xmlhack: Apache has mixed feelings about XML-RPC

Jason van Zyl proposed to accept the Helma XML-RPC implementation, already used by Turbine, into the Jakarta Apache project, provoking a strong pushback from xml-soap committer Sam Ruby.

Jason van Zyl and Hannes Wallnoefer (author of Helma XML-RPC) consider XML-RPC an easy-to-use RPC technology, needed by Jakarta projects such as Turbine. The justification for putting it in the Jakarta project is that the use of a (subset of) XML is only incidental, and the code is more appropriate for Jakarta.

Van Zyl says:

It does use XML, sure, but it is primarily a set of servers and clients which I think fits in more with Jakarta. It's an XML technology, but so is the digester in the commons, Jetspeed was going to move to xml.apache.org but landed in jakarta. Ant is a tool that uses XML exclusively (right now anyway) and it's in Jakarta.

Hannes Wallnoefer emphasizes the fact that his XML-RPC implementation doesn't use a full XML parser:

XML-RPC is a protocol that has been explicitly frozen since 1998 or so, and even at that time it only used a small subset of XML. XML-RPC is not about XML, it just uses the minimum XML necessary to pass method calls and data between clients/servers. This means that coupling XML-RPC with a full featured XML environment may not have a lot of benefits -- in fact, in my experience all it does is increase memory footprint and download size and decrease performance, simply because XML-RPC doesn't use any but the most primitive parsing facilities.

But many other members believe that XML-RPC does belong to xml.apache.org, since it's both an XML application and related to SOAP, which is "already over on xml.apache.org".

The strongest opponent to this proposal appears to be Sam Ruby who asserted that "any such nomination should be to xml.apache.org." He voted against the proposal:

Short and simple: -1. Good luck getting 3/4 approval...