A posting from Thomas Lee (CECID) announces the formation of a new 'freebXML' initiative that aims to foster the development and adoption of ebXML and related technologies. freebXML is an international effort comprising of founding members from technology firms, government organizations, standardization bodies, and academic institutions. The mission of freebXML is to provide a centralized Website for ebXML users and developers from around the world to access and share 'free' ebXML code and applications. Users and developers can also exchange their ebXML development and deployment experience at www.freebXML.org. Some features of www.freebxml.org include 'open source' projects for download, deployment or use cases of ebXML technology, a list of ebXML vendor products, latest news on freebXML, and discussion forums for developers and users. Access to www.freebxml.org is free of charge and open to all individuals and organizations interested in ebXML. Initially, two 'open-source' projects are available for download: Hermes and ebxmlrr. Hermes is a Message Service Handler (MSH) implementation of OASIS' ebXML Message Service V2 Standard. ebxmlrr is an implementation of the ebXML Registry/Repository V2 Standard. Donated to the ebXML development community by CECID, Hermes is released under the Academic Free License. ebxmlrr, hosted at SourceForge, is an international collaboration with developers from around the world based on the initial code donation by Sun Microsystems Inc. The ebxmlrr project is released under an Apache style open source license that permits royalty free use of the source and binaries."

"freebXML.org is sponsored by the Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development and the Department of Computer Science & Information Systems at the University of Hong Kong. Founding members include technical leaders from international technology firms, government organizations, standardization bodies and academic institutions. Representatives include Cyclone Commerce (USA), Kasetsart University (Thailand), Korea Institute for Electronic Commerce (Korea), Sterling Commerce (USA), Sun Microsystems (USA), Sybase (USA), XML Global (Canada), and the University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong, China).

Hermes Message Service Handler: "ebMS V2 Hermes r0.9 is a Message Service Handler (MSH) implementation. It is in compliance with the OASIS ebXML Message Service (ebMS V2) standard. Messaging Service is a key component in the ebXML technical architecture that enables the realization of the vision of creating a single global electronic marketplace for enterprises of any size and in anywhere. ebMS utilizes SOAP, Internet transport protocols, and other security standards to provide a standardized, reliable, and secure infrastructure for enterprises to exchange business documents. Hermes supports secure messaging functions through widely-adopted Internet security technologies, such as XML Signature, SSL (Secure Socket Layer) and S/MIME (Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions). It has also implemented reliable delivery features defined in ebMS Standard to ensure the exchanged message is received and intact. The feature list of Hermes includes message packaging, reliable messaging, message ordering, error handling, security, synchronous reply, message status service, and RDBMS persistent storage. Hermes also supports transport protocols, such as HTTP and SMTP, to suit different needs of large and small enterprises, and different business requirements. In addition to secure and reliable messaging functions, Hermes supports the concept of 'quality of service' by respecting in-force agreements between itself and any other ebMS-compliant MSH with which it communicates. These agreements are expressed as CPA..."

ebXML Registry/Repository: "ebxmlrr is a powerful and flexible registry and repository implementation based upon a generic and extensible information model. The registry is a way of storing meta information about entries in the repository. Any type of data can be stored in the repository including Web Service descriptions, XML data and documents, binary data (such as images, sound files, video data, executable application files, CAD files, etc.), and any other kind of data. Using the registry, this data can be searched and classified using advanced and ad hoc query mechanisms such as XML filter query and SQL query. Consequently, the OASIS ebXML Registry/Repository standard enables a powerful and flexible registry that can be deployed as a public registry, a private registry used within an organization, or a registry shared by an organization and its partners. The ebxmlrr UI client software provides a unique user interface (UI) for graphically visualizing registry content. It is based on the Java API for XML Registries ('JAXR'). JAXR provides a single standard Java API that allows Java programmers to interact with emerging standards for XML Registries including both ebXML Registry and UDDI. This UI client software also uses the Java API for XML Messaging ('JAXM') in order to send SOAP based messages between the client software and the registry. These SOAP messages are used to send requests to the OASIS ebXML Registry and to receive responses from the registry. Both the registry and client software are the results of an international collaboration with developers from around the world. These open-source projects, released under an Apache style open source license that permits royalty free use of the source and binaries, are hosted and can be downloaded at Source Forge."