Minutes: XDI TC Telecon Thursday 2011-07-28

Following are the minutes of the unofficial telecon of the XDI TC at:

Date:  Thursday, 28 July 2011 USA

Time:  1:00PM - 2:00PM Pacific Time (20:00-21:30 UTC)

ATTENDING

Giovanni Bartolomeo

Drummond Reed

Markus Sabadello 

Mike Schwartz 

REGRETS

Bill Barnhill 

GUESTS

Jay Glasgow

THE IDEARPAD LINK FOR TODAY IS:

     http://xdi.idearpad.org/37

1) UPDATES

Mike said that the OpenXDI team updated the URL for the OpenXDI project to:

  http://ox.gluu.org. 

He
 said the OX Ruby port is done. It was relatively straightforward, 
although required rewriting a number of methods that could not be 
exported. The next highest priority implementation is Javascript. Then 
they want to do integration with Diaspora, followed by Python and PHP.

The roadmap for the server is to finish link contracts, then choose one of the 3 options for authentication (PKI, SAML, OpenID).

Jay
 gave a general update about progress on innovations that he is close to
 at AT&T. He said that these could significantly reduce the workload
 on certain components used by identity providers in an open identity 
ecosystem. He also has been architecting AT&T systems so they can 
have compability with open standards like XDI. He feels that the 
evolution of the right trust frameworks can help significantly.

2) PROGRESS ON LINK CONTRACTS

Mike ran us through a status report on the OpenXDI implementation of link contracts using the OX wiki page on the subject:

  http://ox.gluu.org/doku.php?id=linkcontracts

They
 decided to implement condition expressions in Javascript, using a tool 
called Rhino. They looked at Python, Ruby, Groovy, and other options, 
but decided that Javascript was the best choice.

Mike suggested that Scala may have certain advantages for implementing this.

Mike 
 suggested that TC members read through the page to see the different  
issues and recommendations that the OpenXDI team is developing as they  
implement.

Drummond
 then quickly ran through a proposal he sent to the list for replacing 
$condition with $true and $false, and then allowing $true, $false, $and,
 and $or contexts to be nested in any configuration to any depth under a
 $if node to create a logic tree for evaluating policy conditions.

   http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/xdi/201107/msg00024.html

We
 then talked about how link contract vocabulary is likely to evolve. We 
agreed it was important to begin implementing it to prove it out, and 
that we will most likely have several versions of the link contract 
vocabulary over time. This will force us to deal with the 
interoperability issues over time, but this is true of every standard.

Mike
 made the point that it is as important to have tools for creating and 
editing policies as it is for executing the policies, so OX needs to 
focus on these as well.

3) ROADMAP DISCUSSION

We
 had a short discussion about the release/marketing roadmap for XDI as 
we proceed with the specs and implementation. Jay offered the suggestion
 that past perceptions of XDI are a hurdle that needs to be overcome but
 not a barrier to longer term adoption if XDI can deliver on its promise
 of interoperable data sharing, and in particular on interoperable 
authorization via link contracts.

4) METAGRAPH MODEL

Drummond
 did not have time to writeup his thoughts on the metagraph model yet, 
but plans to do that over the weekend. He will put it on the agenda for 
next week's telecon.

5) LINK CONTRACT REFERENCE IN XDI MESSAGES

We still need to close on the format for including the link contract reference in an XDI message. See:

  http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/xdi/201106/msg00041.html

  http://wiki.oasis-open.org/xdi/XdiMessagePatterns

5) NEXT CALL

Due
 to a conference next Thursday, we will move next week's telecon to 
Friday Aug 5  at the regular time. Drummond will send out a reminder.

Mike asked to put the subject of OWL compatability on the agenda.

------------

ONGOING ISSUES LIST

Each of these is a candidate for the agenda for future calls.

* DO WE NEED SEPARATE METAGRAPH WORDS FOR EQUIVALENCE AND INVERSION? (added 2011-06-30 - Giovanni)

This is an open issue because does not have a direct corallary in RDF.

* SYNONYM HANDLING (added 2011-06-30 - Giovanni)

This remains an open issue because it raises challenges with compatibility with RDF.

* TRANSACTIONAL INTEGRITY FOR XDI (added 2011-03-24)

Since 
 versioning, as one example, involves multiple transactions that must 
be  commited as a group, we will need to address transactional 
integrity.  Specifically, we need to define how this will be handled at 
the protocol  level, vs. the implementation level.

* PROPOSED CONSTRUCTS/OPERATORS FOR XDI

Discuss the following wiki page originally posted by Giovanni:

  http://wiki.oasis-open.org/xdi/XdiNewFoundation

* DICTIONARY STRUCTURE

Mike would like an example of the PDX dictionary as soon as we can do it.

*   EQUIVALENCE SEMANTICS

Close on whether we need an additional $ word that is the equivalent

of Higgins Personal Data Model (PDM)  semantics of h:correlation,

which is not as strong as $is.

      http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/xdi/201006/msg00036.html

* COOL URIS

Continue previous discussion about the use of standard RDF URIs in XDI:

  http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/xdi/201006/msg00023.html