1.2. What is Apache Tika?

We’ve talked a lot about Tika already, but much like a new friend at school, you probably are still lacking a bit of context, and some of the background details (what city was that friend from; how many brothers does she have, or sisters?) that would make you feel better about continuing the relationship. We’ll begin with some details on Tika’s grandparents and parents: technologies originating in parts from the world of search engines at Apache, from work in XML parsing at Sourceforge.net, and from origins in document management. After an introduction to Tika’s predecessors, you’ll want some information on Tika’s key philosophies, its goals, and where it wants to be in five years. Is Tika your friend for life, or simply filling a hole until you meet the next great technology? Read on and we’ll give you that information on your new pal Tika.

1.2.1. A bit of history

Figure 1.6 shows a timeline of Tika’s development, from proposal to top-level project.