Hi,

The MATLAB API for XML Processing (MAXP) is based on Xalan-c and is vey much 
alive. Thus, retiring Xalan-c would be a major blow for us, especially as 
Xalan-c is unable to execute the DocBook XSL-FO style sheet. We were planning 
to file a bug report regarding this issue.

We too great;u  appreciate the hard and skillful work that went into Xalan-c, 
including Roger's update of the build infrastructure,  and would be sorry to 
see it retired.

Regards,

Paul Kinnucan
Development Manager
MATLAB and Simulink Report Generators
MathWorks
1 Lakeside Campus Drive
Natick, MA 01760
pa...@mathworks.com
508-647-7271



-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Blough <de...@blough.us.INVALID> 
Sent: Friday, June 24, 2022 9:31 AM
To: d...@xalan.apache.org
Cc: c-users@xalan.apache.org
Subject: Re: Future of xalan-c

Hi Roger,

First and foremost, thanks for all the work you've done on Xalan.

On Wed, Jun 22, 2022 at 11:21:11PM +0100, rle...@codelibre.net wrote:
> 
> I don't personally think there is sufficient community involvement or 
> developer involvement to realistically support Xalan-C as an active 
> project in any sense.  There is no one working on it.  And while I'm 
> sure there are some users, there's next to no active engagement of users as a 
> community.
> 
> I've made a good effort to keep the project going for the near- to 
> medium-term.  The CMake build made it possible to build on all 
> contemporary platforms.  The documentation switch to Markdown made it 
> possible to build without obsolete and unavailable Java libraries.  
> The bugfixes we included in 1.12 fixed a number of critical issues.  
> So 1.12 should serve as a usable release for the foreseeable future 
> even in the absence of further development.
>
> However, I don't see a future for anything beyond 1.12 unless there is 
> a dramatic change.  XSLT usage is declining, and Xalan-C doesn't 
> support XSLT
> 2.0 and beyond.  Rather than letting the current situation linger on 
> indefinitely, I wanted to suggest we take stock of where we are, and 
> if there is consensus to do so, I think it would be advisable to draw 
> a line at this point and end the project gracefully.

I expect that pretty much all of the systems using Xalan these days are legacy 
systems.  That is, I highly doubt anyone is writing new software that uses it.
So the only involvement I would expect would be the occasional reporting of a 
bug that hasn't turned up yet, or build system or compiler version related 
issues as systems are upgraded.

As far as I can tell, Xalan works well for what it does, and in my experience 
most legacy software doesn't receive a lot of changes/upgraded other than the 
bare minimum to stay compliant with audits, etc.

As you said, XSLT usage (and XML for that matter) is declining, so in my 
opinion, doing major feature work (such as supporting newer XSLT
standards) has very little to no payoff from a cost/benefit perspective.
So in that regard, I agree that Xalan isn't likely to see another major release.

However, there are still users, and sometimes things break as systems get 
upgraded.  So I guess a question is, do we feel it's worth it to support these 
users by way of small maintenance efforts on an as-needed basis, even though we 
know that usage is trending down over time, and that there will never be 
another major release?

Or, perhaps a bigger question is, will there be enough devs to continue the 
project, even for just the small maintenance efforts?
Forgive me if I'm reading too much into your message, but I'm wondering if you 
bringing this up is due to wanting to step away from the project?
If that's the case, then ultimately we need to determine if there will continue 
to be enough people to conduct votes. If not, then there will be little choice 
in the matter.

Personally, I'd like to see Xalan stay around, if for no other reason than to 
continue support for those existing legacy users.  Though I realize that's an 
easy thing for me to say, as I haven't been very active in the past couple of 
years (in any of the FLOSS projects I'm involved with, not just Xalan 
specifically).

Regardless, thanks for bringing this up. I think it's a good thing for all 
projects to ask themselves from time to time.

Best regards,
Bill


--
GPG: 5CDD 0C9C F446 BC1B 2509  8791 1762 E022 7034 CF84

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@xalan.apache.org For additional 
commands, e-mail: dev-h...@xalan.apache.org

Reply via email to