We’re happy to announce that as of today, Red Hat has become a key contributor to the Apache CXF, which is an open source, fully featured, easy to use Web Services framework. It is the combination of two projects: Celtix developed by IONA and XFire developed at Codehaus working together at the Apache Software Foundation.

Apache CXF is a popular open source, standards based framework for developing (SOAs) Service Oriented Architectures. Our aim is to contribute to the framework’s continued development and to increase the interoperability and enterprise readiness of CXF.

Additionally, we’ll be providing full production and developer support for Apache CXF as a core component of our JBoss Enterprise Platforms. Enterprise architects, Java developers and IT operations personnel will now see the Apache CXF framework as fully supported component of our JBoss Enterprise Subscriptions.

Commonly accepted Web Service standards are vital to the continued adoption of SOA. The standard proprietary, closed source model is at odds with the open, consensus driven nature of SOAs and the standards that support them. By joining the Apache CXF project, our goal is to help establish the framework as the de-facto open source Web Services Stack for Java, working together with other existing contributors like the FUSE team at Progress Software.

For more information on Red Hat’s work with the Apache CXF project please visit the JBoss Web Services project.