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XML and Web Services In The News - 18 September 2006
Provided by OASIS |
Edited by Robin Cover
This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by IBM Corporation
HEADLINES:
Repository Librarian and the Next Crusade: The Search for a Common Standard for Digital Repository Metadata
Beth Goldsmith and Frances Knudson, D-Lib Magazine
Metadata is an exceedingly broad category of information covering
everything from an object's title and date of origin to information
about layout, presentation, and rights. Within libraries and digital
object repositories, metadata is the cornerstone of the infrastructure
required for exchange and use of information. While metadata standards
abound, and acceptance and use of these standards is equally
widespread, agreement on a common standard is much harder to find. This
dilemma was highlighted for the Los Alamos National Laboratory Research
Library's Library Without Walls Team in the fall of 2003. At that time,
it was decided to implement a standards-based digital object repository
to hold the library's 80 million metadata records, 1.5 million full-text
records, and several million other complex digital objects. A
Repository Team was formed to tackle the project. It was recognized
that there was a need to convert the disparate metadata to a
consistent vendor-neutral format in order to simplify the increasingly
complex task of storing, indexing, exchanging, and displaying the
records. The process of determining a suitable standard involved
definition of requirements, comparison of available standards,
formalization of the adopted standard, and, finally, evaluation of the
efficacy of the selected standard. MARCXML was selected as a uniform
metadata standard for the LANL Research Library's digital repository.
Reasons for the choice included its relative maturity in the XML
standards world, its familiarity in the library community, and its
ability to blend well with modern mark-up technologies. Perhaps most
important for a nominally bibliographic metadata standard, it can be
elegantly extended to adapt to numerous metadata needs. In the two-plus
years that it has been used to map metadata records in the library's
digital repository, MARCXML has proven itself to be robust and capable
in meeting all requirements without breaking the standard while
remaining flexible and transparent to downstream use.
Draft Biometric Data Specification for Personal Identity Verification
Charles Wilson (et al., eds), NIST Special Publication 800-76-1
NIST's SP 800-76-1 document is a public review document. The Homeland
Security Presidential Directive HSPD-12 called for new standards to be
adopted governing the interoperable use of identity credentials to
allow physical and logical access to Federal government locations and
systems. The Personal Identity Verification (PIV) standard for Federal
Employees and Contractors, Federal Information Processing Standard
(FIPS 201), was developed to establish standards for identity
credentials. This document, Special Publication 800-76 (SP 800-76),
is a companion document to FIPS 201. It describes technical acquisition
and formatting specifications for the biometric credentials of the PIV
system, including the PIV Card1 itself. It enumerates procedures and
formats for fingerprints and facial images by restricting values and
practices included generically in published biometric standards. The
primary design objective behind these particular specifications is
high performance universal interoperability... This document
[specifies] that all biometric data to be embedded in the Common
Biometric Exchange Formats Framework (CBEFF) structure of section 6;
this document provides an overview of the strategy that can be used
for testing conformance to the standard. The comment period closes at
5:00 EST (US and Canada) on October 5, 2006.
See also: GCN
Higgins Lays Out Roadmap for Open Source Identity Project
John Fontana, Network World
IBM, Novell and a group of academics working on an open source project
designed to tie together applications and identity systems plan to
ship the first release of their code next summer. The Higgins project,
which was started in March, is a framework designed to integrate
identity, profile, and relationship data from across multiple systems.
The framework, which has interface and middleware components, includes
both code and an API that developers will use to link their applications
into the Higgins identity services. The goal is to support applications
whose front-ends are either a browser, rich client or Web services based.
The Higgins group plans to release a middleware piece called the
Identity Attribute Service that acts as a layer on top of identity
repositories such as directories or applications. It can aggregate data
from multiple sources in real-time and bundle them into a single
identity credential. The idea is to link to data without having to
move it around the network. The Higgins project also plans to produce
an open source Security Token Service (STS) based on the WS-Trust
protocol. The STS is a lightweight gateway that can run on servers or
clients and negotiate the exchange of security tokens. The Higgins
project says it will provide a set of basic token brokers that plug
into the STS.
See also: Higgins Trust Framework Project
BEA Looks to Tap Web 2.0 for Enterprise
Paul F. Roberts, InfoWorld
Long a player in the geeky world of enterprise middleware, BEA will
soon be diving into a frothy Web 2.0 space as it tries to tap into the
genius of Web sites such as del.icio.us, Wikipedia, and YouTube,
according to Mark Carges, executive vice president of business
interaction at BEA. The two other projects, Runner and Builder, will
help workers create those situational applications. Runner will create
a lightweight portal infrastructure that Web application developers
can use as a foundation to build on. 'What we've realized is that
there are so many Web apps in an enterprise that aren't portal apps,
we want to be able to help people manage those, too,' Carges said.
Builder will work with SOA tools from AquaLogic and will give ordinary
users the ability to tap into SOA data stores without extensive custom
coding. BEA is targeting the new products for the first half of 2007.
The tools could be wrapped into AquaLogic or be spun out as their own
products, Carges said.
Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 2.1
Matt Oshry (ed), W3C Working Draft
W3C's Voice Browser Working Group has announced the release of a Last
Call Working Draft for "Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML)
2.1." The popularity of VoiceXML 2.0 spurred the development of
numerous voice browser implementations early in the specification
process. VXML-2 has been phenomenally successful in enabling the rapid
deployment of voice applications that handle millions of phone calls
every day. This success has led to the development of additional,
innovative features that help developers build even more powerful
voice-activated services. While it was too late to incorporate these
additional features into VXML-2, the purpose of VoiceXML 2.1 is to
formally specify the most common features to ensure their portability
between platforms and at the same time maintain complete backwards-
compatibility with VXML-2. This document defines a set of eight (8)
commonly implemented additional features to VoiceXML 2.0 Comments
are welcome through 6-October-2006.
See also: VXML references
Atomic: Atom Protocol Client Implemented as a Firefox Extension
Alex Milowski, Blog
I've finally gotten my Atom protocol client as a firefox extension
approved by mozilla.org. It can communicate with any number of
different Atom protocol servers that support introspection. It starts
with introspection and lets you interact with your feeds. It also has
some "extensions" for creation of collections (i.e. a POST of a feed
element) and modification of feed metadata (i.e. a PUT of a feed
element). This client has been tested against the Atom protocol
implementation in the eXist XML Database at http://www.exist-db.org.
I'd love to know how it works with other protocol implementations.
To do anything useful, you need to have access to an Atom Protocol
server. That may be the hardest one, as the protocol is still a draft
RFC. You can setup your own Atom protocol server using the eXist XML
database.
See also: Atom references
Red Hat Stacks the Deck
Sean Michael Kerner, InternetNews.com
Some open source developers prefer LAMP stacks. Some prefer J2EE. Red
Hat is betting that by combining both into one stack, it'll deliver
the best of both worlds in a standardized way. Today Red Hat is
announcing the Red Hat Application Stack, which includes components of
both LAMP and J2EE, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, JBoss
Application Server, JBoss Hibernate and the MySQL and PostgreSQL open
source databases. The move shouldn't come as too much of a surprise
since Red Hat acquired leading open source J2EE vendor JBoss in April
of this year for $350 million. The new stack is not a software
application stack, but is intended as an infrastructure stack. The Red
Hat Application Stack is a first-of-its-kind product offer from Red Hat,
according to Barr. He explained that Red Hat did announce a stack
strategy back in December but then acquired JBoss. The Red Hat
Application Stack is now the result of that new strategy. Red Hat also
announced today that JBoss's existing subscription offerings are now
being made to Red Hat's channel. Previously, JBoss had taken a mostly
direct sales approach; Red Hat does over 60 percent of its business
through the channel.
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