The Apache Software Foundation's Jakarta Project has gone live! The goal of the Jakarta Project is to provide commercial-quality server solutions based on the Java Platform that are developed in an open and cooperative fashion.It's my pleasure to announce that the Jakarta Project is now LIVE.
Almost exactly one year ago, several people from Sun, IBM, and the Apache Group (now the Apache Software Foundation) met in Cupertino CA in a conference room named "Jakarta". The topic of the meeting: How could we all cooperate in the development of Java technologies on the Web server.
What eventually resulted was that Sun made the decision to release the reference implementations for the Servlet and JavaServer Pages (JSP) specifications to the Apache Software Foundation so that development of these technologies could take place in a open and collaborative way. The specifications will continue to be sheparded by Sun under the Java Community Process.
Sun and the Apache Software Foundation annouced our intent to form the Jakarta Project last June at JavaOne. Over the course of the last few months, all the necessary peices came together for release: The Project Management Committee was formed, all the necessary legal agreements were executed, the project guidelines were created, and the code was prepared.
A week ago, we transferred the code over to the Apache Software Foundation's servers and started making our final prepartions. After a lot of work by a lot of people, we were ready to proceed.
So here we are. We've turned it all on, the locks have been removed. The code is open. What comes next is up to you.
There's a whole new website at:
http://jakarta.apache.org
The website contains information about who we are, how the project works, and how you can contribute. By all means, it's not done (it will *never* be done) and there are lots of things that will be filled in over the next few days / weeks / months. But its enough to get you started.
There's 3 source code repositories that are part of Jakarta:
- jakarta-tomcat
- jakarta-watchdog
- jakarta-tools
Jakarta-Tomcat is the workspace that contains "Tomcat". Tomcat is the implementation of the servlet and JSP specifications. More to the point, it is currently considered to be a beta quality implementation of the Servlet 2.2 and JSP 1.1 specifications. To start contributing, subscribe to the tomcat-dev mailing list available on the website.
Jakarta-Watchdog is the workspace that contains "Watchdog". Watchdog is a collection of API tests for the servlet and JSP specifications. Over time, this will grow to become a comprehensive test suite so that any server that implements the JSP and Servlet specifications can be tested for adherence to the specifications. To start contributing, subscribe to the watchdog-dev mailing list available on the website.
Jakarta-Tools is a collection of tools that are used in the other workspaces. These tools are "Ant", a Java based build tool that we use instead of make; and "Moo", a Java based client server test harness which is used in Watchdog and in the product tests located in the Tomcat workspaces.
The source code repositories are available via:
- WebCVS
- Anonymous CVS
- Downloadable snapshots
Over the next weeks, builds will start becoming available.
I'd like to mention again that a *lot* of people contributed to the effort to get this off the ground and rolling. I'd like to thank all of them here and now for all their help in getting to this point. You know who you are!
Enjoy!
James Duncan Davidson
Jakarta PMC Chair
Servlet API Architect (Sun Microsystems)
