The Apache Software Foundation Launches xml.apache.org Technology Project.

http://www.apache.org/--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 9, 1999--

Industry Leaders Donate Technology to Provide Open Source Tools

for XML 

The Apache Software Foundation, in collaboration with Bowstreet, DataChannel, Exoffice, IBM, Lotus Development Corporation and Sun Microsystems, today announced the formation of the xml.apache.org Project in response to the overwhelming demand for Open Source XML and XSL tools triggered by the rapid adoption of XML.

"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 Brian Behlendorf, President of the Apache Software Foundation and Founder of Collab.Net. "Building a solid reference suite of applications and libraries for managing XML will help ensure consistancy of implementation between free and commercial software, and reassure developers that XML is a reliable choice for building applications upon."

xml.apache.org will advance the development and deployment of XML and XSL standards, and demonstrate the power of these technologies on both Web server- and client-side environments. In addition, xml.apache.org will provide a robust set of XML- and XSL-related libraries and applications within an industry-wide, peer-based Open Source development process.

The xml.apache.org Project is being bootstrapped with technology donations from several vendors and Open Source XML developers, and will be maintained by the Project team. The donated technologies include:

- XML4J and XML4C Parsers from IBM -- parsers read and validate XML documents, and are essential components in XML-based solutions. IBM's parser technologies have been downloaded over 100,000 times and are being widely used by many customers and partners. The XML4J parser was rated by Java Report earlier this year as outstanding, and is considered industry-wide as one of the best performing and stable available parsers.

- Java(TM) Project X and XHTML Parser from Sun Microsystems -- a high performance and fully conformant XML parser with optional validation, Java Project X provides essential functionality for reading, manipulating and generating XML text. Written entirely in the Java platform, Java Project X offers complete support of SAX 1.0, DOM Level 1 Core, and XML Namespaces. XHTML Parser is an experimental parser for reading and writing XHTML, the Extensible HyperText Markup Language, based on the "Swing" HTML parser in the Java Foundation Classes. XHTML is a reformulation of HTML 4.0 in XML 1.0 and is currently a W3C Working Draft.

- LotusXSL, from Lotus Development Corporation -- an XSLT processor that accepts and interprets the new W3C XPath and XSL transformation language recommendations. These are used to specify general transformations on XML documents. These transformations map XML documents into either other XML documents or into documents in other formats such as HTML. The LotusXSL processor is already shipping in major commercial products from IBM and other vendors. It includes such advanced facilities as XLocators, a pluggable interface for accessing a broad variety of data sources including JDBC/ODBC databases.

- XPages, from DataChannel -- an XML application markup language for quickly building data-driven, cross-platform Web applications that integrate disparate data sources. An XPage application is defined by an XML file that aggregates multiple data sources, makes that data URL addressable and defines custom methods to access that data. The DataChannel submission includes Java code for a servlet based engine.

- FOP, from James Tauber, now with Bowstreet -- the world's first implementation of XSL for print use. FOP is a XSL formatter originally designed for PDF, with plans for expansion to accommodate other output formats as well. In development for more than one year, FOP has been released as open source for the past six months. FOP (used in conjunction with an XSLT implementation) allows the formatting of XML documents for print, enabling XML-based print publishing using entirely open standards.

- Cocoon, from Stefano Mazzocchi and the Java-Apache community -- the 100% pure java XML publishing framework that brings a whole new world of abstraction and ease to consolidated Web site management and publishing. Its three-layer creation and processing model is the first application that will benefit from the core building projects released in the XML project.

- OpenXML, from Exoffice and Assaf Arkin -- OpenXML is an open source, pure Java, fully featured framework for XML-based applications. It supports the DOM and SAX APIs, offers printers for generating XML/HTML/XHTML, and integrates a support for WML.

- XSL:P, from Exoffice and Keith Visco -- a free, open source XSL processor written in Java. Currently the processor implements the XSLT WD 1.0 19990421 working draft. The processor is DOM based and works with all the major DOM compliant XML parsers.

xml.apache. org will name its parser technology Xerces, which will be based on IBM's XML4J and XML4C technologies. The next version will incorporate the best features on Sun's parser and other contributions from the open source community.

The launch of xml.apache.org has received praise and support from key industry players:

"Exoffice, through the development of its Enterprise software platform and the ExoLab Portal (www.exolab.org), is a strong supporter of Open Source. For this reason, we are very excited about contributing to this outstanding effort led by the Apache Software Foundation."

-- Ismael Ghalimi, CEO, Exoffice

"IBM is a strong believer in open standards computing and sees the formation of xml.apache.org as another important step in adoption of the XML standard. We are pleased to contribute the parser technology that we deliver in our products to the broader development community via Apache."

-- Marie Wieck, Director of XML Technology, IBM

"Apache was at the heart of the first Web revolution and is continuing its open standards leadership with the formation of the xml.apache.org Project. This move to provide high quality Open Source XML tools is the beginning of the next major wave in the evolution of the Web."

-- Eliot Kimber, Senior Consulting Engineer, Isogen International, a DataChannel Company

"As part of Sun's commitment to XML and industry-developed standards, Sun has committed to donate its experimental XML technologies to the xml.apache.org project at Apache. Based on Sun's successful collaboration with Apache on the Tomcat project [jakarta.apache.org], Sun is confident that, through the Apache process, the best-of-breed parser will result from the technologies donated by Sun and other companies."

-- Nancy Lee, Senior Product Manager, XML in the Java Platform, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

"XML is central to the future of the Web. Apache is central to the Web today - among other things, I'm betting my new startup on XML and the Apache server - and the two need to work well together. Today's announcement makes it clear that this won't be a problem. The combination of Apache and XML is going to hasten the day when proprietary system software and proprietary data formats are both regarded as quaint antiquities."

-- Tim Bray, co-editor of the W3C XML 1.0 and Namespaces in XML Recommendations

The Project code, along with developer participation guidelines, are now available at http://xml.apache.org/

About the Apache Software Foundation

Founded in June 1999, the Apache Software Foundation provides organizational, legal, and financial support for the Apache open-source software projects. Formerly known as the Apache Group, the Foundation incorporated as a membership-based, not-for-profit corporation to ensure that the Apache projects continue to exist beyond the participation of individual volunteers, to enable contributions of intellectual property and financial support, and to provide a vehicle for limiting legal exposure while participating in open-source projects.

For more information on the Apache Software Foundation, please see http://www.apache.org/