Also thank you for the library ! On Sun, Feb 18, 2024, 1:11 PM Mithun Bhattacharya <mit...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So is there a cleaner/saner version of libapreq2 or is the 2012 version > better ? > > On Sun, Feb 18, 2024, 12:58 PM Joe Schaefer <j...@sunstarsys.com> wrote: > >> For the past 25 years, I have been the lead developer of the libapreq2 >> subproject within the Apache HTTPd Server Parent Project. The original idea >> of libapreq as a safe/performant HTML form and Cookie parsing library came >> out of a collaboration between Lincoln Stein and Doug MacEachern in the >> late 90s. >> >> It was my vision back then to transform the library into a generic, >> non-Perl related C library that would support language bindings from other >> programming languages, which is why I pushed for the project to be homes >> under the HTTPd umbrella instead of the Apache-Perl project. >> >> While this vision was wildly successful, with language bindings available >> for several languages like Perl, TCL, R, etc, ever since about 2010 its >> proven tragic for the existing user community consisting of all of them, >> not just Perl. >> >> What happened? Philip Gollucci, a Perl/FreeBSD olleague of mine at the >> time, started agitating that we promote the project to be released from >> inside the HTTPd server itself. What Philip didn’t know very well back then >> was how utterly vapid and territorial that team had become, which would >> have meant having to collaborate with them directly on user-facing >> decisions about the code base. >> >> In 2012, Philip got what he wanted and I stopped resisting, so he forked >> the existing project and copied the C library components into HTTPd core. >> >> In 2016 I resigned from the Foundation en masse. You can guess the >> reasons. >> >> In 2020 or so, Google’s Security Team took advantage of an alpha release >> of httpd 2.5 by fuzzing its 8 year old copy of apreq. It found a few >> hotspots that needed repair. >> >> Instead of having the courtesy of reaching out to me, or anyone else >> involved in development of apreq, a junior engineer on the HTTPd team went >> about the business of “bug fixing” the vulnerabilities Google found. You >> can see a record of his trial and error work in every release since then. >> >> But the coup de grace was the 2022 release of 2.17, wherein the rookie >> developer purposely introduced a fatal bug into the codebase, breaking a >> fifteen year old regression test. >> >> If you are wondering how something with a broken regression test winds up >> on CPAN, you’ll have to look into how RELENG is done in the server project. >> >> Long story short, they commented out the test and shipped it anyway, and >> called it a Security Release that fixed a vulnerability every prior release >> was susceptible to. >> >> Why do I care now? Because I’m the sucker users reach out to for answers >> as a known subject matter expert. >> >> This sucks, but I’m sorry to tell you that my days wearing the Superman >> cape at Apache ended 8 years ago. >> >> -- >> Joe Schaefer, Ph.D. >> <https://sunstarsys.com/orion/features> >> Orion - The Enterprise Jamstack Wiki >> <https://sunstarsys.com/orion/features> >> <j...@sunstarsys.com> >> 954.253.3732 <//954.253.3732> >> >> >>
