I released Amara 1.0 today. It's been properly cooked for a while, but life always has its small interruptions. The big change in 1.0 is that I now offer it in a couple of package options.
For those who just need some XML processing, and don't really care about RDF, all you need is Python and Amara-1.0-allinone (grab it from the FTP site). It has a trimmed down subset of 4Suite bundled for one-step install.
For those who want the full complement of what 4Suite has to offer, or for those who've already installed 4Suite anyway, there is the stand alone Amara-1.0 package.
Here's the thing, though. Right now it feels to me that I should be pushing Amara-allinone and not Amara+4Suite. Amara-allinone contains all the 1.0 quality components of 4Suite right now. 4Suite is a combination of a rock solid core XML library, a somewhat out of date RDF library, and a quite rickety server framework. This has been bad for 4Suite. People miss out on the power of its core XML facilities because of the size and uneven quality of the rest of the package. In fact, 4Suite has been stuck in the 1.0 alpha and beta stages for ever, not because the core libraries aren't 1.0 quality (heck, they're 4.x quality), but because we keep hoping to bring the rest of the package up to scratch. It's been on my mind for a while that we should just split the package up to solve this problem. This is what I've done, in effect, with this Amara release.
As for the rest of 4Suite, the RDF engine just needs a parser update for the most recent RDF specifications. The XML/RDF repository probably doesn't need all that much more work before it's ready for 1.0 release. As for the protocol server, as I've said several times before, I think we should just chuck it. Better to use another server package, such as CherryPy.
As for Amara, I'll continue bug fixes on the 1.x branch, but the real fun will be on the 2.x branch where I'll be refactoring a few things.