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XML and Web Services In The News - 2 November 2006
Provided by OASIS |
Edited by Robin Cover
This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by Innodata Isogen
HEADLINES:
Web Service Standards for Service Registry and Repository
Staff, IBM Technical Paper
IBM has published a technical paper which describes the main concepts
and capabilities of a service registry and repository and the standards
that deliver the value of a service registry and repository in a
heterogeneous environment. A number of key specifications and standards
related to interoperability of service registries and repositories
exist today. These include the resource and metadata specifications
which themselves build on the robust landscape of Web services
specifications. Further, in the modeling space, a mature model for
classifying services also exists with the OWL standard. This standard
forms one key part of a data model that goes beyond the technical
documents that need to be stored in a service registry or repository.
It is clear, however, that additional work remains to achieve a fully
interoperable service registry and repository. This additional work is
in establishing an industry definition of the data model for service
registry and repository that aligns with WS-MetadataExchange and
provides a means to maintain user defined annotations, classifications
and relationships along with the technical documents such as WSDL and
XSD. The new or extended queries that could be carried using
WS-ResourceTransfer (WS-RT) will also need to be standardized along
with that service registry and repository data model. Previous
specifications efforts have laid out a significant foundation of
understanding what is important to include in a service registry data
model. The emergence of new specifications that provide a common
mechanism to manipulate resources now enables the service information
repository to be standardized as well. The result of combining the
critical features and experience from service registry efforts and
using emerging standards related to service and resource management
will establish a more functional point of integration with
interoperability that does not exist today. A service registry and
repository handles the management of service descriptions and serves
as the system of record for this information throughout the complete
lifecycle of a service. The paper elaborates on the standards that
enhance the value of a service registry and repository throughout
the four main stages of a service lifecycle: modeling, assembly,
deployment and management.
See also: the overview
W3C Advances Mobile Web Best Practices to Proposed Recommendation
Jo Rabin and Charles McCathieNevile (eds), W3C Technical Report
W3C has announced the advancement of "Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0"
to the level of Proposed Recommendation. Thirty organizations
participating in the Mobile Web Initiative have achieved consensus,
and encourage adoption and implementation of these guidelines to
improve user experience and to achieve the goal of "one Web." The
document has been written primarily for creators, maintainers, and
operators of Web sites. Readers of the document are expected to be
familiar with the creation of Web sites, and to have a general
familiarity with the technologies involved, such as Web servers and
HTTP; readers are not expected to have a background in mobile-specific
technologies. The document specifies Best Practices for delivering
Web content to mobile devices. The principal objective is to improve
the user experience of the Web when accessed from such devices. The
recommendations refer to delivered content and not to the processes
by which it is created, nor to the devices or user agents to which
it is delivered. Requirements expressed as use cases include
Presentation Issues, Input, Bandwidth and Cost, User Goals,
Advertising, and Device Limitations. Because of the limited screen
size on a mobile device, the subject matter of the page may require
considerable scrolling to be visible, especially if the top of the
page is occupied by images and navigation links. In these cases the
user gets no immediate feedback as to whether their retrieval has
resulted in the right content. Mobile device input is often difficult
when compared with use of a desktop device equipped with a keyboard.
Mobile devices often have only a very limited keypad, with small keys,
and there is frequently no pointing device. Mobile networks can be
slow compared with fixed data connections and often have a measurably
higher latency; data transfer often costs money. Mobile browsers often
do not support scripting or plug-ins, which means that the range of
content that they support is limited. In many cases the user has no
choice of browser and upgrading it is not possible. Comments on the
Proposed Recommendation are welcome through 11-December-2006.
See also: the W3C announcement
Google Launches Java-Powered Gmail for Mobile Devices
Steve Bryant, eWEEK Blog
Google is announcing a new Java Gmail client for mobile devices. Gmail
for Mobile Devices is a free application and will work on any J2ME
phones in the U.S. Users can download the app by using their phone's
browser to navigate to gmail.com/app. According to Google, the new
application will work on about 300 different phones in the U.S. market.
There are no ads. Attachments open as normal, provided you have the
appropriate software. Gmail for Mobile Devices is free, but you'll
have to pay your carrier for the data transfer. Google has partnered
with Sprint for the launch, and Gmail for Mobile Devices is available
for download from the Sprint PCS Vision and Sprint Power Vision home
pages. My favorite feature: Gmail for Mobile Devices preloads the first
ten message in your inbox when you start the app. There's no data
transfer lag when you click on those messages. Google also offers an
XHTML version of Gmail for mobile browsers, but man, that's a lot slower
to use. I only wonder why it took Google so long to launch this
particular app. It seems like such a no-brainer.
See also: Gmail for mobile
Think Standards Are Boring? Think Again!
http://www.cptech.org/a2k/igf/athens110206/program.html
Staff, APC.org Internet & ICTs for Social Justice and Development News
If you think standards are boring, you had to be in Greece this week,
where a loose coalition of researchers, librarians and corporate
representatives launched a campaign on open standards. The timing
coincided with a forum on the future of the internet that is receiving
about 1,500 people in a hotel outside of Athens four days in a row.
"We're test-driving," said Susy Struble from software-giant Sun
Microsystems, in reference to the first step taken to build a larger
movement favouring open standards. "We're talking technology standards
here, applied to hardware and software." The new coalition wants to get
back to the open nature of technology and innovation and ensure that the
multiplication of proprietary extensions are put aside to the benefit
of compatible ones. The coalition that is set to grow in numbers as soon
as participants will look back at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF),
is currently made up of Magdy Nagi from Egypt's Library of Alexandria,
Jamie Love of the Consumer Project on Technology, Eddan Katz of the
Yale Information Society Project, Robin Gross of IP Justice, Daniel
Dardieller from standards consortium WC3, and Sun Microsystems's Susy
Struble. It will work on the basis of rough consensus and pursue the
recognitions highlighted in the Tunis Agreement; paragraph 44 [excerpt]
— "The development and use of open, interoperable, non-discriminatory
and demand-driven standards that take into account needs of users and
consumers is a basic element for the development and greater diffusion
of ICTs and more access to them, particularly in developing countries."
More than any other party, the governments are seen not only as
enablers, but also as procurers and purchasers of hardware products and
information. The new-born coalition envisions this special position of
governments as an opportunity for them to promote open standards.
See also: The Register
Migrating to XForms
Paul Sobocinski, XML.com
In 2001, the W3C set out to create an XML standard for implementing
user forms in XHTML by publishing the XForms 1.0 Working Draft. The
purpose of XForms is to eventually replace existing HTML forms, which
are limited in capability and notoriously difficult to develop in. In
March of 2006, the W3C announced the XForms 1.0 Second Edition
Recommendation. In July 2006, Mozilla announced Preview Release 0.6
of their XForms extension. It won't be long until browsers begin
supporting XForms, and once this happens, they will be the prevalent
and preferred method of user data collection on the internet. Until
then, it's in our best interest to begin migrating our current XHTML
forms to XForms so that we're ready once the new standard is
mainstream. The goal [in this article] is to take an XHTML document
containing one or more standard forms, convert the forms into XForms
format while preserving all of the information, and generate a new
XHTML document as a result. To achieve this, we use the PHP parser
functions, which have been around since PHP 4 and have been used in
many PHP APIs, such as Magpie (an RSS parser) and nuSOAP (a library
for web services support). We provide here are the rudimentary
building blocks for a complete HTML to XForms translator. The parser
can be easily scaled to handle all possible HTML form elements and
translate them into XForms. You may find this article useful: "XForms
for HTML Authors" [Steven Pemberton, W3C/CWI]. It explains in detail
how to use XForms to provide all features available with HTML forms.
See also: XForms for HTML Authors
OASIS Forum: Secure Interactions in Sector Applications
Staff, OASIS Announcement
OASIS has announced the publication of a complete program agenda for
the November 27-29, 2006 Adoption Forum, to be held in London, UK.
Focusing on these very real, modern-day threats, 'Managing Secure
Interactions in Sector Applications' will be the theme of the third
annual event. The OASIS Adoption Forum brings together users, government
agencies, researchers and developers from the international community
to discover how open standards for security are being implemented and
what the future holds in this area. This year's sessions will cover
sensitive key areas such as identity management, access control,
authentication in e-Government, and SOA and security. Attendees will
examine approaches to these topics, while discussing new ideas to help
individuals and their organisations make informed choices. Keynote
presenters include Karel De Vriendt, Head of Unit for the European
Commission, Enterprise and Industry Directorate-General, and Mark D.
Ferrar, Director of Infrastructure at the Technology Office for UK's
National Health Service (NHS) Connecting for Health. A closing panel,
moderated by Nigel Stanley, Practice Leader for IT Security at Bloor
Research, will address the relationship between open source tools and
open standards for security. A Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) session
will access how PKI is being used today, its potential to interact with
newer technologies, and alternatives for ways in which the standard
should evolve. Also featured at the forum will be OASIS standards,
including the Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML),
Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), and WS-Security will be
featured, as well as specifications under development, such as Web
Services Reliable Messaging (WSRM).
See also: the Forum web site
Motorola Picks Home For its Open-Source Java
Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com
Motorola plans to build an open-source version of Java for gadgets such
as mobile phones within the framework of the Apache Software Foundation.
The work to develop the Java Micro Edition (ME) software will use the
Apache License, Motorola said Tuesday, inviting others to participate
in creating "a complete Java ME software stack." The move follows the
company's pledge in May to release its software relating to a cell
phone variant of Java ME called MIDP (Mobile Information Device Profile)
3.0. Sun Microsystems created Java, which lets the same program run on
a wide variety of computer systems without having to be adapted for each
one, and Motorola has long been a licensee and collaborator. In August,
Sun announced its intent to release its version of Java ME as open-source
software by the end of 2006. However, it's not clear whether the Motorola
and Sun projects are complementary or competing. Motorola declared in a
statement that it's trying to "reduce Java fragmentation"—a possible
open-source affliction in which developers split the same project into
incompatible versions. But Motorola indicated that the two companies
are not working closely when it comes to open-source Java. It's likely
Sun and Motorola will use different licenses: Motorola chose the Apache
License, but last week, Jonathan Schwartz said Sun is likely to use the
Community Development and Distribution License (CDDL) for open-source
Java. Simon Phipps, Sun's chief open source officer, said that according
to Sun and Apache, CDDL and Apache code may be intermingled.
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