Web middleware company MuleSoft has entered into a partnership with Ubuntu services provider Canonical, to improve the Apache Tomcat package for Ubuntu and Debian.
The company said that the contributions, focused on improving ‘out-of-the-box’ usability of Tomcat with these distributions of Linux, which will appear in the upcoming Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Debian Squeeze (6.0) releases.
Ubuntu brings together free and open source software and contains applications including a web browser, office suite, media applications, and instant messaging, all for use on common technology platforms.
According to Mulesoft, the improvements made to Tomcat packages in Debian and Ubuntu includes, Authbind is now the standard method for binding Tomcat to ports lower than 1024; the security manager now defaults to the disabled state; restarts are implemented in the init script; and Debian Tomcat 6 package is up to date with the latest stable release of Tomcat 6.0.24.
Matt Asay, COO at Canonical, said: “We share MuleSoft’s goal in improving the experience for users of open source software. The work that MuleSoft is doing will dramatically simplify the installation, configuration and use of Tomcat for the Debian and Ubuntu communities. We are fortunate to have some of the world’s leading Tomcat experts now involved in both projects.”
Jason Brittain, software architect at MuleSoft, said: “Part of our core mission at MuleSoft is to continue driving innovation in open source and to make life easier for users of Tomcat, however they access it.
About half of all the people who run Tomcat in a server environment get it through a Linux distribution, so many of the world’s Tomcat users will benefit from these improvements.”
