A large amount of discussion took place this week after a
      tarball for Apache 1.3.18 was produced for testing. Earlier
      in the week, Dean Gaudet had committed a patch to unescape
      the hostname part of a URL (allowing URLs such as
      www.%61rctic.org to work correctly). It emerged during
      testing that this change was triggering compiler warnings on
      many platforms. While the group was not sure whether this
      would cause any real problems, it was eventually decided to
      abandon 1.3.18, fix the problem, and release 1.3.19 instead.
      No new release date has been proposed, although the fix is
      now committed to CVS.
    
    
      Several messages came in this week concerning the fact that
      SGI has decided to drop support for their Accelerating
      Apache project. This project comprises of a set of
      patches written by Mike Abbott aiming to increase the
      performance of Apache 1.3 by up to ten times, and of Apache
      2.0 by up to four times . These patches were contributed back
      to Apache, but never made it into the Apache source tree. In
      a message to the group, Jim Jagielski summed up the view from
      the Apache side of the argument, explaining that this came
      down to a "failure of communications". On a more positive
      note, Bill Stoddard then announced that he planned to commit
      one of the patches.
    
    
      A large number of commits came this week from Roy Fielding as
      he cleaned up the build system for APR. It was otherwise a
      relatively quiet week on the CVS commit front.
    
    
    
      Poised to be the largest gathering of Apache users to date,
      ApacheCon 2001 is being held in Santa Clara, USA in April.
      Registration at the
      ApacheCon site is now open and if you register for the
      conference in the next couple of weeks you can save up to
      US$200 off the entry fee.
    
    
    
      We have four copies of the handy "mod_perl Pocket Reference"
      to give away to lucky readers. 
      Read our full review of the book which we featured last
      week.
    
    
      For a chance to get your hands on a copy of this book, answer
      this simple question:
    
    
      Who originally created the Perl scripting language:
      A) Al Gore, B) Larry Wall, C) Richard Stallman
    
    
      Send your answer (A, B, or C) to japh@apacheweek.com to
      reach us no later than 1st March 2001. Your e-mail address
      will not be used for anything other than to let you know if
      you won. Four winners will be drawn using the Perl
      rand function from all correct entries
      submitted, one entry per person, no cash alternative,
      editors' decision is final, so there.
    
    
    
      In this section we highlight some of the articles on the web
      that are of interest to Apache users.
    
    
      Last November (Apache Week issue
      224), we mentioned that APR (Apache Portable Run-time)
      has spinned off into a separate project. In 
      "Aid From APR", Ryan Bloom explains about its advantages
      and illustrates his point by comparing a APR segment of code
      with the native code.
    
    
      In CNet Builder.com, it's Ryan Bloom again as he talks about
      how Apache 2.0 is more than a web server as it has the
      potential to serve 
      any protocol. He reveals the benefits of using a single
      server for multiple protocols and the way to implement it
      using Apache 2.0.
    
    
      Sys Admin magazine presents Apache::Motd, an
      Apache module based on the "Message Of The Day" utility found
      on UNIX systems. It intercepts user's initial request and
      displays the contents of the motd file before serving the
      requested page. Carlos Ramirez, its creator walks us through
      the
      installation and configuration process.
    
    
    
      What better way to show you are using Apache than to attach
      an unofficial metal cast of the Apache feather to the outside
      of your server box? You can now buy one
      online and it comes with a detachable BSD Daemon.