Re: Funding [WAS :Re: trying to compile mod_perl against httpd-2.4.1]

On Tuesday, 28 February 2012 18:14:20 Vincent Veyron wrote:
> I am a tiny one-man company using mod_perl with great success(*) and
> pleasure, and your post has me very worried that it could end in a
> hurry

So am I and so are many (perhaps most) of the other contributors. What I am 
trying to say is, if modperl is the basis of your business why don't you start 
contribute? You'll be in good and friendly company.

This is how I got to modperl. In the late 1990ies I did a project involving 
mp1. That was almost my first encounter with Perl. A few years later that 
client wanted to switch to httpd 2.0. So, they hired me again. At that time I 
had a few years of experience in Perl. I also had skimmed through 
perlxs/guts/api but was far from understanding it. I had tried a few examples 
but that was all.

One of the first things I did for modperl was a fix for APR::Base64.I had 
noticed that one of encode() or decode() left a superfluous \0 byte at the end 
of the resulting string. Of course I could switch to MIME::Base64 and forget 
about APR::Base64. But that would mean to dupliate the code to work with 
base64 encoding - something I don't like at all. So, I tried to fix the bug 
and surprisingly succeeded. It wasn't by far as complicated as I had expected. 
In the end the patch I sent to the mailing list didn't get applied as I had 
sent it, I think (but maybe this was another patch). Someone more experienced 
had found a better solution.

At that time I had reported to my client that mp2 works. I also had read the 
docs and was intrigued by "PerlInterpScope handler". I had asked on the users 
list if it was a good idea to use it and was encouraged by Stas to go ahead. 
Well, it was disastrous and I ended up hacking modperl_interp.c. I think I 
have found and fixed a few bugs. And - much more important - I have learned a 
big deal about httpd, modperl and perl. Also, before that time I seldom 
reported bugs or wrote to mailing lists. I was too shy - my command of English 
was embarrassing.

Also, it occurred to me that the creators of all of these shining open source 
programs are not god-like creatures but people like you and me. And if I want 
these projects to succeed I have to contribute my share.

I didn't want to worry you. Quite the contrary, I wanted to encourage people 
to join. Give it time and modperl will support httpd 2.4. But it requires work 
to be done. You can help.

Sorry for the late reply, I was on vacation.

Torsten Förtsch

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