developerWorks : XML : Open Source : Java : Features

★ wanayoo — archive 1999 http://www.ibm.com/developer/xml/features/asf-xmlsuite.html

developerWorks : XML | Open source | Java : Features

Apache and industry leaders debut XML suite of tools
Industry leaders contribute XML and XSL technology to Apache Software Foundation

Chris Rumble and Scott Cosby
developerWorks staff
November 1999

In response to developers clamoring for open-source XML tools, the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has unveiled the Apache XML Project and a suite of open-source XML tools. The tools were contributed by a handful of industry vendors and individual open source XML developers. Contributing vendors include DataChannel, IBM, Exoffice, Lotus Development Corporation, Sun Microsystems, and Textuality.

The suite of open-source XML tools includes XML4J and XML4C Parsers from IBM, OpenXML from Exoffice and Assaf Arkin, LotusXSL from Lotus Development Corporation, XPages from DataChannel, FOP from James Tauber, Cocoon from Stefano Mazzocchi and the Java-Apache community, Java™ Project X and XHTML Parser from Sun Microsystems, and XSL:P from Exoffice and Keith Visco.

The Apache XML Project calls its parser technology Xerces, which will be based on IBM's XML4J and XML4C technologies. The next version of this technology will include features of Sun Microsystems' parser and other contributions from the open source community.

Following an industry-wide open source development process, the Apache XML Project plans to provide a set of XML- and XSL-related libraries and applications to demonstrate the power of these technologies in both Web server and client environments.

"XML has become increasingly crucial throughout the software industry, as well as the Open Source community, as a nonproprietary method for storing and exchanging complex data, said ASF president Brain Behlendorf. "Building a solid reference suite of applications and libraries for managing XML will help ensure consistency of implementation between free and commercial software, and reassure developers that XML is a reliable choice for building applications upon." For details, see the complete text of the ASF press release.

dW had a chance to ask two contributing developers -- Tim Bray of Textuality and Mike Pogue of IBM -- questions about the launch of the Apache XML Project and the implications this announcement has for the open source community:

Interview with Tim Bray

Interview with Mike Pogue