title: Xerces2 XML parser and Xalan XSLT processor -- state and replacement?
body: <p>It is year 2018. What is the state of the <a href="https://xerces.apache.org/xerces2-j/" rel="noreferrer">Xerces2 XML parser</a> and <a href="https://xml.apache.org/xalan-j/index.html" rel="noreferrer">Xalan XSLT processor</a> libraries for Java? Their last releases appear to be <a href="http://mvnrepository.com/artifact/xerces/xercesImpl" rel="noreferrer">2.11.0 in 2013</a> and <a href="http://mvnrepository.com/artifact/xalan/xalan" rel="noreferrer">2.7.2 in 2014</a> respectively. </p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><p>Are they still maintained?</p></li>
  <li><p>Are they so perfect that they do not need even occasional patch release?</p></li>
  <li><p>Are there replacement libraries from different vendors that one could use instead? Are these replacements free in the same way as these two?</p></li>
  <li><p>Can one generally do without these with just what JDK offers?</p></li>
  </ul>