Moldy old servers

[Thomas Dowling]

I've been doing some link checking, and you don't want to get me started
on the mind-numbingly stupid URL changes people foist on their users
(hands up everyone who changes the circ desk's phone number and
disconnects the old one everytime the library's place on the org chart
changes.  Anyone?).

In the course of going through HTTP headers for bad status messages, I
gradually became aware of how many badly out of date servers I was seeing.
A little grep, a little sed, and here's the sorry breakdown:


Out of 1903 servers (most of the North American library servers I know
about):

Apache, all versions: 696
Apache, pre-1.3: 193 (28% of Apache installations)

CERN httpd (development ceased, Summer 1996): 30

IIS: 607
IIS, pre-4.0: 82 (14% of IIS installations)

NCSA (development ceased, Fall 1996): 36

Netscape Enterprise: 276
Netscape Enterprise, pre-3.5: 68 (25%)
Netscape FastTrack: 25
Netscape FastTrack, pre 3.0: 10 (40%)

WebSTAR: 38
WebSTAR, pre-4.0: 19 (50%)

WebSite/WebSite Pro: 47
WebSite, pre-2.0: 18 (38%)

Dishonorable mention to the site running Apache 0.8.8 (that's a college's
main web server, folks), the 10 sites running beta versions of Apache 1.2,
and the two sites running IIS 1.0.  Kudos to the 148 Apache sites that are
on 1.3.9 or 1.3.11.

Obviously, there's no requirement to have an absolutely current server,
and I suppose these sites would upgrade if something were out-and-out
broken.  But it bears pointing out that software developers don't just
upgrade their products for the fun of it.  They fix bugs, they improve
performance and stability, they add helpful new features, they plug
security holes--for the most part, new versions are better than old ones.
Also for the most part, new versions fit even a chintzy library's web
management budget--usually by virtue of being free--and it usually isn't
that big a job to install the upgrade.  We have some truly whacky Apache
customizations, and it still doesn't take me more than an hour to upgrade,
including downloading, compiling, configuring,and installing it.

So what's the excuse for being *so* far behind?

Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu