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XML and Web Services In The News - 27 December 2006
Provided by OASIS |
Edited by Robin Cover
This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by BEA Systems, Inc.
HEADLINES:
Wikipedia-like Search Engine Under Way
Robert Mullins, InfoWorld
Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales claims that current search engine
technology is "broken". Therefore, he is developing a Wiki-based search
engine to compete with established commercial search engines from Google
and Yahoo. The Wikimedia Foundation, which manages the Web site
Wikipedia.com, a user-edited online encyclopedia, emphasizes that the
search engine project is not associated with the foundation. Wales said
that current search engine technology, using complex algorithms to
complete searches, is "broken — broken for the same reason that
proprietary software is always broken: lack of freedom, lack of
community, lack of accountability (and) lack of transparency." [Jimbo
Wales:] "As of November/December 2006 the idea to work again on the
development of an open source search engine was revisited, for a
possible re-launch in 2007... Nutch and Lucene and some other projects
now provide the background infrastructure that we need to generate a
new kind of search engine, which relies on human intelligence to do what
algorithms cannot. Just as Wikipedia revolutionized how we think about
knowledge and the encyclopedia, we have a chance now to revolutionize
how we think about search. Help me out, spread the word. I am looking
for people to continue the development of a wiki-inspired search engine.
Specifically community members who would like to help build people-
powered search results and developers to help us build an open-source
alternative for web search.
See also: the project description
A Little Code Audit on Xerces 2.9
Rick Jelliffe, O'Reilly Reviews
The article summarizes the results of running orogram checkers on the
Xerces 2.9 release to gauge its quality. Xerces2 is "the next generation
of high performance, fully compliant XML parsers in the Apache Xerces
family. This new version of Xerces introduces the Xerces Native
Interface (XNI), a complete framework for building parser components
and configurations that is extremely modular and easy to program. The
Apache Xerces2 parser is the reference implementation of XNI but other
parser components, configurations, and parsers can be written using
the Xerces Native Interface." According to Jelliffe's code audit
report: "Verdict? Pretty good. The best yet as far as automated
software tests go: as a user of Xerces, it was a very encouraging
result to me. First, using the fairly bog standard error/warning/ignore
settings on Eclipse, there were no errors reported. A few classes had
warnings (41 warnings), but they all related to implementing deprecated
APIs, which is fair enough in a library. Excellent. Second, using
FindBugs, there were 20 issues raised. 10 were about using == or != to
compare strings. One concerned possible null references...
See also: Xerces2 Java Parser
W3C Launches Patent Advisory Group for Remote XML Events (REX)
Staff, World Wide Web Consortium Announcement
W3C has announced that in accordance with the W3C Patent Policy, a
Patent Advisory Group (PAG) has been launched in response to disclosures
related to "Remote Events for XML (REX)." The Remote Events for XML
(REX) specification defines a transport agnostic XML syntax for the
transmission of DOM events as specified in the DOM 3 Events
specification in such a way as to be compatible with streaming
protocols. REX assumes that the transport provides for reliable, timely
and in sequence delivery of REX messages. REX does not cover the process
of session initiation and termination which are presumed to be handled
by other means. REX is being developed jointly by the SVG Working Group
and the W3C Web API Working Group. Formation of a W3C 'PAG' is part of
Exception Handling under the W3C Patent Policy, the goal of which "is
to assure that Recommendations produced under this policy can be
implemented on a Royalty-Free (RF) basis." PAG Formation: "In the event
a patent has been disclosed that may be essential, but is not available
under W3C RF licensing requirements, a Patent Advisory Group (PAG) will
be launched to resolve the conflict. The PAG is an ad-hoc group
constituted specifically in relation to the Working Group with the
conflict. A PAG may also be formed without such a disclosure if a PAG
could help avoid anticipated patent problems. During the time that the
PAG is operating, the Working Group may continue its technical work
within the bounds of its charter.
See also: the REX 1.0 draft specification
Microsoft Defends RSS Moves
Andy Patrizio, InternetNews.com
Microsoft's history of adopting standards, only to kill them by putting
in proprietary hooks, is so notorious even the Department of Justice
had its own term for it: "embrace, extend and extinguish." So it's
understandable there was some trepidation when Microsoft first started
showing a great deal of interest in Real Simple Syndication (RSS) in
2005. RSS is an open method of distributing data, mostly newsfeeds.
Late last week, [two Microsoft patent applications were published] one
that covers technologies used to find and consume feeds into a Web
browser and another that covers the back-end methods described in the
first patent ("Finding and consuming web subscriptions in a web browser"
and "Content syndication platform"). Boards like Digg and Slashdot
erupted in anger, while other people tried to calm the mob down,
pointing out that Microsoft was not making claim to RSS. Nick Bradbury,
author of popular RSS reader FeedDemon, attempted to allay concerns by
pointing out that Microsoft was not attempting to patent RSS syndication,
just its own creations, and suspected the company did it for legal
defensive purposes. Finally, on Tuesday, Sean Lyndersay, program manager
lead for RSS at Microsoft, weighed in with his own blog update on the
matter. [Lyndersay:] "From the beginning we have sought an open and
reasonable relationship with the RSS community. As one example, we
have published various RSS and Atom extensions under a Creative Commons
license. These specifications provide proof of our commitment to offer
our contributions to the community and evidence of our efforts to
advance the technology. We honestly hope that our work brings benefit
to all feed publishers, developers and users..."]
See also: InformationWeek
Conference: Tools of Change for Publishing
Kendall Grant Clark, XML.com
Book publishing is going through a torrent of tech-related changes,
both evolutionary and revolutionary. It's a turbulent, exciting era,
and publishers have major opportunities to influence and potentially
profit from new models for creating, distributing, and selling
information. To succeed in this period of change, however, publishers
need a thorough understanding of the technologies that are possible
in this business atmosphere. O'Reilly, a media company closely
connected with the leading innovators in technology, is in a unique
position to help publishing decision-makers appreciate the nuances of
the new landscape — and thus spark conversations on emerging ideas,
models, and tools. O'Reilly's first "TOC Conference: Tools of Change
for Publishing" is going to be held in San Jose, June 18-20, 2007 and
the call for participation is now available. Thre organizers are
looking for proposals on all facets of technology and change in
publishing, with a particular emphasis on promising new ideas. The
submission deadline for all proposals is January 22, 2007; speakers
will be notified by February 5, 2007.
See also: the conference web site
VMware on the Mac for the Holidays
David Marshall, InfoWorld
VMware has unwrapped a gift of its own for the Apple community: VMware
has made the Fusion beta available to the public with build 36932. To
give you an idea of the demand for this product, a VMware blogger said
that about 2100 people petitioned for it, and 70,000 people registered
for it online to be notified when they could start downloading it. You
can begin downloading it now for free, but they ask that you keep in
mind that the product is still in beta and is currently running in
debug mode, so don't run any performance tests on it. Here are some of
the product's features: (1) Create and run a wide variety of 32- and
64-bit x86 operating systems on OS X without rebooting. You can
simultaneously run PC applications next to your OS X applications. (2)
On any Mac with dual-core processors, you can assign multiple CPUs to
your virtual machine to gain additional performance for CPU-intensive
workloads. (3) Access physical devices from the virtual machine: read
and burn CDs and DVDs, and use USB 2.0 devices like video cameras, iPods,
printers, and disks at full speed. Even devices that do not have drivers
for OS X will work in a virtual machine. (4) Drag and drop files and
folders between OS X and virtual machines to easily share data between
the two environments. (5) VMware virtual machines created with existing
VMware products are all cross compatible, including virtual machines
created by VMware Workstation, VMware Player, VMware Server and VMware
Infrastructure 3. (6) Run any of the 360 virtual appliances available
from the Virtual Appliance Marketplace.
See also: eWEEK
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