Ask Apache Software Chairman Greg Stein

Here's a man who obviously has his finger on the pulse of open source software development. I mean, who hasn't heard of Apache? His work history is interesting, too: He's moved from Microsoft to CollabNet to Google. And he's not shy about speaking his mind about open source, as shown in this ZDNet blog entry. Please try to confine yourself to one question per post. (If you have more than one question, post more than once.) We'll send 10 of the highest-moderated questions to Greg tomorrow and run his answers when we get them back.

untethered computing

Greg,
What are your thoughts on Apache's direction in regards to the new roaming AJAX desktops [slashdot.org] we keep hearing about -- what are some of the limitations you foresee in the overall untethered computing experience?

Kind Regards,
Scotty

Why...

Why do you find it neccesary to help companies like CentOS hack rural town websites?

Why Java?

Why does everything the Apache foundation release these days have to be Java based?

I use http but thats about it. I have looked at the other Apache software but always been offputting to have to set up Java with all the classpaths etc.

Whats wrong with C or C++? Its portable and easy to install and run.

This isnt a troll, although it might look like one....

Re:Why Java?

Another question we might ask is -- why has the Apache Foundation diversified so much? There are a lot of Apache projects out there now, many of which a lot of us are completely unfamiliar with. And some don't even have anything to do with the web. (SpamAssassin comes to mind. It's a great package, but seems to have no relation to Apache HTTPD.) What are the pros and cons of this diversity? Might it cause a lack of focus on the core HTTPD?

Apache 1.x vs. 2.x

I'd like to know what the continuing direction is going to be for support on 1.x - which is being used by the majority of webservers I see - and 2.x - which is what is being distributed in most recent operating system packages, such as Linux. Are you planning on supporting 1.x forever or ending support at some point and forging on with 2.x?

Open Source

Greg,

Do you believe that open source projects should always remain in the public domain- ie. that no open source projects should turn commercial?

Business Sense?

From TFB: "I predict that in 5-10 years most of the software you use will be free."

Does he also predict that in 5-10 years most software development position will be gone or significantly value reduced the also?

The obvious answer is no, the market will find a balance between free and non-free business models to support further development. Some one has to pay the developers to put bread on the table. Someone has to pay the advertisers to get the word out about the project. Someone has to pay the management to keep the project on task and schedule.

-Rick

Cleaned up for actual question

Given your opinion that "in 5-10 years most of the software you use will be free." How do you see the future of software development business plans? Will every software development company depend on the profits of their support department for funding?

-Rick

Why aren't more people using version 2 apache?

Why aren't more people using version 2 apache?

2.2 - wait for it

Wait for 2.2 (currently 2.1) to go stable.
The lingering daemon functionality that was provided externally in 1.3 is back and in core 2.2.

This will be a huge boost for large providers to serve more connections and provide good reason.

At present, I recommend 2.x just because it's closer to 2.2 (and hence involves less configuration and setup quirks later on)- They're about equal now with the prefork.

I'd say that people expected a huge benefit, but didn't quite get it right away. In a Web server, it just needs to work, and both worked- so why upgrade for slightly slower performance and no additional features. What people failed to realize is that changing this framework around provides long-term growth and renews the project to increase its extensibility such as module ordering in the long term.
As that long term comes now, you'll see a lot more move to that as the gains keep showing up, now that the framework is stable.
-M

Free Stuff is great, but....

Free & Open software is great on the most part, but developers need to pay bills too. If all software was free and open, who'd want to learn to make it?

Why no other major httpd projects?

The Apache license allows for non or commercial distribution of Apache or a direct derivetive (with attribution), but I don't see any other products or projcts based on the Apache codebase (I know there are some) that are nearly as popular as Apache itself. Can you answer why this is?

Soko

My question

Can you slip a few "accidental" holes into 1.x so there's an excuse to bump the version number all the way to 1.3.37? Please?

Open Source and Gaming

Greg,
After reading your homepage and following many of the links, it's obvious that you are a pretty solid game enthusiast -- from your work on MUDs, playing MTG in your younger years, to enjoyment of TES:Oblivion. Do you think that open-source software has a significant role to play in mass-market gaming? Do you think that opening the code of games would enhance game devlopment?

If he's the chairman, his title ought to be

Apache Chief.

In which case I'd ask him two things. First, if he has any juicy gossip about the other Superfriends. And second, if he could have other powers instead of the one he's got, would he want them, and if so, what would they be?

Critics

How do you respond to critics who allege that Apache has gotten bigger and more bloated in recent releases, particularly the 2.x series?

Apache Live CD?

will there ever be an Apache live cd distro?
what i'd like to see is a live bootable cd for a server that the first time you boot from it with a clean storage drive, it asks for setup preferences and writes those to the hard drive or flash drive.
  on subsequent boots it reads those preferences from the hard drive and sets itself up automaticly.

Mullets Galore

Greg,

Have you ever looked in the mirror in the morning? Seriously dude, you look like a roadie for Ratt. I think I saw you behind a guitar center once drink a beer on top of a Camaro? Seriously, what gives with the hair, clothes, etc? Someone needs to open source some style and ftp it to you pronto I guess. Take care of yourself.

Dorkblade

Hey, Greg... why did you choose the dorky online handle, "deathblade"? ;-)

I know! I know!

I mean, who hasn't heard of Apache?

I suspect this guy probably hasn't [slashdot.org].

Time Management?

I am currious how you balance work and familly life. I find it difficult to keep up with all the Apache projects because they grow at such a fast rate. Do you try to keep up on all the Apache projects? How much time do you spend learning vs working on projects? Do you tend to work on weekends and holidays? What do you do with your spare time and do you have enough of it?

Howe does it feel to

Corner micorsoft with a larger marketshare and a superior product.

What's your favorite scotch?

So we all know that you have an affinity for Manhattans, but what's your favorite scotch? Favorite as in "stuck on a desert island with one bottle of scotch".

What's in a name?

Do you think it's appropriate to use/borrow the name of a people for a large visible public project/undertaking without asking their permission first? Have you ever asked a representative of the Apache people what they think about the fact that their name is used for your project?

Irrelevant Question...

African or European?

Bloat and new competition.

What do you think of the newer smaller competitors? Particularly LightTPD [lighttpd.net]. Would it be worthwhile for Apache to work to "slim down"? While Apache is seen by many as a slimmer alternative to more monolithic servers like IIS, it seems that it may be vulnerable to the even smaller alternatives. And this new round of competitors is nearly as featureful and extendable as Apache. What can Apache do to stay current and competitive?

MMORPGs on XBox

Greg,

Your xbox blog is legendary (http://xboxgamer.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]). I know you still have a gaming PC for MMORPGs; why aren't they all running on the xbox Live network? What's it going to take before we give up gaming PCs for consoles? It seems like MMORPGs are the last holdout, but I can't figure out why they're holding out.

Policy on recognition in code contributions

Apache seems to have a policy against programmers having their name in a comment for the code they contribute to. For much of the open source world, the code is a major medium that programmers express ideas like a canvas is the medium a painter expresses themselves or the pages of book is for a writer. Admittedly programming is more of an engineering skill than it is an artistic skill but well written code still takes an artistic eye. Discouraging a programmer from identifying their contributions is in effect discouraging them from taking the utmost pride in their craft. Why does Apache remove incentives for people to do their best work?

Management

Dear Greg,

We often read about managment problems with large software projects. The Apache web server is a large, well maintained and stable platform. This obviously didn't happen by accident but as a result of the team all knowing what they were supposed to do.

With this in mind, what are your personal top ten management do's and dont's with regard to large software projects?

Regards,

-ed

Stein

Any relation to Ben? Can we win your money?

Who has longer hair...

...you or Brian?

Bog? Nog?

Greg,

When's the last time you had a good idle? I bogleg at the thought of how far you've come since those days.

(Sorry, only Greg and a few others will have any clue what I'm talking about. 2001 called, and it wants it's "whips out his Python" jokes back, along with 46 "bog" and five Deathblade emotes, by the way.)

Zeus.com's claims of superiority

Greg, I am intrigued to know your reaction to Zeus.com's claims (http://www.zeus.com/products/zws/features [zeus.com]) that there are more websites running Zeus Web Server than Apache. Not sure where they got their numbers, but Netcraft (http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_surv ey.html [netcraft.com]) definitely does not agree...

Segmented Servers

Has any thought been put into doing what FastCGI has done, only within Apache and its modules rather than between Apache and some other program? This could reduce the core server size, allow threading and other fun where it wasn't before, and use resources more efficiently, passing proper apache structures to a module server that could pass that same structure to PHP/Perl/TK/etc and back again?

-M

Slashdot proof Apache?

Hi Greg,

After a while in load balance hell and writing ugly perl code to replicate sites dynamically I wonder if we will ever see
such a thing as a "distributed scalable web server"? Apache seems a very self contained, dare I say "brittle" monolith. Do you see scalability as a weakness and if not what is in the pipeline to handle sites that get a few hundred hits a month and then get suddenly get Slashdotted for a 24 hour period?

Why not improve Apache 2's usability?

It seems to me that there are more newbies to Linux every day. With Apache 2 being such an important Web services platform, it appears very powerful but not all that easy for a person new to Apache to set up. Why kind of efforts do you plan to undertake to improve the set-up process for Windows and Linux flavors?

Any relation

Any relation to Ben or Franken Stein?

Apache Portals

Right now it isn't easy to quickly deploy Jetspeed 2 into Tomcat, unless you go for the pre-installed one. I'd love to see a PostgreSQL/insert-other-sql/OpenLDAP backed configuration system and a WAR file so that JS2 could be deployed easier. It really does look like a killer product.

It could make a compelling replacement for systems like Campus Pipeline.

What makes Apache tick?

Can you briefly (like 100 words or less, without technobabble) say why the Apache project has been such a quiet success and would you please do that, if you can? And if that doesn't seem possible, could you briefly say why?

I'm looking for a couple of things: first, you are an expert in FOSS and your opinion about whether managing communications was more significant than managing bugs, etc, would be of great personal interest. But I'm also hoping for something pithy that can be used at a college Board of Directors meeting to guide the focus of discussions about FOSS adoption to more useful areas than the FUD FUD FUD of ToC arguments.

Future of Apache vs Microsoft

Hi Greg,
How do you think Apache will stand up to Microsoft's Vista Server?

Bedtime

Being the chairman of such an important and successful project such as apache, how much money do you sleep on at night with how many beautiful women?

Apache and software patents.

The Apache license itself has some interesting software patent provisions, but the apache.org web site doesn't seem to have much in the way of an official position or policy statement on software patents. Can you talk about Apache's attitude (if any) toward software patents, and maybe business method patents as well? Do any current patents interfere with the Foundation's work?

Yo,
-Karl

2.2 Win32 Binaries

Why, four months after the release of 2.2, are there still no Windows binaries posted on Apache.org?

It seems like a much longer delay than in the past.

Is it because the code is being updated to compile under VC8? (a huge undertaking by the look of it) Is it because of the relatively buggy new version of InstallShield?

Is it related to the status of third party modules?

I managed to compile 2.2 with ssl on VC6 with a little effort, been running it on our site for over 3 months now, it seems just fine. I compiled recent php versions modules (thread safety, I know...) and eAccelerator to work with it. I managed to produce an acceptable msi installer package as well.

I'm curious as to why the long delay, I'm beginning to wonder if Apache may be discontinuing support for windows in future versions?

(aside: I also agree with other comments above that C is a zillion times more portable than java...)

Best scotch?

What are your thoughts on the best Scotches out there? Are you still a Glenfiddich fan, or have you discovered anything that is a better compliment to open source software development?

"I mean, who hasn't heard of Apache?"

Jerry Taylor, the now famous city manager of Tuttle, Oklahoma, clearly http://centos.hughesjr.com/testing/noindex_new.htm l [hughesjr.com]

Hi

Greg, How's your brother, Ben, doing and whatever happened to his game show?

Google Patents

Google uses tons of open source software, yet they also routinely file patent applications and own many patents. While Red Hat also owns patents, they have also pledged to never use them against any open source software. Will Google ever do the same?

peoplenet

Greg; Bro! would a car based mesh network device (non internet dependent) run the same version of Apache as a normal webserver or not? what changes would have to be configured and is this a major project? my friends want to network with each other, not the internet, for a variety of reasons when we cruise and run 12VDC mode. i am just looking for a server to find and mesh WIFI-like with all the other car based dudes when we drive. that way, we would have a system that is free of the ISP world and make it work ourselves. this idea has balls.

Re:Children, please grow up.

Dear Mr. Taylor,

Welcome to Slashdot. We are proud to have you here, Mr. Taylor. If you could find a way to better format your post, perhaps using a Comic Sans font, it would be more readable.

Though you may not realize it, "Why do you find it neccesary to help companies like CentOS hack rural town websites?" is quite the funny joke at this time. You see, this article pertains to Apache, the software that was being used to host your web site on your CentOS system.

Also, could you stop using the term "ignorance"? It seems like a pot and kettle thing at this point.

Now you may not find this funny, but take heart in knowing that someday you will look back on this and laugh, and we will finally be laughing with you and not at you.

On the other hand, you may be right about that "fish" thing. Perhaps you could get the FBI to look into that.

On a personal note, how are things in Tuttle today?

Yours truly,
Anonymous Coward

Re:Blog entry

Does that include software for my flying car?

I'd be a lot more concerned about the software for the laser-equipped sharks.

Re:Professionalism

Huh? How else do you reckognise a ubergeek if he hasn't a beard?

Re:You Hacked My Website!

Really? Let me see! *takes a look*. Wow you're right! You're running the windows server! Shame on you. I think you should call tech support. Nice logo btw. EDIT: Hey, with that in mind, I could fix the crap there for you b4 you more to apache or apple's server... No? Ok then. :)