/*
 * Copyright (c) Codice Foundation
 *
 * This is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either
 * version 3 of the License, or any later version. 
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
 * See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details. A copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License is distributed along with this program and can be found at
 * <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html>.
 *
 */

Welcome to Distributed Data Framework (DDF)
============================================
Distributed Data Framework (DDF) is an agile and modular integration framework. 

The following benefits are provided:
  * Standardization
    - Building on established Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and open standards avoids vendor lock-in
  * Extensibility
    - Capabilities can be extended by developing and sharing new features
  * Flexibility
    - Only features required can be deployed
  * Simplicity of installation and operation
    - Unzip and run
    - Configuration via a Web console
  * Simplicity of Development
    - Build simple Java Objects and wire them in via a choice of dependency injection frameworks
    - Make use of widely available documentation and components for DDF's underlying technologies
    - Modular development supports multi-organizational and multi-regional teams
  * Security
    - Web Service Security (WSS) functionality that comes with DDF is integrated throughout the system
    - Provides a Security Framework (a set of APIs that define the integration with the DDF framework)
    - Provides Security Service reference implementations for a realistic end-to-end use case.

Getting Started
===============
For a DDF source distribution, please read
the README.md file at https://github.com/codice/ddf for instructions on building DDF.

For a DDF binary distribution, please read
the release notes on the wiki for a list of supported and unsupported features.

How to Run
==========
* Unzip the distribution. 
* Run the executable at <distribution_home>/bin/ddf.bat (Windows) or <distribution_home>/bin/ddf (*NIX)

Additional Information
=====================

The wiki is the right place to find any information about DDF: https://tools.codice.org/wiki/display/DDF

Discussions can be found on the forum: http://groups.google.com/group/ddf-codice.

For a DDF binary distribution, please read
the release notes on the wiki for a list of supported and unsupported features.

If you find any issues with DDF, please submit reports
with JIRA here:
    https://tools.codice.org/jira/browse/DDF

For information on contributing to DDF see http://www.codice.org/contributing.

Many thanks for using DDF.

The Codice DDF Development Team

