The Apache HTTP Server Project
The Apache HTTP Server Project is a collaborative software development effort
aimed at creating a robust, commercial-grade, featureful, and freely-available
source code implementation of an HTTP (Web) server. The project is jointly
managed by a group of volunteers located around the world, using the Internet
and the Web to communicate, plan, and develop the server and its related
documentation. In addition, hundreds of users have contributed ideas, code,
and documentation to the project.
This file is intended to briefly describe the history of the Apache Group (as
it was called in the early days), recognize the many contributors, and explain
how you can join the fun too.
In February of 1995, the most popular server software on the Web was the
public domain HTTP daemon developed by Rob McCool at the National Center
for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
However, development of that httpd had stalled after Rob left NCSA in
mid-1994, and many webmasters had developed their own extensions and bug
fixes that were in need of a common distribution. A small group of these
webmasters, contacted via private e-mail, gathered together for the purpose
of coordinating their changes (in the form of "patches"). Brian Behlendorf
and Cliff Skolnick put together a mailing list, shared information space,
and logins for the core developers on a machine in the California Bay Area,
with bandwidth and diskspace donated by HotWired and Organic Online.
By the end of February, eight core contributors formed the foundation
of the original Apache Group:
Brian Behlendorf Roy T. Fielding Rob Hartill
David Robinson Cliff Skolnick Randy Terbush
Robert S. Thau Andrew Wilson
with additional contributions from
Eric Hagberg Frank Peters Nicolas Pioch
Using NCSA httpd 1.3 as a base, we added all of the published bug fixes
and worthwhile enhancements we could find, tested the result on our own
servers, and made the first official public release (0.6.2) of the Apache
server in April 1995. By coincidence, NCSA restarted their own development
during the same period, and Brandon Long and Beth Frank of the NCSA Server