With mod_spdy, Google brought its SPDY protocol, which by now forms the basis of the next version of HTTP, to the popular and open-source Apache web server more than two years ago. That move undoubtedly helped popularize SPDY (pronounced “SPeeDY”), which is now supported by most popular web servers and browsers. With those goals achieved, Google today announced that it has donated mod_spdy to the Apache Software Foundation.
Through this, mod_spdy can now become an integrated part of Apache instead of being a third-party add-on. “The intent is to work on making it fully part of [Apache] 2.4 and, of course, a core part of 2.6/3.0,” said Jim Jagielski, co-founder of the Apache Foundation in a statement today.
As Google software engineer Matthew Steele notes in today’s announcement, this will bring SPDY to even more Apache users “and pave the way for HTTP/2.0, which was submitted as a proposed standard last November.”
SPDY helped to popularize many of the features in this next version of HTTP, and in many ways, Google’s protocol was the basis for this next version of HTTP. You will hear quite a bit more about HTTP/2.0 in the coming months, but if you want to learn more about what makes it different from the HTTP you’re using today, you can find a nice rundown of the changes here.