Cover Pages: XML Daily Newslink: Monday, 18 June 2007

A Cover Pages Publication http://xml.coverpages.org/
Provided by OASIS and Sponsor Members
Edited by Robin Cover

This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by:
Primeton http://www.primeton.com

Headlines

Converting Annotated RELAX NG Schemas for Use in I-Ds or RFCs
Reliable Messaging in Ruby with AP4R
Enabling Read Access for Web Resources
This Isn't Your Father's IBM
Symmetric Key Services Markup Language (SKSML) Requirements

Converting Annotated RELAX NG Schemas for Use in I-Ds or RFCs
Ladislav Lhotka (ed), IETF Internet Draft

This memo presents a method for annotating XML schemas expressed in the RELAX NG language and transforming them to a form suitable for direct inclusion in an XML source of an IETF Internet Draft (I-D) or Request for Comments (RFC). The Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) stylesheet performing the transformation also automatically generates cross-references between RELAX NG pattern definitions and their references. In the context of IETF activities, the most natural way of publishing and/or standardizing an XML schema is to make it a part of an Internet Draft or RFC that describes the application the schema is used for. However, including an annotated schema directly in an I-D or RFC is not optimal since the annotations wrapped in XML elements are clumsy and hard to read. XML comments are better in this respect, but still the best option for rendering the annotations is to convert them into standard paragraphs of the I-D or RFC. The strategy presented here for annotating RELAX NG schemas and transforming them for inclusion into XML source follows methods documented in "Writing I-Ds and RFCs using XML" (RFC 2629). The method presented in this memo is similar in spirit to "literate programming in XML", which may be applied to arbitrary XML documents, for example XSLT stylesheets. However, its main benefit, namely that it allows for arbitrary modularization and reordering of the original document, just duplicates the intrinsic functionality of RELAX NG based on the "define" and "ref" elements. Therefore, the specialized XSLT stylesheet rng2rfc.xsl is considerably simpler and yet achieves better results.

Reliable Messaging in Ruby with AP4R
Sebastien Auvray, InfoQ

Shun'ichi Shinohara and Kiwamu Kato have been working on bringing reliable messging to Ruby with their own API and protocol project, based on previous experiences designing a Java-based high volume messaging framework. AP4R, Asynchronous Processing for Ruby, is an implementation of reliable asynchronous message processing, providing message queuing and message dispatching. Shun'ichi and Kiwamu gave a presentation at RubyKaigi 2007 about their API emphasizing its key design philosophies: Robustness and Lightweight. The project is just a year old, and already supports: (1) Business logic can be implemented as simple Web apps or ruby code, whether it's called asynchronously or synchronously; (2) RBMS (MySQL) or file-based message persistance; (3) Load balancing over multiple AP4R processes on single/multiple server(s) is supported; (4) Multiple protocol support: XML-RPC, SOAP, HTTP POST, and more.

See also: the online documentation

Enabling Read Access for Web Resources
Anne van Kesteren (ed), W3C Technical Report

Members of the W3C Web Application Formats (WAF) Working Group have published an updated Working Draft for "Enabling Read Access for Web Resources." The web has a rich set of resources that can be combined to build content, applications and feature-rich web sites. A contributor to this richness is web sites including references (e.g. a link or an image inclusion) to resources residing in other domains. For security reasons, user agents such as web browsers implement a "same origin policy" that allows a document (e.g. some JavaScript) to read, process, or otherwise interrogate the contents of another resource if and only if the other resource resides in the same domain. This restriction on "read" access to web resources is very strict and generally appropriate. However, there are scenarios where an application would like to "read" data from another resource on the web without these restrictions and in these scenarios the browser's default "security sandbox" has to be extended or eased. For example, a car reservation web site may want to request trip itinerary data from an affiliated airline reservation website to streamline making a car reservation. The easing of read access restrictions is particularly important to web browsers that implement the XMLHttpRequest object and VoiceXML 2.1 browsers using the data element. To facilitate clear and controlled read access to resources, this specification defines a read access control mechanism that enables a web resource to permit access to its content from external domains when such access would otherwise be prohibited by a same origin policy.

This Isn't Your Father's IBM
Darryl K. Taft, eWEEK

Big Blue may still deal in COBOL and target big enterprises, but alphaWorks shows that the company also is delving deep into Web 2.0 technologies. IBM is gearing up to deliver a new version of the alphaWorks site in August, according to Chris Spencer. With the new version of alphaWorks, IBM is planning to let the community have a hand in shaping the site. "We're going to put out a beta and see what the market wants and likes," he said. "Then we'll change it to reflect that. One thing we found interesting is that developers aren't just interested in tools, but increasingly they have interest in the business side of things." One thing the new alphaWorks will do is facilitate more interactivity between the community and IBM's emerging technology creators. For example, the person who created an emerging technology will conduct a webinar on the technology, then a demonstration, followed by a live question-and-answer session where observers can use VOIP (voice over IP) to ask questions of the creator. ThinkPlace, another alphaWorks Service, is a Web application for facilitating innovation through idea generation, collaboration and refinement. QEDWiki, yet another of the alphaWorks Services, is an environment that extends current wiki technology to enable rapid deployment, content aggregation, structured data and powerful extensibility. Other alphaWorks Services include the IBM Development Engagement (also known as DevEngage) Deep Thunder, and Web Relational Blocks. IBM Development Engagement Service is an online service providing an AJAX-based development environment that enables business users to visually develop form applications.

Symmetric Key Services Markup Language (SKSML) Requirements
Arshad Noor, et al; OASIS Committee Draft

Members of the EKMI Symmetric Key Services Markup Language (SKSML) Subcommittee have released a draft of the SKSML Requirements document, approved as a Committee Draft by the OASIS Enterprise Key Management Infrastructure (EKMI) Technical Committee. The OASIS Symmetric Key Services Markup Language (SKSML) is the proposed language/protocol that defines how a client on a network will request and receive services for symmetric encryption cryptographic keys from a server. The document establishes the requirements for SKSML, as well as the rationale for those requirements. Clients may consist of computerized devices such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), telephones, laptop, desktop and server-class computers, applications such as office productivity, database, e-commerce, healthcare, financial or other applications, and/or devices such as routers, printers, disks, tape-drives, etc. Symmetric encryption cryptographic keys may consist of Triple Data Encryption Standard (3DES) or the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

See also: the EKMI TC FAQ document


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