Apache Server = A Patchy Server

I had never known why this famous HTTP Server (or Software Foundation) would be called "Apache" util this afternoon. When i was reading this story from the book "Java Cookbook", i felt it so funny and couldn't help but laugh. 

 The Apache web server is the world's leading web server and has been for most of the web's history. It is one of the world's best-known open source projects, and one of many fostered by the Apache Foundation. But the name Apache is a pun on the origins of the server; its developers began with the free NCSA server and kept hacking at it or "patching" it until it did what they wanted. When it was sufficiently different from the original, a new name was needed. Since it was now "a patchy server," the name Apache was chosen.

Actually, a similar story could be found at Apache web site(http://httpd.apache.org/ABOUT_APACHE.html), which is not so fun, but also could be a good hint.

In February of 1995, the most popular server software on the Web was the public domain HTTP daemon developed by Rob McCool at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. However, development of that httpd had stalled after Rob left NCSA in mid-1994, and many webmasters had developed their own extensions and bug fixes that were in need of a common distribution. A small group of these webmasters, contacted via private e-mail, gathered together for the purpose of coordinating their changes (in the form of "patches"). Brian Behlendorf and Cliff Skolnick put together a mailing list, shared information space, and logins for the core developers on a machine in the California Bay Area, with bandwidth donated by HotWired. By the end of February, eight core contributors formed the foundation of the original Apache Group...

Now we know that Apache Server is actually "a Pachy" Server. But Apache performs so well and is widely applied in many web sites.

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