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All who are at ApacheCon or are otherwise interested,
I snatched a BOF slot tonight (Thursday the 21st) at 20:30 to discuss
ideas for dealing with modules inside and outside the httpd
distribution.
This is so far just an idea... I named it TCAHMAN (pronounced
"Tikkaman") for The Comprehensive Apache Httpd Module Archive Network.
The basic premise is to run:
$ ./configure (...) --with-tcahman-shared=funkymod (...)
and configure will contact the tcahman server (a.k.a.
modules.apache.org), download the source code for funkymod and
compile it into the server as an so. Or, it could access a locally
downloaded module tarball in case the build box can't see the net:
$ ./configure (...) --with-tcahman=/path/to/funkymod.tar.gz
will find the tarball in the file system and compile it (statically,
in this case) into the server. In a similar fashion, an installed
httpd could come with a script that can download, build and install a
module on the existing server. Perhaps an enhancement to APXS? For
instance:
$ apxs build --with-tcahman=funkymod
On the server side of TCAHMAN, the main issue is Organization. I
would like to model this after CPAN, but I have no idea how CPAN
works.... in any case, what we'd need is a standard for what module
code and its meta-data looks like: proper autoconf language to get it
built, name and description for the search engine, which Apache
version(s) the tarball works with, etc. The other side of the
organization aspect is who gets to upload modules to this archive. Do
we just open it up? Or do we impose any regulations on code quality
or evilness? Who gets to enforce this (major time sink danger here)?
What language would we use to make sure people don't attribute
uploads of third-party code to us? Will modules.apache.org have a
feedback engine where users can tell module developers their shit is
broken?
This or a similar construction would provide people who build httpd
easier access to third-party modules. It would also provide a way out
for modules we might not want in the core distribution anymore, but
would still like to make available. It gives module authors
visibility to users, to get their code in front of people who might
want to run it.
Let's bat this around tonight and see if this is something we want to
do, and how we would go about it. Is there any beer left over from
the Hackathon?
S.
- --
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.temme.net/sander/
PGP FP: 51B4 8727 466A 0BC3 69F4 B7B8 B2BE BC40 1529 24AF
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