Balise, a well known European
SGML transformation environment acquired in January 1999 by Inso Corporation, will
be XMLized and distributed as open source, it was announced at XML Europe 2000.
Described by
Lars Marius Garshol as:
"a powerful scripting language for conversions, validation, database
import and other tasks built over James Clark's SP SGML/XML parser",
Balise had not undergone any major development since Inso Corporation
acquired the product and release 5,
announced in January 99
is still awaited.
The decision to open source Balise was probably necessary
to keep the product afloat and it should open up the game in
the field of XML transformation languages where Balise will
join XSLT, Omnimark and DSSSL.
The applause which followed this announcement in the XML Europe 2000
lunch room demonstrated that the product is still present in the memory of its European users.