This has definitely been an exciting couple of weeks for Apache CXF. First, we finally got 2.2 out the door which significantly increases interopability with WCF and others, especially in regards to WS-Security type things, as well as some initial JAX-RS 1.0 API’s.
While that was being voted on, we FINALLY got access to the JAX-RS TCK. Thus, we can start getting it certified for JAX-RS in addition to JAX-WS. Still quite a bit of work to do to get it done, but at least we now have the tools.
Then, JOnAS becomes J2EE certified using Apache CXF for their JAX-WS implementation. I didn’t even know they were using CXF until I downloaded it to try it out. That was a pleasant surprise. Nice job to the whole JOnAS team. Getting the J2EE5 certification is NOT easy.
Finally, today, RedHat has announced that they are going to start supporting CXF as a core component of JBoss. This is a huge announcement. The JBoss team has a lot of expertise in the space. They have a very large and very complex test suite that goes WAY beyond the JAX-WS TCK. They also have quite a bit of expertise with interop testing with Microsoft and others. This is all very valuable experience that I hope we can leverage to improve CXF.
I’ve already seen some results from this. The RedHat folks have submitted several patches to CXF to fix various issues. They’ve also logged some other issues that their test suite has picked up and they are working on fixes for those as well. None of them have earned committership on CXF yet, but if they keep up the excellent work, I except it will eventually occur.
Anyway, this has been an EXCITING couple of weeks for CXF. It’s great to see years of hard work being validated by being used extensively.