The Apache Software Foundation and the Apache HTTP Server Project have announced the release of version 2.3.6-alpha of the Apache HTTP Server (“Apache”).

This version of Apache is principally an alpha release to test new technology and features that are incompatible or too large for the stable 2.2.x branch. This alpha release should not be presumed to be compatible with binaries built against any prior or future version.

Apache HTTP Server 2.3.6-alpha is available for download from:  http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi

Apache 2.3 offers numerous enhancements, improvements, and performance boosts over the 2.2 codebase.

For an overview of new features introduced since 2.3 please see:

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/trunk/new_features_2_4.html

Please see the CHANGES_2.3 file, linked from the download page, for a full list of changes.

This release includes the Apache Portable Runtime (APR) version 1.4.2 and APR-Util version 1.3.9 in a separate -deps tarball.  The APR libraries must be upgraded for all features of httpd to operate correctly.

This release builds on and extends the Apache 2.2 API.  Modules written for Apache 2.2 will need to be recompiled in order to run with Apache 2.3, and require minimal or no source code changes.