Robert Martin McCool (born 1973), more commonly known as Rob McCool, is a software developer and architect. McCool was the author of the original

NCSA HTTPd NCSA HTTPd is a discontinued web server originally developed at the NCSA at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign by Robert McCool and others. First released in 1993, it was among the earliest web servers developed, following Tim Bern ...

web server, later known as the

Apache HTTP Server The Apache HTTP Server ( ) is a free and open-source software, free and open-source cross-platform web server, released under the terms of Apache License, Apache License 2.0. It is developed and maintained by a community of developers under the ...

, and until Apache version 2.2,

files as distributed contain comments signed with his name. He wrote the first version while he was an undergraduate at the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

, where he was working with the original

NCSA Mosaic NCSA Mosaic is a discontinued web browser. It was instrumental in popularizing the World Wide Web and the general Internet during the 1990s by integrating multimedia such as text and graphics. Although not the first web browser (preceded by Wor ...

team. His twin brother, Mike, also attended the university and would join the Mosaic team to work on a port of the Mosaic software to the

Macintosh computer Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh apple. The current product lineup includes the MacBook Air and MacBo ...

. The brothers received their

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

s from the university in 1995. They went to

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

at the

Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy The Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, or IMSA, is a three-year residential public secondary education institution in Aurora, Illinois, United States, with an enrollment of approximately 650 students. Enrollment is generally offered to in ...

(class of 1991) and Robert was awarded its Alumni Trailblazer Award at its inaugural award event during its 20th anniversary celebration on April 20, 2007. One of Robert McCool's many contributions was in drafting the initial specification of the

Common Gateway Interface file:Common Gateway Interface logo.svg, The official CGI logo from the spec announcement In computing, Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is an interface specification that enables web servers to execute an external program to process HTTP or HTTPS ...

(CGI), in collaboration with others on the www-talk mailing list, and providing a reference implementation of CGI in version 1.0 of the

web server. The CGI specification, introduced in December 1993, turned out to be a key element in making the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

dynamic and interactive. McCool was an early

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was o ...

employee, contributing to

Netscape Enterprise Server Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was on ...

(e.g., NSAPI) and other server-side systems. Later, at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, he co-authored the TAP and KDD systems for automatic augmentation of human-generated web content. He is also the author of various journal and conference articles pertaining to semantic search, semantic web, and knowledge provenance. McCool lives in

Menlo Park, California Menlo Park ( ) is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, California, San Mateo County in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, California, Eas ...

References

External links

* at

Knowledge Systems Laboratory Knowledge Systems Laboratory (KSL) was an artificial intelligence research laboratory within the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University until 2007, located in the Gates Computer Science Building, Stanford. Work focused on knowledge ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mccool, Robert 1973 births American computer programmers Free software programmers Living people American twins Grainger College of Engineering alumni Netscape