I am having a look at http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=19897
This proposal seems to address most of the points discussed in this mailing list concerning the antlib thread of discussion. I was thinking maybe we do not need to look further and we could commit this contribution ? I would be glad to hear your comments concerning : 1) the functionality provided by the contribution 2) the implementation I am quoting Peter Reilly here : This patch adds 4 new features (the code is interrelated, but may be split). * adapter attribute added to typedef * add(Type) method added to introspection rules * typedef can read an xml defintion file * namespace support for xml defintions (antlib:) So one can do <project xmlns:acme="org.acme.anttasks"> <acme:hello> <path path="build.xml"/> </acme:hello> </project> where the class path contains the org/acme/anttasks/antlib.xml and the antlib.xml file contains: <antlib> <typedef name="hello" classname="org.acme.anttasks.Hello"/> </antlib> ToDo: add in support for ant-type polymorphism and addConfigured(Type). also more error checking and unit tests. Antoine