
OpenLiteSpeed 1.0 Released under GPL3 - conductor
http://open.litespeedtech.com/
======
ComputerGuru
What is it they say, a day late and a dollar short?

LiteSpeed was released at right around the same time as nginx, and there was a
lot of hype about it at the time. In terms of performance, they were fairly
neck-and-neck but one was completely free and the other, well, wasn't.

Now, after pretty much the entire web has rallied behind nginx as the new
defacto open source HTTP web server (definitely replacing Apache as the server
of choice for _new_ deployments), they choose to release it open source? And
GPLv3 to boot (compared to nginx's awesome BSD-based license).

Here's from Wikipedia:

 _According to a Netcraft May 2006 web server survey, LiteSpeed powered over
254,000 domains and was the 6th most popular web server platform in the
world.[3] By August 2007 it had fallen to the 19th position, with its customer
base falling below 150,000;[4] however, it rebounded to the 11th position as
of January 2008, with its customer base raising above 430,000,[5] only to drop
to 26th by January 2009 with a base below 90,000.[6] According to W3Techs, it
is used by 1.9% of all websites.[7]_

This move would have saved them.... 7 years ago. LiteSpeed won't poach any of
nginx's userbase, but it's compatibility with Apache configuration might,
_just might_ give it some ex-Apache users.... then again, Apache still wins
out in terms of license (Apache, obviously), community support, modules, etc.
[EDIT: See comments below. No Apache compatibility for the free version]

For example, SPDY and mod_pagespeed are huge fads right now. Apache and Nginx
have both, thanks to awesome contributors and Google itself. I don't see
LiteSpeed getting this tech for a while.

~~~
continuations
> but it's compatibility with Apache configuration might, just might give it
> some ex-Apache users

Looks like this open source version doesn't even offer Apache compatibility.
That's for the "Enterprise" version only. From their home page:

"LiteSpeed Enterprise Edition provides some features above and beyond
OpenLiteSpeed: hosting control panel compatibility, .htaccess file
compatibility, mod_security compatibility, and page caching."

I'm not sure why would anyone want to use this instead of Nginx.

~~~
throwaway2048
This is a huge problem for "open core" projects. The open-source core will
never be able to implement the "Enterprise" features that are charged for, so
open source projects without this split will win out.

------
ck2
Litespeed is STILL faster than nginx and php-fpm.

Their PHP SAPI is second to none for performance.

You have to understand, you can drop litespeed into a working apache
environment and replace apache entirely within an hour with a massive
performance improvement (that exceeds nginx+php-fpm). It obeys 99% of apache
httpd.conf and .htaccess directives. No other product has even attempted that.

Oh I see now the open version won't do apache compatibility. That kind of
kills it.

But if the SAPI can be lifted for php-fpm, that would be amazing.

~~~
ComputerGuru
PHP LSAPI itself has been open-source BSD forever, mainlined into PHP since
version 5.3. There's no reason an nginx upstream module for lsapi was not
written, in fact, there was talk of doing so from all the way back in 2009:
<http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,10755,10755>

Don't ask me why it hasn't made its way to nginx in the form of mainline or a
3rd party module yet.

~~~
ck2
FPM is stuck with the overhead of latency and IPC delay from its CGI legacy.

Litespeed threw all that out with their approach to PHP, it's far more
lightweight and why it's so much faster.

I really hope that someday, someone will sponsor a module for a FPM
replacement inside nginx like Automattic did for spdy and CloudBees/Apcera did
for websockets.

Given the sheer number of PHP and nginx users, you'd think this would have
happened even before spdy or websockets but maybe the impression is php-fpm is
"good enough".

~~~
nodesocket
What are the performances differences between using LSAPI and FPM. Are we
talking > 10%? If so, it does seem strange there has not been a nginx module
developed?

------
locusm
Their VPS licensing still perplexes me given the movement to VM based
infrastructure.

"VPS license is a limited edition with the restriction of 2G memory and 500
concurrent connections. VPS license will NOT run on a server with more than
2GB of memory."

~~~
cbg0
This is mainly done to offer a cheaper option for those on a regular VPS. Some
cheap hosts might try to virtualize a whole server in order to purchase these
cheaper licenses if the restrictions were not in place.

------
powertower
> LiteSpeed Enterprise Edition provides some features above and beyond
> OpenLiteSpeed...

I can't get around the fact that any bug fixes, improvements, or edits to the
GPL code will not be portable into the non-GPL branch.

I'd imagine that's a huge issue that stops most businesses from doing the 2
edition thing - community/open-source and pro edition.

Does anyone know of a license that allows this?

~~~
throwaway2048
if contributions require copyright assignment they are free to relicense the
code.

~~~
Someone
That is true, but a would-be contributor might fork the GPL-ed part instead of
assigning copyrights, for example because he doesn't want to assign copyright
to a commercial entity or because his country does not allow him to give away
all his rights.

It only takes one such a would-be contributor who contributes a highly useful
feature for that fork to become the canonical version of the software (any
features appearing in the original GPL-ed version later on can be ported into
it, if desired; the reverse is not true)

