Objective

Fedora has used Axis 1.3 for SOAP support for quite some time. This is an obsolete library and better alternatives (with support for MTOM and for protocols in addition to HTTP) are available. This improvement will update Fedora to use a modern Java WS framework for SOAP and move away from Axis 1.3. In addition, it would update Fedora's SOAP API to use MTOM where appropriate.

When finished, it should be possible to integrate this work into a future feature release of Fedora, without requiring a major release. That means that it should not change Fedora's SOAP interface as perceived by outside applications.

Key Decisions

So far, the following parameters/scoping decisions have been made for the work:

• Scope: SOAP API only, but consider how the library choice affects the REST API.
• Contract-first vs Code-first? Jiri's preference is contract-first. This is compatible with our desire to keep the work relegated to the SOAP side, and wire-compatible with previous versions of Fedora

Work Plan

May 23 - 31: Analysis and framework recommendation

Jiri will report out his findings in this wiki page and in an email to the fedora-dev list before 31 May. He will compare the major contenders for the replacement library (which right now include Metro, Apache CXF< Apache Axis 2, and JBoss WS) using several criteria including but not limited to: community support, tooling support (presence in Maven Central), ease-of-integration, MTOM support, inter al. After some period for comment, a decision will be taken and Jiri can proceed.