# Introduction

Release 8.3 is the latest installment of Saxonica's progressive implementation of the XPath 2.0, XSLT 2.0, and XQuery 1.0 specifications. This release implements the schema-aware features of these languages, and also includes a free-standing schema processor conforming to XML Schema 1.0

Saxon 8.3 revises the support for the new APIs in JAXP 1.3, to ease installation problems when running under JDK 1.4.

These APIs are standard with J2SE 5.0 (also known as JDK 1.5). When using Saxon 8.3 with JDK 1.4, these facilities are only available if you download the JAXP 1.3 library from Sun, and ensure that the files `jaxp-api.jar` and `dom.jar` are on your `CLASSPATH`. However, for standard XQuery and XSLT processing these extra libraries are not needed. For further information see Prerequisites.

The product is aligned with the W3C working drafts published on 11 February 2005, though a few features are not yet implemented.

Saxon 8.3 is available in two versions. Saxon-B 8.3 is a non-schema-aware processor, and is available as an open-source product, free of charge, from SourceForge. It is designed to conform to the basic conformance level of XSLT 2.0, and the equivalent level of functionality in XQuery 1.0. Saxon-SA 8.3 is the schema-aware version of the package, and is available as a commercially supported product from Saxonica Limited. Licensing options are available to provide XSLT only, XQuery only, or schema validation only, as well as a full license that gives access to all functionality.

This documentation covers both products, with differences noted where applicable.

Please note: this documentation is provided on the Saxonica web site and also in the download file. On occasions the online version may be more up-to-date. The download file also includes full API documentation: see the doc/api directory.

JavaDoc API specifications (for the current release only) are also available.

A full change log is provided in changes.html

Saxon 8.x has been used for production applications by many users. The code is proving stable and reliable. However, you need to be aware that the specifications are still subject to change, and that new Saxon releases will track the changing specifications with no concessions to backward compatibility.

If you are looking for complete stability, the preferred version for production use remains Saxon 6.5.3, which implements XSLT 1.0 and XPath 1.0.

Saxon 8.3 requires Java JDK 1.4 or later. If you have a choice, it is best to use JDK 1.5, since that includes the latest version of JAXP as standard, giving less scope for configuration problems. (Note that JDK 1.5 is sometimes called JDK 5.0)

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