2.3  Open Source Web Technologies 

All products introduced in this section are Open Source. They are available at no charge, 

including source code. However, a responsible use according to each product's license is 

required. 

2.3.1  The Apache Web Server 

Apache is by far the most popular Web server today, with a market share of about 60% 

according to the Netcraft Web server survey (see 

http://www.netcraft.com/Survey/

). Apache is 

maintained by the Apache Software Foundation (

http://www.apache.org

). Brian Behlendorf and 

Cliff Skolnick initiated the Apache project in 1995 out of the need for rapid development of new 

Web server features. The first version of Apache was based on the NCSA HTTPd Web server, 

and modified through patches (therefore the name: Apache =  a patchy  server). The original 

code base was eventually replaced in the next revision. 

An important year for Apache was 1998 when an agreement with IBM for the continued 

development of Apache was reached. IBM now includes the Apache code in its WebSphere 

server product. Today, many voluntary contributions from companies and individuals guarantee 

for the ongoing success of the Apache Web server. 

The following is a list of Apache features for the current version 2.0: 

   Serves static and dynamic CGI Web pages. Can interface with many dynamic content 

generation technologies such as Perl, Java Servlets, or PHP. 

   Highly configurable. Apache is composed of many modules that can be optionally added 

or removed, as well as configured. 

   Extensive security features. Several forms of authentication, including SSL encryption 

are available. 

   Portable (implementations are available for many platforms, including Windows, Unix, 

Linux, and OS/2). 

Apache is available for download, but also ships with most Linux distributions. 

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