Datasheet

Apache and Jakarta Tomcat

The Apache Software Foundation

In 1999, the same folks who wrote the Apache server formed the Apache Software Foundation (ASF).

The ASF is a non-profit organization created to facilitate the development of open source software

projects. According to their web site, the ASF accomplishes this goal by:

❑ Providing a foundation for open, collaborative software development projects by supplying

hardware, communication, and business infrastructure

❑ Creating an independent legal entity to which companies and individuals can donate

resources and be assured that those resources will be used for the public benefit

❑ Providing a means for individual volunteers to be sheltered from legal suits directed at the

Foundation's projects

❑ Protecting the Apache brand, as applied to its software products, from being abused by other

organizations

In practice, the ASF does indeed sponsor a great many open source projects. While the best known of

these projects is likely the aforementioned Apache web server, the ASF hosts many other well-respected

and widely used projects.

Apache Projects

The following is a listing of the current Apache projects, all of which can be found at

http://www.apache.org/:

Project Name Description

HTTP (Web) Server The famous Apache web server.

Apache Portable Runtime (APR) A library of platform-independent C code that forms a

portability layer for compiling applications on multiple

platforms, such as Linux, Windows, BeOS, and OS/2.

Jakarta Apache's Java-related efforts; described in detail later in

this chapter.

Perl Umbrella for Apache's well-known mod_perl project, as well

as other Apache-specific Perl modules. mod_perl enables

highly efficient integration with Apache and Perl programs.

PHP PHP is a very popular scripting language for dynamically

creating HTML or performing business logic in HTML

pages. Like mod_perl, PHP can be efficiently integrated

with Apache.

TCL Umbrella for Apache's efforts to tightly integrate TCL with

the Apache web server (like mod_perl).

XML Umbrella for Apache's cross-platform XML projects, such

as the Xerces and Crimson XML parsers and the AXIS

SOAP engine.