In just over two weeks, ApacheCon Europe kicks off in Amsterdam. My SSL Training session has unfortunately been canceled due to lack of interest: only two people had signed up and that is just not a sufficient number to justify putting on a half-day training. However, that just gives me more opportunity to concentrate on the sessions I will be presenting.

Courtesy of Google Maps, here are your driving instructions to get from the last ApacheCon to this one. Be sure to leave in time, and note step 28. Perhaps one of these can be of some help.

With a series of messages on the Apache httpd developer mailinglist, Paul Querna has kicked off the discussion on what the next version of Apache will look like. There is now a development sandbox code named Amsterdam?because immediately hanging a version number on the effort would constrain the discussion too much. It is to be expected that The Amsterdam Project will be the subject of much hallway discussion at the upcoming ApacheCon Europe, coincidentally held in Amsterdam. Have I mentioned registration is open, and the Early Bird discount is not going to last forever?

If you would like to contribute to the next version of the most popular server on the web, or just want to follow the discussion, hop on the mailinglist. Now is the time.

Registration is now open for ApacheCon Europe 2007, May 1-4 in Amsterdam. I will be presenting three sessions this time. The sessions on scalability and performance tuning are being updated and revamped. The third session is a half-day training on Practical SSL Implementation with Apache.

The training session will be an intensive roller-coaster ride covering many aspects of the SSL and TLS protocols. We will talk about the protocol principles and their practical implementation and configuration on Apache. We will also discuss certificate authentication and management, integrating SSL with your applications and many security aspects and implications of using SSL. If you are considering using SSL for your web site or application, and want to learn how to safely and successfully implement it, you should sign up!

Both Jim and Nick note the latest Netcraft Web Server Survey, where Apache seems to slip below 60% marketshare for the first time in a long time. Besides the visceral reaction “Boooo! Microsoft bad! Open Source good!”?or the other way around if you are so inclined?there are several remarks that can be made about numbers like this.

First and foremost, we should discuss the vast difference in culture between the organizations behind Apache and IIS. On the one hand we have Microsoft, one of the largest and most successful software companies, with a vested interest in increasing their market share. They have a large and hungry sales force, and have an obligation to their shareholders to maximize revenue to the benefit of their stock price. On the other hand, we have the Apache Software Foundation, a non-profit charity that exists to give developers a legal umbrella under which to develop software and release that for free under the Apache license. We don’t have a marketing department at Apache, and no strategic initiatives to increase our market share. While many large corporations incorporate Apache software into their products, the foundation itself does not really promote the adoption of its offerings.

As noted by Netcraft itself, Microsoft actively seeks to migrate domain parking companies like GoDaddy to the Windows platform. Winning over a single domain parking registrar can cause a notable shift in market share which causes the graphs to spike. Such a shift is absolutely meaningless except Microsoft can use it as a sales tool, and use it to win over potential customers: “See? We’re winning! We must be good!” Any hosting company, whether domain parker or otherwise, will make a software platform decision to serve their own bottom line: if a Linux + Apache solution serves them better, cheaper, they will go with that. If a Microsoft rep shows up and does what it takes to win their business, they just might make the decision to go with that. The software is Microsoft’s to sell, and they can discount as deeply as they like, throw in professional services to make the transition, etc., whatever it takes to make the sale. The Apache community has little to bring to bear against such an onslaught: it’s hard to discount software that is already free, and there is no company behind the project that has an ulterior motive to make a loss-leader sale so professional services, or personnel to manage and integrate the software, will generally have to be paid for.

Most contributors to the Apache software projects (webserver or others) have their own motives to make contributions. Some are paid to work on the software, others find it a fun and challenging project to work on in their own time. Most use the software as a means to their own ends, and their contributions extend so far as those ends coincide with Apache’s own goals. While many help out based on altruistic motives, hardly anyone is specifically concerned with growing Apache’s perceived market share, especially where highly artificial numbers like the Netcraft survey are concerned. Contributors tend to be more interested in how individual users are utilizing the software, and improving their experience, than in raw numbers.

However, there is another side to this. Users don’t live in a vacuum, and the decision, or permission, to use Apache or any open source software may well be influenced by those very Netcraft numbers. If your CIO has a Microsoft rep waving those numbers in her face and going “See? We are so good hosting millions of parked domains and their single page full of Google ads, we must be the best choice for your situation!”, she might be influenced to lean that way, especially in the absence of an opposing viewpoint. Fighting back against this inflationary market share boosting strategy might make it easier for some users to adopt Apache.

The choice of web server platform is not as important as it was several years ago. Most web sites beyond the domain squatting level use some form of dynamic content, and the real fight is over the platform used to generate these sites. Microsoft doesn’t sell IIS, they sell Windows Server 2003 running ASP.NET and its associated back-end technologies. As Jim correctly notes: every server that runs IIS is guaranteed to be running Windows, while Apache runs on any platform including Windows. With mod_aspdotnet, Apache on Windows can serve ASP.NET content. For users that prefer the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack, PHP runs on Windows and can run under IIS… Windows, IIS, MSSQL, PHP just gets a less sexy acronym. With mod_proxy and mod_security, Apache can function as Application Router and Application Firewall, serving static pages from the file system, scripts written in a large number of languages, Java through mod_proxy_ajp, and arbitrary content from any back-end server. And if that back-end server is running IIS on Windows, Apache will faithfully serve its Server: header to the client, which may skew the Netcraft picture even more.

Finally, as Nick notes, Netcraft bases its surveys on indexing the contents of the Server: HTTP header transmitted by the sites under consideration. Changing the Server: header passed out by Apache is a trivial patch, and mod_security even allows you to make that change (although its approach is kind of an ugly hack). Many sites obfuscate the Server: header, or omit it altogether. I don’t know that Microsoft lets you do that for IIS, so any site that doesn’t advertise a Server: header is likely to be running an Open Source alternative. Likewise, sites that advertise IIS may actually be running Apache, whether through obfuscation or because they proxy content from an IIS back-end. Open Source software allows you the freedom to make changes like this, which is probably one of its strongest selling points.

Like any market, the web server space benefits from diversity. Diversity offers choice to consumers, and forces producers to compete and innovate. With only two major players, diversity is already low in the web server marketplace, and Microsoft does not have a track record of tolerating diversity in its marketplace. Having the main competitor be a freely available, open source alternative is enormously important.

I have been to Austin a number of times over the past couple of years. This past ApacheCon was the first time I actually stayed downtown rather than in one of the hotel gettoes on the perimeter. Hence, this was the first time I got a real taste of the absolutely crazy party scene on 4th and 6th streets… bar after bar after bar, every single one with a live band, each one louder than the one before. I guess this is why they call it the Live Music Capital of the World…

One of Austin’s many attractions is the bat colony at Congress Avenue bridge. This is a colony of Mexican Free-tailed Bats that comes north every year to give birth, and settles under the Congress Avenue bridge over Lake Austin through the end of summer. Around sunset, they wake up and fly out to feed on insects. Bat-watching is a popular activity and you can call the Bat Hotline (on the Batphone?) to find out when they are epxected to appear. We hear that the sky turns black with bats as up to 1.5 million of them take to the air.

We went to see them with a bunch of people on the last evening of the conference, but unfortunately the bats did not appear. We only saw four or five or so… perhaps they had taken the night off.

So, having returned from ApacheCon Austin, let’s take stock and see how I did on the To-do List. I did catch up with a bunch of people. I completely missed the Infrastructure committee meeting, and successfully avoided giving a Lightning Talk. Sally’s Media and Analyst training was a good eye opener, and we wound up being interviewed by a Real Analyst. As noted elsewhere, the talks and keysigning were completely hectic. We went to watch the Spazmatics on Wednesday night, and saw the Old 97s on Friday night at Stubbs Barbecue. And, oh yes, beer was consumed.

Finally, when the sign at the airport concessions says that the muffins and pastries are “Baked Fresh Daily”, it means they aren’t. Actually, they may be baked fresh daily, they just take a five day journey between the bakery and the airport concession. Pfyech!

Yesterday was packed to distraction. I gave both my talks and hosted the keysigning session.

The talks went OK… the content of the first one is kind of old, but sixty people showed up so it there must be a need. I discovered one big hole as I went along: I talk about Apache 2.x Multi-Processing Modules, but never actually list the available options. Some graphics would be nice as well in that section, and I can lose a couple of the detail slides.

I’m not happy with the way the KeySigning went. Several people who mailed me their keys turned out to not be on the list, which is just unfortunate. I seem to achieve a higher level of disorganization every time I do this, and feel a need to break that trend.

However, having all of my sessions on the first day leaves me to enjoy the rest of the conference without having obligations hanging over my head. This morning I attended a talk by Rich Bowen and John Coggeshal that went into the supposed animosity between the Apache and PHP communities. Very informative.

I arrived in Austin this afternoon for ApacheCon US 2006. Since everyone is doing it, let me post a modest to-do list:

• Reconnect with folks I haven’t seen since Dublin
• Reconnect with folks I haven’t seen since San Diego
• Infrastructure Group meeting Tuesday morning
• Media and Analyst Training Tutorial on Tuesday afternoon
• Prepare for my talks and present them on Wednesday
• Host the PGP Keysigning on Wednesday night
• See several bands while I’m here
• Try to avoid giving a Lightning Talk
• Drink beer

Not a lot of entries that actually have anything to do with code. Perhaps I can find some code this week to which I can contribute. I’ll try to regularly blog during the conference, but we’ll have to see how well this resolution, or any of the above, will hold up. Fortunately, several of the action items are in full progress, including the ?Drink beer? part.