For Immediate Release Contacts: Sally Khudairi and Roderic Olvera Young ZOT Group +1.617.542.5335 press@webdav.org MOD_DAV TURNING THE WEB INTO A WRITABLE MEDIUM Apache Now Supporting Open-Source WebDAV module and the Writable Web http://www.webdav.org/ - 13 June 2000 - webdav.org (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning) and the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) today introduced an add-on to the Apache HTTP Server that will provide its 9 million users unprecedented control of information on the Web. With the release of the mod_dav module, authored by one of the ASF's volunteer contributors, the world's number one Web server gains new power. mod_dav adds WebDAV capabilities to the Apache HTTP Server, an open-source software product. With this addition, the ASF ensures its users will have the most secure, efficient, and extensible server available. "The introduction of mod_dav version 1.0 is a significant step toward the WebDAV vision of a collaborative, writable Web. Today, Web browsing is primarily done in a read-only manner. This was not the original conception of the Web in early 1990, which could both read and write in the editor/browser. By providing a full-featured, standards-compliant, open-source implementation of the WebDAV protocol, I am hopeful many more communities will be able to use it and reap the benefits of remote collaboration," said Greg Stein, author of mod_dav version 1.0. For the first time on the Web, Apache Server users can control information remotely and collaboratively, using interoperable tools that employ metadata and version control. The loosely knit members of the ASF are again break new ground by adopting the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) WebDAV standard. "Greg Stein has shown real leadership developing WebDAV for Apache, as well as organizing the entire WebDAV development community. My guardian angel was definitely looking out for me the day Greg got involved with WebDAV," said Jim Whitehead, Chair, IETF Working Group on WebDAV. Companies such as IBM, Rational Software, MyDocsOnline.com, and SuSE, use mod_dav in their products and services. Adobe's GoLive and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 5 and Office 2000 also use WebDAV as part of their operations and integrate seamlessly with mod_dav. The open-source community has embraced WebDAV as well, as evidenced by the Sitecopy and Goliath products, and the Nautilus file viewer for the GNOME project. The ASF, a large force behind the open-source movement, has taken a leadership role by encouraging progressive software companies to incorporate the new, free mod_dav add-on and offer their customers an easier way to work on the Web. In addition, the next major version of the server, Apache 2.0, will include mod_dav, providing built-in WebDAV capabilities to Apache users. "The evolution of WebDAV has been exciting to watch. Now Apache's 9 million users worldwide can gain the benefit of managing files on a Web site, querying the properties of the files, editing resources on the Web server without downloading them first, and setting access permissions on files and lock files during editing," said Brian Behlendorf, co-founder of the ASF and CTO for Collab.Net. "We have reached an important milestone in the progress of the Web from being a read-only tool to reaching its true goal: making Internet collaboration as easy as using a hypertext browser. The addition of mod_dav to Apache will make it possible for Internet Service Providers, both large and small, to give their customers complete write access to their own personal and project web sites without requiring the use of vendor-specific tools or complex file-transfer mechanisms," said Roy Fielding, chief scientist at eBuilt, Inc., and co-author of the HTTP standards. "WebDAV is another soon-to-be crucial piece of the Internet and Web technology which has been driven by need," remarked Ken Coar, ASF director and IBM senior engineer. "As the WebDAV protocols are developed by the groups in the Internet Engineering Task Force, their implementation by mod_dav for Apache actually brings it to the arena where it can be tested and used in live production environments. This can only lead to the improvement and refinement of WebDAV -- and, not incidentally, the Apache Web server. In a word, 'cool!'" Key technology and industry players support and praise mod_dav and WebDAV: "IBM is pleased to continue its contribution to open-source software and Web standards. mod_dav will be incorporated into a forthcoming release of IBM's Websphere Application Server, which includes IBM's Apache derivative Web server (IBM HTTP Server). We believe inclusion of mod_dav into our Websphere products will bring great benefit to our customers." -- Bill Stoddard, Manager IBM's Apache HTTP Server development team and ASF member "GoLive 5.0 demonstrates Adobe's initiative with one of the first client implementations of the new writable HTTP protocol, WebDAV. Support in GoLive 5.0 for the versioning and synchronization capabilities of the open WebDAV standard creates new possibilities for collaborating on Website development. We are committed to enabling the most powerful workgroup solutions for the creation and management of complex Web sites, and WebDAV is a key component for next generation Web tools." -- Michael Hopwood, Director of Product Management, Adobe "The ASF's implementation of the WebDAV protocol is an exciting step towards the general industry adoption of the standard. WebDAV will allow software development teams to collaborate seamlessly and securely across geographic boundaries. Rational is proud to be a contributor to the creation of WebDAV, and will continue to participate in its advancement in an effort to provide the development community with consistent best practices across disciplines." -- Geoff Clemm, Chief Engineer, Rational Software and Co-author of the WebDAV versioning protocol The add-on mod_dav module for the Apache HTTP Server is available at http://www.webdav.org/mod_dav/ ABOUT THE APACHE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION [ASF] The Apache Software Foundation provides organizational, legal, and financial support for the Apache open-source software projects. Formerly known as the Apache Group, the Foundation incorporated as a membership-based, not-for-profit corporation to ensure that the Apache projects continue to exist beyond the participation of individual volunteers, to enable contributions of intellectual property and financial support, and to provide a vehicle for limiting legal exposure while participating in open-source projects. For more information on the Apache Software Foundation, please see http://www.apache.org/ ABOUT WEB-BASED DISTRIBUTED AUTHORING AND VERSIONING [WebDAV] With the goal of realizing the original vision of the World Wide Web as a readable and writable collaborative medium, initial work on WebDAV began in 1995 as an ad-hoc meeting of developers interested in leveraging the reach of the Internet for remote authoring. Their efforts helped form the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) WebDAV Working Group, chartered to address key issues encountered with Web remote authoring tools and develop standard extensions to the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to enable users to collaboratively edit and manage files on remote Web servers. The group's collective efforts lasted more than two years and resulted in the WebDAV standard, along with a series of WebDAV-related specifications, including DASL and Delta-V. Developments of the working group are available at http://www.webdav.org/, the definitive source for information on WebDAV. ###