Falko Braeutigam announced that the ozone project has given birth to Infozone, "a framework and toolset that allows to create EIP applications" including ozone together with Prowler and also that ozone has begun a preliminary discussion with Stefano Mazzocchi which could lead Infozone under the Apache XML umbrella.

Braeutigam said that Infozone is "an Apache Group like organization" integrating both the ozone Object Oriented XML enabled database and the Prowler project.

In a previous post, Braeutigam explained the goal of Prowler , a "central CMS based on XML and ozone" replacing a repository package previously shipped with ozone:

"Prowler is a framework that allows you to access XML repositories (ozoneXML, simple file store, maybe others) *and* any other kind of data source (mail server, EJB server, SQL, whatever) via an uniform XML interface (XPath, XUL, DOM)."

He also explained its complimentarily with Cocoon:

"Although the Prowler API is a general API, it is intended to be used for web apps in a servlet environment. So Prowler needs a publishing front-end. Cocoon is perfect for this. Therefore we are trying to give Prowler an interface that can be used with Cocoon directly"

The new project has received a warm feedback from Ann Tecklenburg :

"The new code for Infozone: Prowler, etc. is stunning!
Everyone reading this who is more than a casual user should take a look at the new code base: It goes way beyond where Ozone was before.""

and from Stefano Mazzocchi on the Cocoon list :

Mazzocchi : "I'll take a look at your projects with great interests and hope that we can continue collaboration in the future."

Braeutigam : "Just personal curiosity: do you think there is a chance to get Infozone under the Apache umbrella? I was assuming that there is no such chance..."

Mazzocchi : "It is unfortunate we didn't express this sooner... but maybe it's not too late to change your minds on the licensing issues :-)
Besides, the Apache brand would protect you no matter what."