“News over the weekend that the Apache XML project could
create another parser put a few noses out of joint. The new
parser project–codenamed “Spinnaker”–is aimed at learning from
the experiences with Xerces (the largely IBM-contributed parser)
and Crimson (the Sun-contributed parser).”
“The consequent upset and discussion highlights some interesting
dynamics within the Apache XML project. Although an open source
endeavor, a substantial part of the Apache XML codebase has been
contributed by large vendors. IBM and Lotus in particular are
responsible for the XML parser, Xerces, and the XSLT processor,
Xalan. Sun also play a significant part in Apache’s Java projects.
Though nobody has suggested that Apache is in any way in the sway
of these organizations as a consequence of their donations, it
seems inevitable that the corporate and hacker cultures may well
clash. This weekend seems a good example of this.”
“James Davidson announced the initiative early on Saturday
morning. He gave a pretty full explanation of the initiative, and
set it in its context as an experimental “internal fork” which
“scratches the itch” of several developers within the Apache XML
project. He also mentioned that the current parser, Xerces, being
optimized for JDK1.1 performs suboptimally on Hotspot, Sun’s
optimizing Java VM, and as a consequence of its optimization the
code is hard to read. Both of these factors effectively preclude
Xerces’ inclusion in Sun’s JDK. This only leaves Sun the option of
pressing ahead integrating Crimson in their JDK. Hence the desire
to create a new parser under the Apache umbrella, which Sun would
ultimately integrate.”