[jboss-dev] AS usage of lib/endorsed jars

[Dimitris Andreadis]

The lib/endorsed jars in the AS distro is a subject that comes up every once in a while.

In AS 4.0.x we have in lib/endorsed/
	resolver.jar
	serializer.jar
	xalan.jar
	xercesImpl.jar
	xml-apis.jar

In trunk (AS5) there is also an additional jaxb-api.jar

And in the AS 4.2.x series resolver.jar and xml-apis.jar were left out due to some build 
issue that went unnoticed until now (I'll spare you the details).

Now the question is what *really* needs to be in lib/endorsed and most importantly why?

Jdk5 suggests the following packages to be overridable, essentially CORBA stuff plus:
org.w3c.dom
org.xml.sax
org.xml.sax.ext
org.xml.sax.helpers

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/standards/

--- resolver.jar ---
Who's using it / how? We have our own org.jboss.util.xml.JBossEntityResolver (in jboss 
common) with an open JIRA to externalize its configuration:
http://jira.jboss.com/jira/browse/JBAS-2038

And another port of the apache resolver which I understand it's not yet complete?
http://jira.jboss.com/jira/browse/JBWS-678

Is the conf/jax-ws-catalog.xml file in AS5 actually in use?

--- xml-apis.jar ---
Isn't jdk5 already providing the right version of the xml apis?

--- xerces.jar ---
Can't we use the embedded jdk5 one?

--- xalan.jar / serializer.jar ---
Long discussion about moving this out of lib/endorsed:
http://jira.jboss.com/jira/browse/JBAS-2073

--- jaxb-api.jar ---
I understand this is needed for jax-ws ?
http://www.bhaskarvk.info/content/jboss/jbossws_2_0_1.html

It is often the case that users want to have different version of those libs and by putting 
them in endorsed we force them to scope their deployments.

Any input and strong opinions for tiding things up is appreciated, especially from the 
"heavy" XML users (WS, XB, SOA, etc.)

Thanks
/Dimitris