As you may or may not be aware, Drools 3 will have a non XML language for DRL.
Drools 3 uses the normal pattern of a content based AST representing the language constructs as parsed out of the source. (these classes currrently have the Descr post-fix to indicate they are description classes). Now, some there still is a requirement to support XML (but not require it) - for people who are generating rules form other systems, or who need to interchange etc. Also, a "native" XML format would serve as a useful foundation for doing XSLT from various flavours of RuleML, OWL etc etc.. (and whatever else). I have created a JIRA to track this http://jira.jboss.com/jira/browse/JBRULES-61 I am interested in input in anyone with a fair bit of experience with good XML binding tools. My experience is a little old, and is with JAXB 1, which I would defintately *not* recommend unless you like pain these days. We want to do a 1 to 1 binding from XML to the Descr classes, http://anonsvn.labs.jboss.com/trunk/labs/jbossrules/drools-compiler/src/main/java/org/drools/lang/descr/with PackageDescr at the "top" of the tree. I guess we will need an XSD, or perhaps generate one from the Descr classes (as they will be "the source of truth"). Anyone have ideas or want to get involved?
