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To: new-httpd@apache.org
Subject: Re: Lack of support for Apache and Broadvision. 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 18 May 2000 21:51:56 PDT."
             <3924C86C.683FEE03@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 21:01:02 -0700
From: "Roy T. Fielding" <fielding@kiwi.ICS.UCI.EDU>
Message-ID: <200005182101.aa21763@gremlin-relay.ics.uci.edu>

>Roy, thanks for the feedback. I also thought whatever this
>Netscape NSAPI module is doing can potentially be done by
>porting it to a Apache module written in C. If that is possible then
>there is no technical barrier.

There is no technical barrier aside from the lack of NSAPI docs.

>How can anyone start the process of porting a proprietary piece of
>software from another vendor when there is no agreement between the
>vendor and the ASF? Is ASF able to provide support or sanction such an
>effort or there is a feeling that this is not worth the effort.

You can't port proprietary software -- only the owner can do that.
Broadvision could always hire my company (eBuilt) to do it for them,
but they probably have their own developers working on it already.

The ASF only supports open source development projects.  It seems
unlikely that Broadvision will make enough of their code open source
to make such a project worthwhile.  But that doesn't prevent
Broadvision from doing the code themselves and keeping it closed
source.  After all, they didn't have any special agreement with
Netscape when they built their NSAPI module.

Meanwhile, I recommend having a look at the Jakarta and Java-Apache
projects (like Jetspeed at java.apache.org), or if you prefer Python
have a look at the Zope project (www.zope.org).

....Roy