This is a proposal for a metadata API for use in Xindice, though it can be used more generally for adding an XML metadata wrapper around an XML node. In short, it's SOAP-like, but *actually* simple.
Brian suggested I join this list and make the proposal here. I've included my initial message below, unedited. (I've still not heard at all from Sun.)
Anyway, I'm wondering what is the easiest, lowest-pain way to approach getting XNode 1.1 submitted to the Apache project. I'm under no IPR commitments at the Open University (I checked), so I can freely fill out whatever forms are necessary. If people want it, I can post the API javadocs or send them to interested parties. It's pretty small, 7 files, 9K compressed.
Thanks,
Murray
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: XNode 1.1 API submission
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 20:33:01 +0100
From: Murray Altheim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization: Knowledge Media Institute
To: Brian Behlendorf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Brian,
I don't know if you're aware, but while I was still at Sun I wrote an API to wrap XML documents in a SOAP-like wrapper to enable the attachment of metadata. That API was com.sun.xnode.XNode. I'd originally written it as part of a non-Sun project, as I was at the time involved with Doug Englebart's group at SRI, where Lee Iverson (now at UBC) had floated his "Nodal" project. I thought XNode was a Nodal-like thing for XML. Well, I was wrong, but that's where it started.
So anyway, my boss was laid off and I found myself (and the rest of my office) under Java management. I suggested using XNode and dbXML as part of Sun's Registry project, as we needed an XML database and a means of storing metadata. Long story short, the API was intended to be submitted to Apache but due to office reshuffling and my leaving off to school, it never happened. Sun still delivers com.sun.xnode.* as part of their Registry project (part of JWSDP), but has never published the API nor does there seem to be any interest in it. Likely below the radar, really.
I'd submitted the code to Xindice, but somebody pulled it off the server because there hadn't been the proper paperwork from Sun releasing the code. (No criticism -- that's what should have happened) So I sent a message off to Sun's "feedback" line, and one to Jeff Suttor, but after two weeks I've not heard anything at all. Like I said, probably under the radar.
Because XNode is a core API within my Ph.D. project Ceryle, I've gone
ahead and rewritten the API as "XNode 1.1". It is not quite backward
compatible with XNode 1.0, uses a different package designation (i.e.,
it uses the intended package of org.apache.xnode.*) and a different
XML namespace URI ("http://xml.apache.org/xnode/1.1"; rather than
"http://www.apache.org/xnode/1.0";, noting the www/xml difference as well
as the version number). I've altered/improved the method names in a few
places, added a method to allow embedding of a DOM Element as metadata
rather than simply name-value pairs, and rewritten the documentation.Now... what would it take for me to submit XNode 1.1 to Apache? I've always intending to do this and perhaps now it can be done. I realize there is some muddiness as to IPR, though several things keep that from being a problem for you:
1. the original API was never published publicly, except by me after
leaving Sun, hence in theory I own the copyright (but not the IPR
since I was under contract while at Sun)
2. Sun has not patented com.sun.xnode.XNode, so org.apache.xnode.XNode
is not an enfringement on copyright. You can't copyright ideas, only
patent them, so the ideas in com.sun.xnode.XNode that resurface in
org.apache.xnode.XNode are protected under Sun's IPR only insofar
as they are Sun's ideas. In reality, XNode is a combination of Lee
Iverson's NODAL and SOAP.
3. I've rewritten the API so you'd be receiving a *different* API.
4. They've never made any public splash about this, nor have they ever
published anything about it either. They could potentially come
after me for violating my IPR agreement (since in theory everything
I've ever done or said is now owned by them, even going back to my
birth), but there's no violation of copyright since they've not
published anything (which is required of US copyright laws). As
I mentioned previously, I actually beat them to it, so I in theory
own the copyright on XNode 1.0.
5. Sun has no history of going after things like this, esp. ones that
are way below the radar, esp. since I'm an ex-employee with no
resources, not Microsoft. They would not spend resources bothering
with such a thing, even if they could figure out where there was
any infringement (since I've not given away anything demonstrably
Sun's, having been away from them for over a year and a half).I've gussied the thing up, do you want it? :-)
Murray
........................................................................... Murray Altheim http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/ Knowledge Media Institute The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK .
"There have been ongoing problems with cockroaches getting on the
floor... they can wreak havoc with 350,000 dominoes." -- Brian Kim
http://www.guardian.co.uk/silly/story/0,10821,1017133,00.html
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