enterprise applications, while ASP dominates among smaller sites. 

An effort to improve Microsoft's position in the server side application development market was 

made with the introduction of the .NET platform in 2000. The goal of .NET was to regain some 

of the market that was lost to Sun Microsystems due to the superior concept of Servlets/JSP 

over ASP. Sun, on the other hand, recently announced Sun ONE to compete with the .NET 

strategy, showing that server side programming is still evolving and improving at a rapid pace. 

Since the server side application development market is still evolving, developers are 

confronted with the difficulty of having to work with constantly changing techniques, and having 

to make the right choice of which development platform to use.  

This thesis illuminates the concept of an Open Source,  free of charge  development platform 

and server implementation, which has enjoyed an increasing popularity. The advantages are 

numerous: The latest Open Source operating system, Linux, features high reliability, stability 

and a transparent technology at no cost, making it a very appealing alternative to Microsoft 

Windows, SunOS or other commercial offerings. Results of a current market share analysis 

among SSL Site operating systems in the United States are shown in Figure 1. Linux captures a 

significant market share. 

In other countries, the Linux operating system is even more popular. In Germany, for example, 

Linux had over 30% market share among SSL Site operating systems according to surveys 

conducted in February 2001. 

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