Re: (forw) [ardo@debian.org: proposal for an Apache (web server) task force]
Daniel Stone (daniel@sfarc.net) wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 13, 2001 at 11:01:49AM -0500, Ardo_Vanrangelrooij wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 14, 2001 at 12:36:37AM +1000, Daniel Stone wrote:
> > > > From: Ardo van Rangelrooij <ardo@debian.org>
> > > > To: Johnie Ingram <johnie@debian.org>, debian-devel@lists.debian.org
> > > > Subject: proposal for an Apache (web server) task force
> > > >
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > I would like to propose to form an Apache (web server) task force to maintain the
> > > > Apache packages currently maintained by Johnie Ingram (netgod) (and potentially
> > > > related packages if the need arises). The current state of Apache and the recent
> > > > need to fix at least some of the outstanding bugs led me to the conclusion a more
> > > > active maintenance of these packages is needed. The intend of this proposal is
> > > > not to simply take over the packages (although it might come to that), but to help
> > > > in the maintenance of them.
> > >
> > > Yes, the bug list is huge. I'm not subscribed to -devel, but this thread
> > > was mentioned on IRC and thus forwarded to me.
> > >
> > > > As the first step I propose to add an Uploaders field to the package (once we have
> > > > a list of people).
> > > >
> > > > Some of the other things this task force would do are
> > > >
> > > > - writing up guidelines for packaging Apache modules (a kind of policy doc)
> > > > - migration to Apache 2 (IIRC an ITP for this has already been filed by somebody)
> > >
> > > "What is 'not on a cold day in hell'?" ;)
> >
> > And you react like this exactly why? Perhaps I should have said 'could' instead of
> > 'would' and make the second item 'support in migrating to Apache2'. I certainly didn't
> > want to imply that you and Thom would be out of business because of this. But I'm sure
> > that we cannot drop Apache2 in place and assume everything keeps working fine without
> > a hitch. I was merely thinking that this task force could participate in testing and
> > porting stuff over. There's no need to feel threatened by this proposal. You're work
> > is appreciated.
>
> No, I don't feel at all threatened, it's just that apache2 is still in
> alpha and nowhere near ready to replace apache; not by a long shot.
I see. All the more reason to get the current version in a better shape as it will be
around for quite a while.
> > > Thom May (thom@d.o) and myself are maintaining apache2. If you want to
> > > email anything related, apache2@packages.debian.org is the address; that
> > > goes to both of us. Currently it's not in Debian because Thom's laptop
> > > has blown up. He did very extensive hacking on said laptop (which was
> > > really cool), and it's back in the UK (irony, since he's a Pom
> > > backpacker here in .au) getting fixed. There were no backups or
> > > anything, so I'm just waiting from some stuff from Thom's tree.
> > >
> > > In the meantime, I've toyed with modperl-2.0 and php4 for apache2. I got
> > > a successful install of php4 after an apache2 install, but I need to do
> > > silly build and apache2 voodoo to get it integrated. I'm currently
> > > working on it, but I don't exactly have a lot of time.
> > >
> > > The current place for my packages is
> > > http://kabuki.sfarc.net/apache2/README. Note that this is strictly
> > > non-US due to modules/ssl and modules/tls in the apache2 source. These
> > > packages don't include mod_perl2 and php4; if you want you can grab them
> > > from CVS and attempt to build.
> > >
> > > > I also propose to set up a mailing list for this.
> > >
> > > Feel free, but apache2 is nowhere near ready for prime-time. Hell, they
> > > haven't even agreed on a release that should be a beta candidate since
> > > 2.0.18, which was ... a long time ago. I'd give it probably more than a
> > > year before I even thought about letting it loose in production.
> >
> > I didn't expect the migration to happen overnight. But there are certainly a
> > lot of gotchas when moving to Apache2 which need to be sorted out and resolved.
> > If we have a year to do this, all the better given the time certain things
> > might take.
>
> I think that we need to maintain them separately for quite some time;
> even when apache2 *does* replace apache, we should still have an apache1
> package.
Absolutely. I haven't looked at Apache2 at all yet, but I can imagine that
the APIs have changed too, so every package build against Apache1 will have to
have a separate binary build against Apache2. But I see the task force as a
means to facilitate all this with guidelines for building and packaging, and
testing, etc. to make the transition as smooth as possible.
Thanks,
Ardo
--
Ardo van Rangelrooij
home email: ardo@debian.org
home page: http://people.debian.org/~ardo
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