XML Daily Newslink. Thursday, 22 March 2007

[Robin Cover <robin@oasis-open.org>]

XML Daily Newslink. Thursday, 22 March 2007
A Cover Pages Publication http://xml.coverpages.org/
Provided by OASIS http://www.oasis-open.org
Edited by Robin Cover

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This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by
Sun Microsystems, Inc. http://sun.com

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HEADLINES:

* New Liberty Alliance Specifications for Linking Digital Identity
  Management to Consumer Devices
* IETF Opens New Media Server Control Working Group
* Intel Aligns vPro with Microsoft for the Enterprise
* HefeWeizen: An ebXML Message Service Handler
* Informal Last Call: Atom Bidirectional Attribute
* Representing ER models (and other abstractions) in ISO Schematron
* Will PHP Bring Simplicity to AJAX?
* Open-Source Goes Hammer and Nail

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New Liberty Alliance Specifications for Linking Digital Identity
Management to Consumer Devices
Staff, Liberty Alliance Project

Liberty Alliance has announced the release of the Advanced Client
specifications designed to allow enterprise users and consumers to
manage identity information on devices such as cameras, handhelds,
laptops, printers, and televisions. The Advanced Client is a set of
specifications and technologies that leverage the proven
interoperability, security and privacy capabilities of Liberty
Federation and Liberty Web Services to allow users to conduct a wide
range of new identity-based transactions from any device. The Advanced
Client represents the third phase of Liberty's ongoing work in
delivering increased identity management functionality to client
devices. In phase one Liberty Alliance defined the LECP (Liberty
Enabled Client/Proxy) which was incorporated into SAML 2.0 and
supports federation operations as the Enabled Client/Proxy. The Active
Client is part of phase two and provides client-based Web services
functionality, single sign-on into Liberty Web Services and support
for any authentication model. Work on the Robust Client specifications,
phase four, is underway. These phase four specifications will support
trusted digital identity relationships, mobility modules and provide
a platform for facilitating client-based universal strong
authentication. Advanced Client relies on ID-WSF 2.0 (Liberty Web
Services) which includes support for WS-Addressing and WS-Security
specifications. The specific functionality included in the Advanced
Client specifications released in draft form includes: (1) Trusted
Module:  The Advanced Client acts as an extension of the identity
provider (IdP) offering protocol support for trusted model capabilities
and able to function when the IdP is not present. The specifications
allow the client to assert assurances on behalf of the authority
issuing the identity in a closed and protected environment such as a
smart card or other tamper resistant mechanism within the client
device. (2) Provisioning: The Advanced Client supports full life-cycle
provisioning of data and/or functionality to the client over the air
in a privacy sensitive and secure manner. (3) Service Hosting/Proxying
(SHPS): Allows a service, such as a calendar or e-commerce profile to
be hosted on a client device, such as a cell phone or laptop. The
specifications allow others to interact with the service via a proxy
based on the security, privacy and permission controls established by
the user and when the device is either on or offline

http://xml.coverpages.org/LibertyAdvancedClient.html
See also Liberty Alliance Specifications: http://xml.coverpages.org/libertyAlliance.html

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IETF Opens New Media Server Control Working Group
Staff, IESG

The Internet Engineering Steering Group has announced the formation
of a new Media Server Control (MEDIACTRL) Working Group in the
Real-time Applications and Infrastructure Area. A media server
contains media processing components that are able to manipulate
RTP streams. Typical processing includes mixing multiple streams,
transcoding a stream (e.g., from G.711 to MS-GSM), storing or
retrieving a stream (e.g., from RTP to HTTP), detecting tones
(e.g., DTMF), converting text to speech, and performing speech
recognition. The work group will examine protocol extensions between
media servers and their clients. However, modifying existing standard
protocols, such as VoiceXML or SIP towards clients or MRCPv2 towards
servers, is not in the work group's charter. The model of interest
to this group is where the endpoint solely plays audio or video,
transmits audio or video towards the server, and possibly transmits
key press information towards the server. The only model of user
interface processing the work group will consider is where the
media server performs all of the media processing. A caveat here is
the media server, in interpreting a VoiceXML page, may make requests
to a server for speech services. However, to the media server client
and the media end point, the single point of signaling and media
interaction is the media server. Any protocol developed by this
group will meet the requirements for Internet deployment. This
includes addressing Internet security, privacy, congestion control
(or at least congestion safe), operational and manageability
considerations, and scale. The protocol will not assume a private
administrative domain. There is broad market acceptance of the
stimulus/markup application design model for the application server -
media server protocol interface. Thus this work group will focus on
the use of SIP and XML for the protocol suite. [Note: One of the
RFCs relevant to the WG is "Media Server Control Markup Language
(MSCML) and Protocol." MSCML) is an XML-based markup language used
in conjunction with SIP to provide advanced conferencing and
interactive voice response (IVR) functions. MSCML presents an
application-level control model, as opposed to device-level control
models. One use of this protocol is for communications between a
conference focus and mixer in the IETF SIP Conferencing Framework.]

http://xml.coverpages.org/IETF-mediactrl.html
See also Media Server Control Markup Language MSCML: http://xml.coverpages.org/IETF-RFC4722.txt

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Intel Aligns vPro with Microsoft for the Enterprise
Ann Steffora Mutschler, Electronic News

With the aim of making the management of enterprise PC networks less
costly and more simple, Intel has aligned its vPro technology with
the newly-released versions of Microsoft's System Center management
solutions and has incorporated new PC management standards. Intel's
next-generation vPro technology, codenamed Weybridge, adds support for
the new Web Services Management (WS-MAN) standard and includes new
Intel 'Active Management Technology' for the reduction of viruses and
worms spreading through the enterprise. vPro also will support an
upcoming Digital Management Work Group (DMWG) specification for
interoperability across PC hardware and software developed by the
Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF), the company noted. To
enhance the ability of IT organizations to protect computers from
viruses and help lower maintenance costs, the Weybridge vPro
technology desktops and the next Centrino mobile technology for
notebook PCs, codenamed Santa Rosa, will support a variety of Microsoft
System Center solutions to include System Center Operations Manager
2007, which monitors system health. Intel also noted that its Core2
Duo processor provides new remote management capabilities called
'Active Management Technology' that are meant to accelerate maintenance
functions and improve security while reducing costs through remote
diagnosis along with PC repair even if it is turned off, or crippled
by a crashed operating system or hard drive. Intel and Microsoft said
they led the development of WS-MAN as a standards-based method of
accessing and managing PC fleets, as founding members of the DMTF,
which developed the interoperable management specification.

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2007/03/20/41007/Intel+aligns+vPro+with+Microsoft+for+the+enterprise.htm

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HefeWeizen: An ebXML Message Service Handler
Sacha Schlegel, Developer Posting

A posting from Sacha Schlegel to the OASIS ebXML-DEV list announces
the beta availability of "Free and Open Source Software" HefeWeizen,
an ebXML Message Service Handler. An ebXML messaging system is
typically used to reliably and securely exchange business documents
over the Internet. "HefeWeizen supports ebXML Messaging Service
Specification version 2.0 and ebXML Collaboration Protocol Agreement
and Profile Specification version 2.0.  Its features include: (1)
ebMS 2.0 support (Reliable messaging, XML digital signature, XML
encryption, HTTP and HTTP(s) support -- server and client
authentication, SMTP [in planning stage]; (2) ebCPPA 2.0 -
Configuration of trading partners via ebXML CPAs. Requirements are
[i] Ruby Programming Language and [ii] Linux/Unix (uses libxml2,
libxmlsec1 C libraries).  Related initiative: freebXML, "an
initiative that aims to foster the development and adoption of ebXML
and related technology through software and experience sharing.
freebXML.org is sponsored by the Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure
Development and the Department of Computer Science and Information
Systems at the University of Hong Kong. Founding members include
technical leaders from international technology firms, government
organizations, standardization bodies and academic institutions."

http://dev.havanawave.com/repos/HefeWeizen
See also freebXML: http://www.freebxml.org/

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Informal Last Call: Atom Bidirectional Attribute
James Snell (ed), IETF Internet Draft

A revised IETF Internet Draft for the "Atom Bidirectional Attribute"
specification has been released, characterized as an Informal Last Call
review draft. The specification defines a new attribute to the Atom
Syndication Format used to indicate the base directionality of
directionally-neutral characters. It updates the Atom Syndication Format
specification (RFC 4287) by adding a new 'dir' attribute used to define
the base directionality of directionally-neutral characters contained
within an Atom document. The editor notes that "the only significant
difference [in this -03 version] is a notice about direction guess
algorithms; this has now been implemented in Apache Abdera, an Open
Source Atom Implementation. The "dir" attribute specifies the base
direction of directionally-neutral text, per Unicode. Possible values
for the attribute are "ltr" and "rtl" indicating "left-to-right" and
"right-to-left" respectively, or an empty string indicating that no
base-direction is specified. If the "dir" attribute is not specified,
the value is assumed to be an empty string. The attribute can appear
on any element in an Atom document. The direction specified by "dir"
applies to elements and attributes whose values are specified as being
"Language-Sensitive" as defined by Section 2 of RFC 4287. The direction
specified by the attribute is inherited by descendent elements and
attributes and may be overridden. In Atom documents that do not contain
a "dir" attribute, it is possible to apply heuristics to guess the base
directionality of text in the document. Such heuristics can take into
consideration the in-scope language context established by the use
of the xml:lang attribute or an analysis of the directional properties
of the Unicode characters used within the documents text. Such guessing
algorithms can produce reasonably acceptable results in many cases but
cannot be guaranteed to produce correct results in every case. For
this reason, explicit determination of text direction using the "dir"
attribute SHOULD be preferred over any guessing algorithm.

http://xml.coverpages.org/draft-snell-atompub-bidi-03.txt
See also Atom References: http://xml.coverpages.org/atom.html

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Representing ER models (and other abstractions) in ISO Schematron
Rick Jelliffe, O'Reilly Technical

The author demonstrates a way to express basic Entity Relationship
model using ISO Schematron. "Schematron allows you to model entities
and various relationships using 'abstract patterns' -- a parameterized
macro facility. You can use the same idea to model other kinds of
diagramming and modeling systems. I think what it quite powerful about
this approach is that we can separate the information relationships
from the XML serialization. Fields can be child elements, attributes,
attributes of the parent, any kind of XPath, we don't care. Similarly,
if two fields are related, they may use a key or containment, but we
don't care. If you like you see this a technique for capturing
information from a model in a form which also happens to hook into
Schematron validation; but you can use the captured model for non-
Schematron purposes too. In the mini-example [provided], fields with
a one-to-one relation can be nested or they can be linked using an
ID-like mechanism. XSD is not powerful enough to allow this kind of
alternative mechanism: this forces people to make a decision about
the serialization strategy: this creates incompatibility because
different people make different choices. Using this mechanism, you
can get a complete separation from the declarative portions (which
can have as much additional declarative information as you like) and
the operational/implementation code. This kind of declaration is
very declarative [and] easy to use for other purposes. In fact, it
means that using Schematron syntax you can model your information
using extensible collections of name-value pairs (can someone say
'tuple'?) including metadata that you won't be using in any assertions.
You use Schematron abstract patterns to capture all the data and
metadata about some information, then you decide which of that
information you want to make assertions about and the metadata, being
captured, is available in the most convenient form for other XML
processes.

http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2007/03/roundtripping_er_and_other_abs.html
See also Schematron references: http://xml.coverpages.org/schematron.html

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Will PHP Bring Simplicity to AJAX?
Sean Michael Kerner, InternetNews.com

PHP is one of the most widely used languages on the Web today. Yet
despite that fact there is no "P" in AJAX, Zend co-founder Andi
Gutmans believes that PHP could be the glue that makes AJAX work better.
Gutmans began his session at AJAXWorld this week by noting that there
are many different AJAX libraries for PHP. The problem is that there
is no standard for doing AJAX with PHP. That's about to change. A new
effort led by Zend is looking to provide a standard way to build AJAX
with PHP. PHP, Gutmans argued, is a glue language for the Web that
aggregates data sources and displays logic, as well as includes native
support for databases. Additionally PHP supports a wide array of file
formats, Web services, platform interoperability, and language
integration... Among the items that make AJAX simpler to deploy using
PHP is native JSON (define) support, as well as the inclusion of
SimpleXML. SimpleXML is a PHP extension allowing for "simple" XML
data manipulation, which abstracts a lot of the complexity of Web
Services allowing a developer to manipulate XML as though it were
native PHP. Zend Framework will extend the JSON support available to
PHP developers with a new Zend_Xml2Json effort that is being developed
by IBM. Gutmans explained that it will be a server component that
enables XML to JSON conversion at the middleware server layer. The
Zend component model, which will be part of Zend Framework, will go
a step further and provide tooling for building AJAX applications.
Gutmans explained that it will have server-side messaging and
persistence, as well as an AJAX controller. The real goal according
to Gutmans is to make the Zend component model a full development
environment complete with drag-and-drop components, cross-language
debugging and advanced CSS support.

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3667196
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Open-Source Goes Hammer and Nail
Jessie Scanlon, BusinessWeek.com

At 10:30 on a Friday morning in February, Cameron Sinclair dropped two
heavy bags onto the floor and sank onto the leather banquette at
Balthazar, the bustling New York bistro. The executive director of the
San Francisco-based Architecture for Humanity, a nonprofit dedicated
to finding architectural solutions to humanitarian problems, was in
town to speak with journalists about his new Open Architecture Network
(OAN). Launched officially at last week's TED Conference, the free
Web-based network is part database of architectural projects, part
design tool, and part community for anyone dedicated to improving
living conditions through innovative and sustainable design -- be they
architects, engineers, non-profits, government agencies, or donors. As
its name implies, the OAN aims to bring the philosophy and
collaborative methods of the open-source software movement to
architecture, in the hope of meeting the housing needs of the millions
of people living in slum settlements and/or displaced by war or natural
disasters, as well as the general need for healthcare, education and
civic buildings.  Sinclair unveiled the OAN at the TED Conference
because the network grew directly out of his 2006 TED Prize, a unique
award that provides $100,000 and, more important, help from TED's
powerful network of attendees and sponsors to fulfill the winner's wish.
Soon after Sinclair described his desire to create an open-source
repository of architectural ideas, Sun Microsystems donated two 3-
terabyte servers and its engineering services, AMD offered to host the
servers (and is also now funding the $250,000 Open Architecture Prize,
a competition to design a computer lab that can be adapted for developing
communities), and the small San Francisco-based HotDesign volunteered
to design the Web site. Working with OAN to create one of the most
critical and radical features of the site, Creative Commons, a nonprofit
organization that has developed alternatives to standard copyright law,
adapted its intellectual-property licenses to build structures that
allow designers to stipulate usage rights. In total, Creative Commons
drafted eight licenses for the network, including a Developing Nations
license that lets an architect retain ownership of a design in the
developed world but also allows the design to be freely used or adapted
elsewhere, a "public-domain" license that frees a work from copyright
entirely, and a more restrictive license that allows a design to be
studied but prohibits changes or commercial use. OAN had some 2,241
registered users and 220 projects. Users can search for architectural
designs by a growing number of criteria, including location, materials,
cost, and project type, and can view a project's evolution from sketch
through blueprints and construction drawings to completion, in either
a high- or low-resolution format.

http://www.businessweek.com/print/innovate/content/mar2007/id20070315_873276.htm

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