JBoss Developer Studio 2.0 – Portfolio Edition is now available. The development environment not only enhances the Eclipse-based toolset, but also adds JBoss Enterprise Application, Portal, SOA and Data Services Platforms. It builds on Eclipse – Java developer toolset and includes a set of tools developers need to quickly develop highly interactive applications and services using technologies like Seam, Java EE, AJAX and Portlets as part of standards-based Service Oriented Architectures.

Open Source software has had a major role to play in the growth of Java. Apache and in particular the Jakarta project has been the birth place of several top Java components like Struts, Ant and Tomcat. In this interview, we speak to Henri Yandell, the current chair of the Jakarta project.

Henri speaks about open source software and its contribution to Java. He also shares his thoughts on why one should contribute to open source and his views on open sourcing Java itself. He also tells us about projects he thinks have a lot to offer to Java developers and which projects hold promise for the future.