Cover Pages: XML Daily Newslink: Thursday, 08 November 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:
BEA Systems, Inc. http://www.bea.com

Headlines

W3C Plenary Day Program Convenes Experts on the Future of the Web
Use an XForms Document as a Custom XML Editor
HTML 5: Updated Editor's Draft
The Presence-ID Header Field
DISA Initiates Joint Enterprise Directory Service
InfoQ Interview: Paul Fremantle on the State of WS-*
Report on Election Markup Language (EML) Interoperability Demonstration
WebLogic Server 10.3 Tech Preview Highlights
Sun Eyes Consumer Focus for Upcoming Java Kit

W3C Plenary Day Program Convenes Experts on the Future of the Web
Staff, W3C Announcement

W3C announced that it welcomed over 400 experts from around the world on 2007-11-07 to participate in a compelling "Plenary Day Program", designesd to address issues shaping the future of the Web. The Wednesday of the Technical Plenary Week offered a unique opportunity for a broad W3C Community (Working, Interest and Coordination Groups; Advisory Committee Representatives; Advisory Board; Technical Architecture Group; and W3C Team) who have registered to gather in one room and discuss technical topics of broad interest to the attendees, and of significant importance to past, present and future of the World Wide Web Consortium. Authors of the next version of HTML mixed it up with Semantic Web developers, security experts, Web accessibility advocates, and the media on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA). The program included a panel on the growing relationships between W3C and the at-large developer community, the challenges HTML5 and XHTML2 propose to solve, and W3C's emerging vision of what's needed for video on the Web. The day culminated with a talk by W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee: "Cracks and Mortar", a review of the Web to date and a close look at the gaps for signs of both wear and opportunity. The session "HTML 5, XHTML 2.0, Future Formats" is now referenced in a blog. Details and links are provided in the announcement, "W3C Community Convenes to Discuss Web Future. Hundreds of International Participants Exchange Ideas, Coordinate Work."

Use an XForms Document as a Custom XML Editor
Doug Tidwell, IBM developerWorks

A previous article in this series showed how to use XSLT 2.0 to transform an XML tournament document into an HTML bracket that displayed the tournament results. What we didn't address in that article is how to fill in the winners and losers for that XML tournament. In this article, we'll revisit our XML tournament and create an XForms document that lets us fill in the tournament results without an angle bracket in sight. The result is an attractive editor for our bracket document type, complete with Ajax-like effects. Best of all, our use of XForms means the custom editor is built with declarative markup and is based on the data structures in the XML document itself. The article addresses: (1) Defining the layout of the XHTML page; (2) Importing the data model (our XML bracket) into the XForms document; (3) Defining the panels that display the matchups; (4) Defining the panel that displays the bracket; (5) Defining the navigation buttons; (6) Defining the XForms actions to save and reset the tournament data. A user who selects the winners of the 15 matchups automatically creates a complete, valid XML document. To simplify development and maintenance, we refactored the markup in our XForms document by generating it with an XSLT stylesheet. In our example here, we simply wrote that document to a file; we could have just as easily submitted the XML document to a Web application. Best of all, everything in the XForms document is tied directly to the XML data model.

See also: XML and Forms

HTML 5: Updated Editor's Draft
Ian Hickson and David Hyatt (eds), W3C Editor's Draft

This updated specification (7-November-2007) defines the fifth major revision of the core language of the World Wide Web, HTML. In this version, new features are introduced to help Web application authors, new elements are introduced based on research into prevailing authoring practices, and special attention has been given to defining clear conformance criteria for user agents in an effort to improve interoperability. The specification represents a new version of HTML4 and XHTML1, along with a new version of the associated DOM2 HTML API. Migration from HTML4 or XHTML1 to the format and APIs described in this specification should in most cases be straightforward, as care has been taken to ensure that backwards-compatibility is retained. The specification is limited to providing a semantic-level markup language and associated semantic-level scripting APIs for authoring accessible pages on the Web ranging from static documents to dynamic applications. Its scope does not include addressing presentation concerns, although default rendering rules for Web browsers are included at the end of this specification. The document has been produced by members of the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG), which focuses primarily on the development of HTML and APIs needed for Web applications. The W3C HTML Working Group is the W3C working group responsible for this specification's progress along the W3C Recommendation track. This specification (the 7-November-2007 Editor's Draft), and has not yet been published as a W3C First Public Working Draft. HTML 5 is the main focus of the WHATWG community and also that of the (new) W3C HTML Working Group. HTML 5 is a new version of HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 addressing many of the issues of those specifications while at the same time enhancing (X)HTML to more adequately address Web applications. Besides defining a markup language that can be written in both HTML (HTML5) and XML (XHTML5) it also defines many APIs that form the basis of the Web architecture. These APIs are known to some as "DOM Level 0" and have never been documented. Yet they are extremely important for browser vendors to support existing Web content and for authors to be able to build Web applications.

The Presence-ID Header Field
Peter Saint-Andre, IETF Internet Draft

This document defines a header field that enables the author of an email or netnews message to include a Presence URI in the message header block for the purpose of associating the author with an address that provides information about network availability, also known as "presence". Several technologies enable entities to share information about their network availability, also known as "presence". Such technologies include XMPP-IM (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP): Instant Messaging and Presence) and the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). To facilitate the exchange of presence information, a URI scheme for presence is defined in Common Profile for Presence (CPP). Because almost all human users of presence systems also use email systems and because many such users also use netnews systems, it can be helpful for such users to specify their presence URIs in the messages they author. The Presence-ID header field provides a standard location for such information. This memo documents the syntax and implementation of the Presence-ID header field, including the information necessary to register it in the Permanent Message Header Field Registry maintained by the IANA. The Presence-ID header field is associated with the author of the message. If the "From:" header field contains more than one mailbox, the Presence-ID header field should not be added to the message. There should be no more than one instance of the Presence-ID header field. Upon receiving a message containing a Presence-ID header field, a user agent that supports the field should process the field by resolving the presence URI in accordance with the procedures specified in CPP. A user agent that has processed a Presence-ID header field may provide appropriate interface elements if it has independent information linking the author of the message with the specified presence URI (e.g., via a user-controlled address book or automated directory lookup). If the user is subscribed to the presence of the author, such interface elements might include an indicator that the author is online and available for communication over a network.

DISA Initiates Joint Enterprise Directory Service
Wyatt Kash, Government Computer News

The U.S. Defense Department's vision for building a global address list came into clearer view last month with the introduction of a newly operational directory service by the Defense Information Systems Agency. The new service marks an important step in DISA's efforts to build a repository capable of providing universal access to identity, account and address information under a program known as the Joint Enterprise Directory Service (JEDS). Tony Montemarano, DISA's Program Executive Officer for Information Assurance/NetOps: "The Joint Enterprise Directory Service currently provides a limited, unclassified, white-page capability. The service "correlates inputs from DISA's Global Directory Service and the Air Force Directory Service," and now has initial operating capability on the Non-secure IP Router Network (NIPRnet), the military's unclassified Internet network. Currently, the department relies on two types of directory services operating on the GIG. One is the Global Directory Service, which maintains 4.5 million public-key infrastructure certificates issued within the Defense Department. The other directory service is geared at the component and enclave level, and makes use of Microsoft's Active Directory product. However, it is used primarily to control access to enclave network resources and data. Neither service provides the kind of enterprisewide access to e-mail and account information commonly available in many organizations. JEDS is being designed, using commercial directory products, to harvest attribute data from military account and personnel repositories, and merge the data into a central database. The data can be accessed by secure HTTP, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and Web services (SOAP, SAML, and XML) interfaces for use by individuals and applications across the Global Information Grid (GIG)

InfoQ Interview: Paul Fremantle on the State of WS-*
Stefan Tilkov, InfoQ

In this interview, Paul Fremantle, WSO2 co-founder co-chair of the OASIS committee that standardized WS-Reliable Messaging, talks to Stefan Tilkov about the state and relative importance of web services standards, the role of open source software for SOA, his views on the eternal REST debate, and WSO2's business model. Fremantle: "Fundamentally [RM is] a very simple approach protocol that enables you to deliver SOAP messages exactly once, and in order. Obviously it has some other capabilities but that's the primary use people want. It adds a JMS-like capability to SOAP, which allows you to basically enable reliable messaging, retries, resends and dropping duplicates, all the kind of things that you would expect from a product like MQSeries, in a completely standard open format... And what is really interesting about RM is not that it's a hard thing to do, to reliably deliver messages is actually pretty simple. What is interesting about RM is that it is the only standard that has the backing of every single vendor in this space, ranging from Sun to Microsoft, to IBM, to TIBCO, to BEA, Sonic, Progress. I think that is very interesting because it opens up the possibility that there might really be an open, widely adopted standard for doing reliable messaging, which is something that the world hasn't really had today, there's JMS but that's just an API, underneath it all those wire protocols are completely different... What I think people are interested in are obviously SOAP as a core messaging protocol, Reliable Messaging to make sure messages get there, Security to make sure they are secure, and this thing called MTOM which is basically how you transmit binary data and still maintain efficiency, security and so forth and fit that into the SOAP messaging format. And Windows Communication Foundation (WCF, Indigo) is shipping now with these things in it. For example the Apache Axis2 project has these, the Sun JAX-RI has these, and this has become a standard set that I think a number of people are quite interested in. For example I am working on a French government initiative called Presto where they are mandating all government departments communicate with this set of standards. We are doing a very broad-ranging project in Denmark, where basically the Danish government is specifying that small business are going to use this set of standards plus a set of standard XML schemas to do things like purchase orders and invoices securely and reliably.

See also: WSRM 1.1

Report on Election Markup Language (EML) Interoperability Demonstration
John Borras, Workshop Report

Organizers of an EML Interoperability Demonstration have published a report of the exercise: "All attendees of the OASIS Open Standards Forum 2007 held in Ditton Manor UK were invited to participate in an Interoperability Demonstration of the Election Markup Language (EML) OASIS Standard. With their help the objective of the Demo was to show how EML can be used in a multi-channel e-voting ballot involving several suppliers... In conducting the Demo, EML's schemas 330, 410, 510 and 520 were used and examples of these are shown at Appendix C. All personal data has been removed from these examples for obvious reasons. The 330 schema was created from the Forum delegate list and sent to all channel providers. They prepared their vote casting systems from this schema and added appropriate validation routines to counter duplicate and erroneous voting. At the conclusion of voting each channel provider constructed a 510 schema with the number of votes and sent it to IBM, who reconciled and counted the votes. The results were then posted to a remote website using a 520 schema. This whole exercise was a very global event as data was being captured by back-end systems in Nova Scotia, Australia, Northern Ireland, as well as locally in Ditton Manor. The paper ballots were scanned locally. All the data was sent electronically to Belgium for counting and then posted to the remote website for use in the final presentation at the Forum. An online ballot results document is available.

See also: the EML TC public pages

WebLogic Server 10.3 Tech Preview Highlights
Will Lyons, BEA Technical Note

BEA has just released a Technical Preview of WebLogic Server 10.3. This release focuses on three enhancement areas that we believe will improve the developer experience for you if are an existing WebLogic Server developer, or that will attract you to WebLogic Server if you are not currently using the product. The first enhancement area is making WebLogic Server more "lightweight". The term "lightweight" means different things to different people, including characteristics such as "faster download", "smaller disk footprint", "less memory consumption", "faster deployment", or "faster server startup". The primary underlying requirement is to enable developers to be more productive by reducing the resources and time consumed by the server and server-related actions. WebLogic Server 10.3 includes new and updated support for Web Services standards, especially OASIS WS-* standards such as WS-Security, WS-Policy, WS-Reliable Messaging and WS-Addressing. WebLogic Server provides an environment for developing and hosting SOA Services, and is the foundation for BEA's SOA offering. WebLogic Server 10.3 delivers new features for developing services and application for Service-Oriented Architectures. First we're enhancing Web Services standards support for both JAX-RPC (J2EE 1.4) and JAX-WS (Java EE 5) Web Services. Coming soon will be Service Component Architecture (SCA) support, which will enable standards-based development of composite applications. This will be made available in coming months in preview form as an add-on to the WebLogic Server 10.3 technology preview. Another enhancement area is enterprise technology integration and standards updates. WebLogic Server applications must coexist and interoperate with other technologies via de facto or de jure standards to support development and execution of secure, high-performance and high-availability enterprise applications. We've updated our support to meet key customer and developer requirements in this area... The Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) is the standard for exchange of security information in order to enable single sign-on across security domains. This WebLogic Server 10.3 Technology Preview supports the SAML 2.0 standard (and brings forward existing SAML 1.1 support) to enable single sign-on for Web apps as well as Web services.

See also: SAML references

Sun Eyes Consumer Focus for Upcoming Java Kit
Paul Krill, InfoWorld

Sun is working on a long list of potential features for the planned JDK (Java Development Kit) 7, which is based partially on the upcoming Java Standard Edition (SE) 7. JDK7 is expected to have a consumer focus, although an XML accommodation originally envisioned may not make it into the final product. JavaFX is Sun's planned implementation of Java technology providing for multimedia applications on a range of systems. JavaFX features, such as media support, animation, and a component offering broader HTML backing, could end up in JDK7. Developers could render arbitrary HTML, according to [Chet] Haase. Capabilities from several JSRs (Java Specification Requests) are eyed for JDK7, including JSR 203, providing various I/O APIs; 277, for Java Module System; 294, for improved modular support in Java; 295, offering data binding for JavaBean objects; and 296, the Swing application framework. Other JSRs whose work could show up in JDK7 include 255, featuring JMX (Java Management Extensions), and 262, also based on JMX and including a Web services connector. Another feature, identified as declaring and constructing a variable instance, features syntax for shortening the declaration of variables. A planned GetJava executable capability would makes it easier to detect the current version of Java and launch the Java application to be used.

See also: the JDK v6 web site


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