LAMP (software bundle)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The acronym LAMP refers to a set of free software programs commonly used together to run dynamic Web sites or servers:
- Linux, the operating system's kernel;
- Apache, the Web server;
- MySQL, the database management system (or database server);
- Perl, PHP, and/or Python, scripting languages.
Though the originators of these open source programs did not design them all to work specifically with each other, the combination has become popular because of its low cost and because of the ubiquity of its components (which come bundled with most current Linux distributions particularly as deployed by ISPs). When used in combination they represent a solution stack of technologies that support application servers. Other such stacks include Apple Computer's WebObjects, Java/J2EE and Microsoft's .NET architecture.
The scripting component of the LAMP stack has its origins in the CGI web interfaces that became popular in the early 1990s. This technology allows the user of a web browser to execute a program on the web server, and to thereby receive dynamic as well as static content. Programmers used scripting languages with these programs because of their ability to manipulate text streams easily and efficiently, even when they originate from disparate sources. For this reason system designers often referred to such scripting systems as glue languages.
Michael Kunze coined the acronym LAMP in an article for the German computing magazine c't in 1998 (12/98, page 230). The article aimed to show that a bundle of free software could provide a viable alternative to commercial packages. Knowing about the IT-world's love of acronyms, Kunze came up with LAMP as a marketing-like term to popularize the use of free software.
O'Reilly and MySQL AB have popularized the term among English-speakers. Indeed, MySQL AB has since based some of its marketing efforts on the popularity of the LAMP stack. Other projects and vendors came up with variants of the term, including:
- LAPP (substituting PostgreSQL for MySQL)
- "A Brighter LAMP" (with the last two letters meaning Middleware and PostgreSQL); this allows selection of languages that do not start with the letter P such as Tcl and Ruby
- WAMP (substituting Microsoft Windows for Linux)
- MAMP (substituting Macintosh for Linux)
-
LAMJ for JSP/servlet
- "BAMP" substituting BSD for Linux
- WIMP Referring to Microsoft Windows, Microsoft IIS, MySQL, PHP
- WIMSA Referring to Microsoft Windows, Microsoft IIS, Microsoft SQL server and ASP
- and simply AMP (omitting the operating system; Apple Computer favors this variant).
Some employ the term LAMP generically to describe such alternative systems rather than make a new acronym, using it to denote the contrast between such systems and a unified web application development environment (such as ASP, .NET or J2EE).
As an example, Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, runs software in what one could characterize as a LAMP environment. Wikipedia uses MediaWiki software, developed primarily under Linux, with content served with Apache HTTPD server, content stored in a MySQL database, and program logic implemented in PHP.
See also
External links
- ONLamp.com, from O'Reilly & Associates
- LAMPware.org, LAMP Community Site
- Build Web Interface to Database - LAMP Tutorial
- Enterprise LAMP InfoWorld article on ActiveGrid's new 0.7 early access release
- Linuxforum.com LAMP, Element Background Info
- Web SF ZZ/OSS LAMP Installer
- LAMPPIX A CD-bootable LAMP server
- XAMPP Apache HTTPD bundle with MySQL, Perl, and PHP
- LAMPStack Easy to install LAMP distribution (Apache, MySQL, Python and PHP), free for use under the terms of the Apache License 2.0.
- PHPServer LAMP stack based on PHP, MyServer and Firebird. Compact, capable, easy to install and manage; fully open source.
