G-WAN, Another Free Web Server 217
mssmss writes "Has anyone used G-WAN — a free (as in beer), supposedly fast and scalable Web server? The downside is it supports only C scripts, which the author claims is a plus since most programmers know C anyway. There is currently only a Windows release and no clear answer in their FAQs whether there would be Linux/Solaris releases. As an interesting aside, releasing a Web server while at the same time fighting a losing battle (PDF) with a large bank over a piracy claim of $200 million (the bank is alleged to have done the piracy) is quite a feat."
Re:Help me out here (Score:2, Informative)
It can't even talk http properly (Score:4, Informative)
His server returns 404 for errors:
http://www.gwan.com/csp_crash.html [gwan.com]
That's going to make wirting for this thing really confusing.
Are you fucking kidding me? (Score:5, Informative)
I asked him to explain why stable versions (some of these stable releases were several years old, too) of the software he was recommending contained over 100 bug fixes. He couldn't provide a suitable answer, and thus management gave him the boot. And so we're not using Drupal.
You are out of your mind. Bug fixes to a stable release is your metric of quality?
May I ask what OS you guys are using in your bug-free paradise? You know, the OS that doesn't need any bug fixes after release. That one. I'd like to go buy myself a copy because that sure sounds great.
Reasoning for not being open source is astounding (Score:2, Informative)
And after reading items on this timeline [gwan.com]. I begin to question the author's sanity...
Re: social networking (Score:3, Informative)
I'm also a sysadmin at a social networking site with highly dynamic content. Unfortunately, Varnish won't help much because over 90% of the cumulative CPU time is ate up by the MySQL server.
I sent a message via his error log (Score:3, Informative)
I can't tell if sane or not but it certainly sounds like he is putting much effort into some software.
So it would help to defuse the impression of insanity that most of the posters here are suggesting. He doesn't sound insane at least not for a French programmer who has left the country due to corruption apparently.
Personally I would suggest an online explanation in more detail of two points:
1) Would he offer source to a company/institution that will sign an NDA? I bet he would sell it to say Facebook if they wanted to compile their own.
It isn't a crime to do closed source software although to my mind not offering the source in any way is going to slow adoption.
2) I took the time to read the blog and pdfs. His legal problems seems to have started when he caught a bank using his software. See: groupama.pdf [remoteanything.com]
This refers to software he makes (in Switzerland now), Remote Anything [remote-anything.com]
Okay. First, the pdf shows they have installed packs of 65535 units of his software. This makes no sense at all and looks like a dumb programming bug. He doesn't show the evidence he has, or how he got the reports. I imagine he has a phone home routine in his program. This is maybe why it gets called a virus too I could imagine, if that is the app he is talking about. The $200M fine he is seeking is therefore either crazy, a lie, or else based on such strong evidence I can't imagine not mentioning it. I think he needs to explain what the evidence is, how he got it, and why the numbers suggest some binary math errors. He has four lines that look like "64 DS + 256 Masters + 65536 Slaves = 34 million euros" and this is totally crazy. He seems to be suggesting they are using 250,000 clients if I am correct. His own site says Fortune 500 companies often buy tens of thousands of licenses. He should explain the discrepancy.
I think if he does these two things then he could expand his market more. If he doesn't want to go open source fine but comparing it to open source projects then should include this caveat. Maybe he could get a university or famous security company to audit the code.
Re:Big Plus! (Score:1, Informative)
In front of management, I asked him to explain why stable versions (some of these stable releases were several years old, too) of the software he was recommending contained over 100 bug fixes. He couldn't provide a suitable answer, and thus management gave him the boot. And so we're not using Drupal.
http://php.net/ChangeLog-5.php
Most recent version has approx 110 bug fixes, which was on 19-November-2009, the previous version (minor version) had a pretty big pile and that was just a couple months prior, and the same story going back.
The Drupal changelog shows... 3 bugs fixed...
So.... either your story is pure bullshit, or you are a first class moron. Or both more than likely.
Re:Help me out here (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe some but C as a text generation and processing language (which is the basic function of CGI) is definitely a very bad choice. C strings are inherently fault-prone.
In Perl or PHP you do $y .= " $x \n"; and it is totally fault-proof. It is easy and straightforward, and totally foolproof. Now write something like that in C. Allocate buffers for x and y, check for overflows, reallocate if buffers are too short, make sure the number of arguments matches the format string, and within maybe 15 lines have the result ready, not nearly as readable, not a shade close to as fault-proof, and 1500% longer.
I'm not saying a compiled, secure language would be bad for CGI scripting. I'm just saying C is a horrible choice.
Re:Big Plus! (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, writing scripts in C is a great idea.
It's certainly not a new idea ...
Minimal webserver, written in C, supporting C scripts ... [annexia.org]