DAV4J Source Released on developerWorks

IBM is pleased to announce the DAV4J source is now available on 
developerWorks under the IBM Public License. Full details can be found at 
the new DAV4J home site at 
http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/dav4j. DAV4J will 
eventually be moved off the alphaWorks site, so update you links to the 
new developerWorks site.

Although DAV4J is hosted under the open source zone on developerWorks, IBM 
is not creating an Open Source project for DAV4J at this time. We are only 
making the source available to help support the WebDAV community through:

    - an offering to promote the development of the WebDAV grounded in the 

      reality of an implementation
    - a platform for easily exploring the WebDAV protocol and 
implementation 
      options as it evolves
    - feedback to the WebDAV working groups based on real implementation
      experience
    - a client API that facilitates WebDAV client application development
    - a server architecture supporting multiple repository managers
    - an implementation based on the Java and servlet standards supporting 

      WebDAV methods in many current Web servers

IBM is also participating in the Apache/mod_dav Open Source effort, and 
includes mod_dav in the IBM HTTP server (which is Apache). See 
www.webdav.org for details. I (Jim Amsden) will be monitoring the DAV4J 
mailing list, and will consider updates, bug fixes, new features, etc., 
time permitting.
The DAV4J client API provides Java client applications with a simple, rich 
interface for accessing resources managed by a WebDAV server. Using this 
API, client applications are relieved from managing the details of the low 
level HTTP communication protocol, constructing and parsing XML request 
and response entity bodies, and the complexities of the WebDAV semantics. 
DAV4J also provides a servlet that with WebSphere AppServer extends the 
Apache Web server with the WebDAV Class 2 protocol. 
DAV4J provides: 

1. Protocol independent (not just WebDAV) communication between client and 
server applications including support for http:, rmi:, and local access. 
Support for iiop: may be provided in a future release. Local access is 
used if the host name in the URL is the local host and no port is 
specified.\
 
2. A high-level, object-oriented interface capturing the WebDAV Class 2 
semantics that can interface with any WebDAV Class 2 compliant server. 

3. A Java servlet that along with WebSphere AppServer enables DAV Class 2 
methods in the Apache Web server. The Apache Web server can be configured 
so that some URLs can be handled either directly by the Apache server 
without WebDAV methods while other URLs are handled by the DAV4J servlet 
with WebDAV methods. This allows a single Apache server to be both a 
production and authoring server on different partitions of the URL 
namespace. 

4. The ability to access multiple back end repository managers using a 
single, common, standard, simple protocol: WebDAV. The DAV4J architecture 
encapsulates low-level repository services required to implement the 
WebDAV semantics into a number of simple Java interfaces. All that is 
required to provide WebDAV access to a repository manager is to implement 
these interfaces on the repository manager. DAV4J includes a repository 
manager based on the local file system as a reference implementation and 
example of how to integrate a repository manager. 

5. Platform independent, 100% pure Java portability. 
DAV4J consists of the DAV4J client API, the DAV4J servlet, and the file 
system repository manager. By changing a few simple properties, Web 
servers supporting servlets can be configured to support WebDAV methods. 
The distribution includes configuration information for the Apache Web 
server and IBM WebSphere AppServer. WebDAV is described in the IETF draft 
specification RFC2518