As the community forms, we need to formalize these guidelines, especially to differentiate 'requirements' from suggested 'guidelines'.
-Shane's starting proposals:
-Directory tree (preliminary)
+Shane's starting proposals:
+
xml-commons is an unusual project in several ways.
+First, it encompasses two kinds of code: external and apache.
+
Secondly,
+xml-commons mainly focuses on providing code and services to other
+xml.apache.org projects instead of shipping it's own 'standalone' project.
+
Third, it will also tend to be more focused on smaller, interoperable modules of
+code and a very high degree of stability.
In some ways, the forming of +xml-commons is the seed of a catalyst to improve cross-project coordination +throughout xml.apache.org. One potential goal is to get all xml.apache.org +projects to take their xml standards oriented code - like DOM, SAX and JAXP - +from specific marked builds of xml-commons, instead of each project +using different versions of these files.
+External code: xml-commons will serve as an Apache-controlled +copy of externally-defined standards-based files. This way, we can try +to manage common versions of these important xml standards-based files +and interfaces. Read more here.
+Apache code: xml-commons will serve as a shared repository for +common xml-oriented utilities or building blocks that several other +xml.apache.org projects wish to use. The first example is org.apache.env.Which, +and environment checking utility that scans your environment and reports common +versions of xml-related files. The next likely submission is an entity resolver +that could be plugged into any xml parsing, transforming, or processing +project. Read more here.
+Directory tree (proposed)
xml-commons/
README.html - this file
@@ -194,8 +218,35 @@ xml-related items in your JVM's environment: see xml-commons/java/which.xml
-Our first 'preview' release is planned for early January-2002.
-We'll certainly announce our first releases over general@xml.apache.org as well as our project mailing list.
+The xml-commons-1.0.b1 release 11-Jan-02 is available in our
+distribution directory and includes the following code:
+
+- java/build/which.jar containing:
+- org.apache.env.Which - a simple environment check utility for
+xml-related items in your JVM's environment: 1.0 funtionality working
+- java/external/build/xml-apis.jar containing:
+- DOM Level 2 including all base files and HTML and CSS DOMs; from w3c.org
+- JAXP code roughly equivalent to JAXP 1.1.3; for reference releases
+from Sun, see java.sun.com/xml
+- SAX 2.0-r2-prerelease and SAX2-ext-1.0; plus bugfixes to
+org.xml.sax.helpers.ParserAdapter (make compile in JDK 1.1.x) and AttributesImpl (minor
+removeAttribute bug); from megginson.com although SAX maintenance has
+now moved to sax.sourceforge.net
+
+
+Future 'b' or beta releases leading up to a gold 1.0 release will
+be discussed on our mailing list. Likely releases
+might address points like:
+
+- Improvements or submissions to org.apache.env.Which
+- A new submission of an entity resolver from Norman Walsh
+- A specific version of backlevel JAXP 1.1 that will work with
+Sun's J2EE CTS conformance tests, if enough people request it
+- Specific versions of SAX, if the xml.apache.org community
+requests it and wants to update to a newer shipped release of SAX, perhaps
+SAX 2R2pre3 or later
+
+