WSO2 is releasing its open source WSO2 Web Services Framework for Spring 1.0 (WSF/Spring1.0), providing users of the Spring Java framework with an Apache Axis2/Java Web services engine for use in developing applications.

Users get access to the Axis2 library, said Paul Fremantle, WSO2 CTO. "It basically puts the configuration and setup of that library all in a Spring framework," he said.

WSO2's announcement further proves how vital Spring is in the Java world, said RedMonk analyst Michael Cote. "The other side of that is that WSO2's Spring integration here is a good idea. One of the benefits and promises of open source middleware is that it will integrate with more things more often than closed source middleware that's on a longer release cycle," Cote said.

Featured are security and reliable messaging capabilities for SOA plus the capability for developers to use their favorite Spring user interfaces. Currently, the SpringWebServices project within Spring supports a contract-first model in which users start with XML schema and WSDL definitions of their service, WSO2 said. WSF/Spring 1.0 adds code-first support in which users can start with existing Spring beans and offer them as Web services with a Spring configuration.

Other features of WSF Spring 1.0 include support for the WS-* stack for Web services; an inversion of control container, which allows use of POJOs (Plain Old Java Objects) to make programming easier; automated WSDL generation; querying service support; and control over which methods get exposed as Web service operations.

WSF/Spring 1.0 is being used as the basis for building Web services within the Grails Web application framework based on the Groovy language, WSO2 said.