Motivation behind the Geronimo project

Apache Geronimo started as an application server. The first release of Apache Geronimo, that is, version 1.0 was J2EE 1.4 certified. The latest version is backward compatible to the J2EE 1.4, 1.3, and 1.2 specifications. The rationale behind Apache Software Foundation creating this project was:

• There was no open source J2EE server based on BSD license available in the market at the time Apache Geronimo was proposed. With BSD license, anyone could modify the source code and also include it in their derivative offerings without making the derivative open source.

• There were many projects in the Apache Software Foundation that implemented parts of the J2EE specification. The rationale was to create a full application server that used these best-of-breed open source components internally and filled in the gaps that were missing.

• There was still more room for innovation in the J2EE application server space.

Thus Apache Geronimo was born.