The initial code submission for the Apache Beehive project, the cross-container, open-source application framework for building SOAs and enterprise Java applications, is now available to the public from the Apache Software Foundation.

BEA strongly believes Beehive can help enable developers to begin developing and collaborating on SOA-based applications: "With the open-source community adding value to our innovations, we hope to help a greater number of Java developers build and orchestrate J2EE and service-based applications more easily, without having to sacrifice portability and long-term investment protection," said Cornelius Willis, the company's VP of developer marketing.

The Apache Software Foundation provides organizational, legal and financial support for a broad range of open-source software projects via an established framework for intellectual property and financial contributions that are designed to help simultaneously limit contributors' potential legal exposure. Through a collaborative development process, Apache projects are designed to deliver enterprise-grade, freely available software products that can attract large communities of users. The Apache License is designed to help make it easy for users at all levels, commercial and individual, to deploy Apache products.

"BEA has contributed greatly to the strength of our Apache Beehive and Apache XMLBeans communities, which can help to foster future innovations and increased collaboration among our projects," said Greg Stein, Chairman, Apache Software Foundation. "Apache Beehive has the potential to make Java enterprise application development easier while giving developers state-of-the-art innovations they can use with any platform," he added.