Apache Was Provided as an httpd Patch

Apache is a famous HTTP server, and it is said that a common story about the name is incorrect.

Apache

Apache is a famous HTTP server.

About the Apache HTTP Server Project - The Apache HTTP Server Project https://httpd.apache.org/ABOUT_APACHE.html

The origin is also explained in the official FAQ.

Why the name “Apache”?
https://wiki.apache.org/httpd/FAQ#Why_the_name_.22Apache.22.3F

The name ‘Apache’ was chosen from respect for the Native American Indian tribe of Apache (Indé), well-known for their superior skills in warfare strategy and their inexhaustible endurance. For more information on the Apache Nation, we suggest searching Google, or AllTheWeb.

Secondarily, and more popularly (though incorrectly) accepted, it’s a considered cute name which stuck. Apache is “A PAtCHy server”. It was based on some existing code and a series of “patch files”.

These days Apache as such means much more. It’s first and foremost the Apache Software Foundation, under which there are dozens of projects.

Officially, the name was chosen out of respect for the Apache people, a Native American tribe.

However, the more famous story is probably the second one, “a patchy server”. It is also written in “About the Apache HTTP Server Project”: Apache originally began as patches for NCSA httpd.
This is said to be why it came to be called patch files or a patchy server.

Although it is written as incorrect, it also feels as if the first explanation may have come later…