Apache Administrator's Handbook

Appendix E. Apache History

IN THIS APPENDIX

• Before the Beginning

• In the Beginning

• Who's Responsible?

• What's Happened Recently

• Why It Works So Well

According to Netcraft (http://www.netcraft.com/), the Apache Web server is used more than all other Web servers combined. Of the approximately 33 million Web sites on the World Wide Web, about 19 million of them (57%) are running Apache. If you also count server software that is based on the Apache code, this figure is closer to 62%. In the following few pages, you'll see how this project came to be, and why it has become so popular.

Before the Beginning

If you're really interested in hunting down the origins of the World Wide Web, you may want to find a copy of the paper titled “As We May Think,” by Vannevar ...