Apache has overtaken Microsoft as the leading developer of secure web servers. Apache now runs on 44.0% of secure web sites, compared to 43.8% for Microsoft. As the original developers of the SSL protocol, Netscape started out with a lead in the SSL server market. But they were soon overtaken by Microsoft’s Internet Information Server, which within a few years held a steady 40-50% of the SSL server market.
I thought they already were the biggest. I must’ve missed the message ‘Microsoft IIS briefly overtaken Apache’.
Um.. did you even read it? Secure websites, meaning those that support https.
Version 1 of Apache did not include SSL support : in the 1990s, US export controls, and the patent on the RSA algorithm in the US, meant that cryptographic support for open source projects had to be developed outside of the US, and were distributed separately.
A number of years ago, I found that in order to download software that included cryptographic support, I had to download it from a site that was NOT in the US. Otherwise the crypto stuff was missing for fear that it would be “exported” and thus break the law.
I told this to a friend that works at NSA and he said that was “backwards”. Tell me about it! I don’t know if the law was changed or what, but I’m sure glad we are past that bit of stupidity.