JULog - Java Unified Logging API

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There are several libraries that implement a logging facility in Java. Whenever you write an application, you can choose between Apache Jakarta Log4J, Apache Jakarta Avalon LogKit, or you can use the JDK 1.4 logging, just to name a few. So far, so good - you pick your preferred logging package, integrate it into the application, and use it.

On the other hand, whenever you write a reusable library (or a web application, or any other piece of code that is not run on its own but rather integrated into a broader context) you don't want to stick to any particular logging library. When your code is integrated into an application, you just want to use whatever logging library the integrating application gives you. This is quite similar to the problem of XML parsing - you don't want to hardwire your library to any XML parser, rather you use JAXP to discover the XML parser used by the application. JAXP provides a parser neutral entry point to XML parsing services. In a similar fashion, JULog provides a logging library neutral entry point to logging services. In short, JULog is for logging what JAXP is for XML parsing.

• Seamless, automatic integration with Log4J, Avalon LogKit, and JDK 1.4 logging - whichever is first detected is used.
• Support for other logging packages is planned in near future
• It is very thin - the JAR is 10KBytes in size
• It has a very liberal license - it's similar to BSD license, but even less restrictive. It does require retaining the copyright notices on source code, but it doesn't require you to acknowledge the copyright when distributed as binary code. This is the main advantage for using JULog over using similar thin logging adapters (like the Logging module in Jakarta Commons). I.e. if everything you want to use from Jakarta is Commons Logging, you'd be still forced to display the acknowledgement in binary distro of your library. Which, frankly, can be too much for such a thin layer of code.

The JULog library is available under a relaxed BSD-style license. This roughly means that you can use and modify it in either binary or source form for commercial and non-commercial purposes as long as you give proper credit to the copyright holder in source code, but contrary to the ordinary BSD license, you need not even mention it if you are distributing it in binary form only. This means that you can integrate JULog with your project even by copying its source files to your source tree, and need not mention it in README files, About boxes, etc. if you don't want to. You can view the actual text of the license here. You can either download releases,or you can access the latest bits from the CVS repository.

If you would like to get involved with this project, please visit the project page at SourceForge. You will find the CVS repository, mailing lists and other collaboration resources there.