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About Free XML Tools

History

Originally this was just a simple list of Free XML Tools with links to the various ones. Then, I was asked to collect information on free tools for Goldfarb and Prescod's The XML Handbook, and this very much expanded the site, effectively to something like what it is now. The contents on this site have been included in all editions of the Handbook, both as a chapter in the book, and as a CD-ROM containing copies of the actual tools.

The original version of the site was just an HTML document. When redone for The XML Handbook the entire site was ported to a single XML document (quite big, at 240k), containing all the information on the site. This was rendered to HTML using a set of Python scripts.

Recently, the site has been ported to Topic Map, and is now built with the Ontopia Knowledge Suite. This has made it much more powerful, easier to maintain, and more flexible.

Site policy

To be included, a resource has to fulfill several requirements:

• It must be software, not just documentation or guidelines.
• It must be generally useful and not tied to a specific DTD. Note that some conversion software and other software generates XML according to hard-wired DTDs, but is still useful, since this serves as a useful basis for further conversion.
• It must be truly free (as defined below).

This site uses a very pragmatic definition of free. For something to be free simply means that users are allowed to use it without payment for an unrestricted period of time. Tools which are only free during beta testing are not added.

If you see a tool listed here that seems to be in violation of these principles, please send me an email about it. If I find that I agree with you will remove the tool from the site.