HistoryNotes

License and Copyright

The first version of mod_auth_external was written by Nathan Neulinger. My theory is that he started with some apache module, like 'mod_auth_file' and started editing it to turn it into mod_auth_external. He just left the original Apache license in there. It was, after all, still partly Apache's code. This is why the copyright message in 'mod_auth_external' says the copyright is held by the Apache Group, although the Apache group is in no way responsible for this code.

Since then mod_auth_external has suffered three major rewrites and many small evolutionary changes, and about all that is untouched is the 1995 vintage Apache copyright/license message in front. Does this make sense? The authors of 'mod_auth_external' haven't the faintest idea and none of them care very much.

Version Branches

There used to be another version of mod_auth_external maintained by Satoh Fumiyasu. I believe the last version was called version 3.0.0beta3. The versions seem to have diverged after version 2.0.0, Tyler Allison's next-to-last release. It differed significantly from this version, and was not precisely compatible. Fumiyasu's version supported authenticating through a socket against an authentication daemon, a feature I may support in the future. It's documentation was mostly in Japanese. This seems to have largely disappeared from sight.

However, this is the reason why the version of mod_auth_external distributed here skipped the version number 3.0.