response to comments re: API changing

[Carla Schroder <ca...@bratgrrl.com>]

Hello excellent Apache developers,

I am writing a feature on Apache 2 for crossnodes.com. It will cover new 
features, and quotes from users on why they are, or are not, upgrading from 
1.3. (Besides 'if it ain't broke don't fix it') 

Would any of you care to address the following comment? This is from the IT 
director at a local ISP. Is this really an issue?

"We are already using it for several sites.....the biggest problem that we 
(and many others) have with deploying it everywhere is that the API hasn't 
yet stabilized, so
modules, such as PHP, have to be recompiled and often slightly modified to
get them to work every time Apache issues a new release. This is a pain as
we often have to wait for days or weeks before all of modules that we may
want to use have instructions on what to modify.

"We are apprehensive about using it in shared hosting because we don't
consider it release-quality software.  We and many others (including the PHP
development team) feel the Apache Software Foundation released it
prematurely.  Most notably, they continue to change core APIs on point
releases, an established no-no in the open source development paradigm for
supposed stable, released software."

I'd like to hear from the actual developers on this! I read back several 
months in the list archives, to get some background.

Thanks much,
Carla
-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Carla Schroder
Bratgrrl Computing
www.bratgrrl.com
This message brought to you by
Red Hat 8 and Kmail
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Re: response to comments re: API changing

[Jeff Trawick <tr...@attglobal.net>]

Jeff Trawick <tr...@attglobal.net> writes:

> Carla Schroder <ca...@bratgrrl.com> writes:
> 
> > I'd like to hear from the actual developers on this! I read back several 
> > months in the list archives, to get some background.
> 
> Technically, the API changes have been pretty minor.  A module that
> was working with alpha/beta Apache 2 at the beginning of 2001 could be

(whoops, I meant to say "2002" instead of "2001"... not that it is
*too* far off as written :) )


-- 
Jeff Trawick | trawick@attglobal.net
Born in Roswell... married an alien...

Re: response to comments re: API changing

[Jeff Trawick <tr...@attglobal.net>]

Carla Schroder <ca...@bratgrrl.com> writes:

> I'd like to hear from the actual developers on this! I read back several 
> months in the list archives, to get some background.

Technically, the API changes have been pretty minor.  A module that
was working with alpha/beta Apache 2 at the beginning of 2001 could be
made to work with the current release pretty easily.  If a module
doesn't work with Apache 2 now, it is because there is a lack of
serious interest on the part of the module authors (which of course is
everybody's option).

Almost all of the pain with the supposedly volatile API has been
experienced by the end users, who may want to pick up fixes or
enhancements to Apache without recompiling 3rd-party modules, and who
have gotten bit frequently because binary compatibility is lost as
soon as any aspect of the API is changed, whether or not it matters to
their set of modules.

It looks like we will address that with Apache 2.something releases
which maintain binary compatibility with 2.0.41+ so that module
recompiles are not needed for quite a while.  So I hope the pain is
over for users who are happy with the current function but still need
to pick up future critical fixes without having to rebuild their
modules.

-- 
Jeff Trawick | trawick@attglobal.net
Born in Roswell... married an alien...

RE: response to comments re: API changing

[Bill Stoddard <bi...@wstoddard.com>]

My comments...

> Hello excellent Apache developers,
>
> I am writing a feature on Apache 2 for crossnodes.com. It will cover new
> features, and quotes from users on why they are, or are not,
> upgrading from
> 1.3. (Besides 'if it ain't broke don't fix it')
>
> Would any of you care to address the following comment? This is
> from the IT
> director at a local ISP. Is this really an issue?
>
> "We are already using it for several sites.....the biggest
> problem that we
> (and many others) have with deploying it everywhere is that the
> API hasn't
> yet stabilized, so
> modules, such as PHP, have to be recompiled and often slightly modified to
> get them to work every time Apache issues a new release. This is a pain as
> we often have to wait for days or weeks before all of modules that we may
> want to use have instructions on what to modify.
>
> "We are apprehensive about using it in shared hosting because we don't
> consider it release-quality software.

The quality of Apache 2.0 is quite good and -much- higher quality than most
corporate .0 release software packages. Ive seen 2.0 with the worker MPM put
under some very heavy loads on 8 way AIX machines and it holds up very well.
apache.org runs 2.0 (prefork MPM) very reliably and has been for well over a
year. I am sure other will chime in with their experiences.

> We and many others
> (including the PHP
> development team) feel the Apache Software Foundation released it
> prematurely.  Most notably, they continue to change core APIs on point
> releases, an established no-no in the open source development paradigm for
> supposed stable, released software."
>
> I'd like to hear from the actual developers on this! I read back several
> months in the list archives, to get some background.
>

The creeping API and the resultant lack of 3rd module support is true.  We
hope to start a stable branch of Apache 2 in the near future with the aim of
keeping the API stable enough to encourage 3rd party modules authors to
begin supporting Apache 2. If you need to use mod_perl, mod_php, etc and you
are not comfortable with compiling and possibly modifying the source code of
these modules yourself, you better stay away from 2.0 for now.

> Thanks much,
> Carla

Bill