is 1.3 ready? lingering NT issues.

[Brian Behlendorf <br...@organic.com>]

At 05:09 PM 1/8/98 -0700, Marc Slemko wrote:
>I really am not convinced that releasing the win32 tree in anything
>resembling what it is now does anyone any good. 
>
>It destroys any reputation of good solid code Apache may have.
>
>There are real problems that need to be addressed.
>
>While it may not look like it from the outside, the more I look
>at the NT port the more I see serious issues that need to be
>fixed.  Heck, CGI scripts called in the form http://foo/cgi-bin/bar.exe/foo
>(ie. PATH_INFO w/o an =) don't even work in the current tree, and I 
>am willing to bet there are a _lot_ more issues including problems
>with non-thread safe modules, eg. changing cwd.
>
>We have a real problem with NT because we don't have many developers
>who do anything with it, we don't have many people that understand
>the very different way NT does things (I sure don't), and there are 
>no where near as many NT people in the world that can or will 
>contribute code.

Then by the laws of the jungle, that means the NT port will not be as
strong as the Unix code, and in a volunteer project like this we'll have to
accept that.  We can't compell anyone to develop anything which doesn't
provide some benefit to working on that.  And the simple fact of the matter
is that the culture of NT users is a world away from that of Unix users.
NT users are used to complaining about a problem but not having the tools
or ability to go in and fix it themselves, and since NT software is
typically expensive, someone's getting paid to support it and new fixes
will eventually happen.  Unix users are using to having the tools and never
needing to complain, since they don't spend enough to be able to pay anyone
to pay attention to them anyways.  

While advocating for an NT port, I too realized this would be the biggest
problem.  I have a copy of NT and MSVC at home now and I'm getting up to
speed on it, but it'll be a long while before I've got anywhere near enough
proficiency to be able to bring it up to the quality that the unix side sees.

Maybe we need to proselytize in the "NT Developer" community more?  Maybe
we should prod others doing NT freeware work for ideas?  (who would they
be?)  Heck, if Microsoft were to have someone join new-httpd and
participate, the NT side could probably be cleaned up quickly.  I'm sure
the last thing Microsoft wants is the most popular web server in the world
making NT look bad in comparison to Unix, especially if it's through no
direct fault of NT itself.

All I know is one thing we can't do is stifle progress because of lack of
NT solidity.  Because to be honest, the NT port is going to be ignored by a
large number of folks until it has a GUI and a one-button install and
direct support for FrontPage and yadda yadda yadda; if in a 1.3.0
announcement we say "NT works, but has a couple bugs" I don't think we're
going to lose many converts.

Maybe we should pull a Sendmail and come out with Apache 4.0?

	Brian


--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--
specialization is for insects				  brian@organic.com

Re: is 1.3 ready? lingering NT issues.

[Brian Behlendorf <br...@organic.com>]

At 05:53 PM 1/8/98 -0700, Marc Slemko wrote:
>There is a difference between being "strong" and being shoddy and possibly
>full of all sorts of security holes.  I closer to the opinion of "it
>sucks, oh well... that's life, release as is" until I looked at the NT
>code. 

I'll definitely buy the argument that the NT port deserves security
scrutiny before releasing 1.3.0.  Beyond that, I'm not sure many bugs will
be found until it's put into a production system anyways.  Maybe we should
run www.apache.org off my laptop.  :)

	Brian




--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--
specialization is for insects				  brian@organic.com

Re: is 1.3 ready? lingering NT issues.

[Marc Slemko <ma...@worldgate.com>]

Oh, I really should add that I am _not_ faulting anyone, especially
Ambarish, but the simple fact is that not enough effort has yet gone into
it.

Re: is 1.3 ready? lingering NT issues.

[Marc Slemko <ma...@worldgate.com>]

On Thu, 8 Jan 1998, Brian Behlendorf wrote:

> At 05:09 PM 1/8/98 -0700, Marc Slemko wrote:
> >I really am not convinced that releasing the win32 tree in anything
> >resembling what it is now does anyone any good. 
> >
> >It destroys any reputation of good solid code Apache may have.
> >
> >There are real problems that need to be addressed.
> >
> >While it may not look like it from the outside, the more I look
> >at the NT port the more I see serious issues that need to be
> >fixed.  Heck, CGI scripts called in the form http://foo/cgi-bin/bar.exe/foo
> >(ie. PATH_INFO w/o an =) don't even work in the current tree, and I 
> >am willing to bet there are a _lot_ more issues including problems
> >with non-thread safe modules, eg. changing cwd.
> >
> >We have a real problem with NT because we don't have many developers
> >who do anything with it, we don't have many people that understand
> >the very different way NT does things (I sure don't), and there are 
> >no where near as many NT people in the world that can or will 
> >contribute code.
> 
> Then by the laws of the jungle, that means the NT port will not be as
> strong as the Unix code, and in a volunteer project like this we'll have to

There is a difference between being "strong" and being shoddy and possibly
full of all sorts of security holes.  I closer to the opinion of "it
sucks, oh well... that's life, release as is" until I looked at the NT
code. 

> accept that.  We can't compell anyone to develop anything which doesn't
> provide some benefit to working on that.  And the simple fact of the matter
> is that the culture of NT users is a world away from that of Unix users.
> NT users are used to complaining about a problem but not having the tools
> or ability to go in and fix it themselves, and since NT software is
> typically expensive, someone's getting paid to support it and new fixes
> will eventually happen.  Unix users are using to having the tools and never
> needing to complain, since they don't spend enough to be able to pay anyone
> to pay attention to them anyways.  
> 
> While advocating for an NT port, I too realized this would be the biggest
> problem.  I have a copy of NT and MSVC at home now and I'm getting up to
> speed on it, but it'll be a long while before I've got anywhere near enough
> proficiency to be able to bring it up to the quality that the unix side sees.
> 
> Maybe we need to proselytize in the "NT Developer" community more?  Maybe
> we should prod others doing NT freeware work for ideas?  (who would they
> be?)  Heck, if Microsoft were to have someone join new-httpd and
> participate, the NT side could probably be cleaned up quickly.  I'm sure
> the last thing Microsoft wants is the most popular web server in the world
> making NT look bad in comparison to Unix, especially if it's through no
> direct fault of NT itself.
> 
> All I know is one thing we can't do is stifle progress because of lack of
> NT solidity.  Because to be honest, the NT port is going to be ignored by a
> large number of folks until it has a GUI and a one-button install and
> direct support for FrontPage and yadda yadda yadda; if in a 1.3.0
> announcement we say "NT works, but has a couple bugs" I don't think we're
> going to lose many converts.

If it went out at the current point, I would suggest we should have to say
"the NT port is not yet functional and should not be used for production
sites or anything other than basic test purposes because there are many
bugs in it still."  

I'm not overly interested in NT since I never use it for anything other
than amusement, but I'm trying to look at some of the more obvious
problems.