
Apache 2.0alpha6 Released
-------------------------

The Apache Group is pleased to announce the release of the sixth public
alpha release of Apache 2.0.  

Apache 2.0 offers numerous enhancements, improvements and performance
boosts over the 1.3 codebase. The most visible and noteworthy addition
is the ability to run Apache in a hybrid thread/process mode on any
platform that supports both threads and processes.  This has shown to
improve the scalability of the Apache HTTPD server significantly in
our early testing, on some versions of Unix.  This release also
greatly improves the performance and robustness of Apache on the
Microsoft Windows Operating Systems.  Lastly we are proud to announce
support for BeOS in this version of the server.

The newest development in Apache 2.0 is the addition of I/O fitlering.
This allows modules to filter data before it has been sent to the
network.  This feature is still in its infancy, and it is likely to
change and evolve in the next few weeks.

Apache 2.0a6 under UNIX has undergone some testing, but there are some
known issues in the current release (hey, it is an "alpha" for a
reason!). It is intended for developers and experienced Apache HTTPD
administrators to play around with and work on. It is not a production
release. If you do not feel comfortable compiling and working with
code, the Apache Group strongly recommends that you wait for a more
stable beta release before you try this version.

Apache 2.0a6 under Windows has undergone some testing as well.  There
are known issues in the current release with regards to Apache on windows
95 and 98.  We are working through those problems, and hope to have them
fixed for future releases of the 2.0 alpha.

There are new snapshots of the Apache httpd source available every 6
hours from http://dev.apache.org/from-cvs/apache-2.0/ - please
download and test if you feel brave. We don't guarantee anything
except that it will take up disk space, but if you have the time and
skills, please give it a spin on your platforms.

Apache has been the most popular web server on the Internet since
April of 1996. The May 2000 WWW server site survey by Netcraft (see:
http://www.netcraft.co.uk/Survey/) found that more web servers were
using Apache than any other software running on more than 60% of the
Internet web servers.

For more information, please check out http://www.apache.org/httpd.html

Changes with Apache 2.0a6
  *) Add support to Apache and APR for dsos on OS/390.  [Greg Ames]

  *) Add a chunking filter to Apache.  This brings us one step closer
     to removing BUFF. [Ryan Bloom]

  *) Apache 2.0 has been completely documented using Scandoc.  The
     docs can be generated by running 'make docs'.  [Ryan Bloom]

  *) Add filtered I/O to Apache.  This is based on bucket brigades,
     Currently the buckets still use BUFF under the covers, but that
     should change quickly.  The only currently written filter is the
     core filter which just calls ap_bwrite.  [The Apache Group]

  *) APR locks on Unix: Let APR_LOCKALL locks work when APR isn't
     built with thread support.  [Jeff Trawick]

  *) Abort configuration if --with-layout was specified and there's
     no layout definition file.  [Ken Coar]

  *) Add support for '--with-port=n' option to configure.  [Ken Coar]

  *) Add support for extension methods for the Allow response header
     field, and an API routine for accessing r->allowed and the
     list of extension methods in a unified manner.  [Ken Coar]

  *) mod_cern_meta: fix broken file reading loop in scan_meta_file().
     [Rob Simonson <simo@us.ibm.com>]

  *) Get xlate builds working again.  The apr renaming in 2.0a5 broke
     APACHE_XLATE builds.  [Jeff Trawick]

  *) A configuration file parsing problem was fixed.  When the
     configuration file started with an IfModule/IfDefine container,
     only the last statement in the container would be retained.
     [Jeff Trawick]

