Apache beta enters the public domain

The first public beta of the Apache Web Server 2.0 was released this week. When finalised 2.0 is expected to make the software more accessible to users currently unfamiliar with it.

A survey by research firm Netcraft, reports that Apache is the most popular software package for web servers. It is three times more popular than Microsoft's Internet Information Server.
The Apache Software Foundation said it has successfully tested the beta, which is available at Apache.org, on many versions of Unix, BeOS, Mac OS X and Windows. Apache 2.0 offers a diversity of enhancements, improvements and performance boosts over the 1.3 code base. One addition is its support for the lightweight process model known as threads. The modification enables the 2.0 to work well on Windows and significantly improves the scalability of the Apache HTTPD server. In addition, Apache 2.0 support for filtered I/O allows modules to modify the output of other modules before sending it to the client. The release also includes support for Ipv6, the next version of the internet protocol.