On Tue, 29 Dec 2009, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:

> I think you may find yourself somewhat in the minority in thinking Apache is 
> bad software. (I certainly have my complaints about it, but in general I find 
> it more robust, flexible, and bug-free than just about any other software I 
> work with).
>
> But aside from getting into a war about some particular package:  It may be 
> true that in general popular software does not necessarily equal good 
> software -- even popular open source software.  And doesn't neccesarily equal 
> the right software solution for your problem. (I could mention some 
> library-sector-origin open source software I think proves that, but I won't, 
> and it would just be my opinion anyways, like yours of Apache).
>
> But popular software _does_ mean software that has a much higher chance of 
> continuing to evolve with the times instead of stagnating, getting it's bugs 
> and security flaws fixed in a timely manner, and having a much larger base of 
> question-answering and support available for it (both free and paid).
>
> Which is one important criteria for evaluating open source software. But 
> nobody was suggesting it should be the _only_ criteria used for evaluating 
> open source software, or even neccesarily the most important. It depends on 
> your situation.

I think that part of the problem here is that software tends to fill a 
niche, and some of these larger software projects tend to fill the 
'enterprise' niche.

Now, Apache 2 in many ways *is* easier to configure than Apache 1.3, but 
the sheer number of configuration options from all of the different 
modules makes it more difficult to configure than the Netscape/iPlanet/ 
SunOne product line.  (at least to me, other people might not be making 
the sorts of changes that I deal with).

However, there's a lot of power in Apache's configuration ability ... I 
just wish I didn't have to deal with all of it.*

... but it's like anything -- if I switch to a different server, it might 
be easier to configure, but then I lose mod_perl support, so it's a 
trade-off.

-Joe

* I think I lost a week trying to get some software virtual hosts working
   correctly, where there'd be a 'default' host, and one that only
   responded to specific names and had some alternate security options.