Cover Pages: XML Daily Newslink: Wednesday, 13 January 2010

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:
Sun Microsystems, Inc. http://sun.com

Headlines

Apple Makes Open Source CardDAV Server Publicly Available
Talking with Doug Day About the iCalendar Validator
IESG Evaluation for Link Relations for Simple Version Navigation
Lotus Gets Open Source Infusion from Alfresco
Facebook Sponsors Apache Software Foundation
HP, Microsoft Announce $250 Million Cloud Computing Pact

Apple Makes Open Source CardDAV Server Publicly Available
Cyrus Daboo, IETF Announcement

Cyrus Daboo (Apple Computing), editor of several CalConnect and IETF calendaring specifications, announced that Apple has made its CardDAV server available as open source. This server is based on the CalDAV server open source code and is available under an Apache 2 license.

From the Wiki description for the Calendar and Contacts Server: "The open source Calendar and Contacts Server project is a standards-compliant server implementing the CalDAV and CardDAV protocols. It provides a shared location on the network allowing multiple users to store and edit calendaring and contact information.

CalDAV is an Internet standard allowing a client to access scheduling information on a remote server. It extends the WebDAV (an HTTP-based protocol for data manipulation) specification and uses the iCalendar format for the data. The protocol is defined by RFC 4791. It allows multiple clients access to the same information thus allowing cooperative planning and information sharing. Many server and client applications support the protocol.

CardDAV is an address book client/server protocol designed to allow users to access and share contact data on a server. The CardDAV protocol is being developed by the IETF and is currently an internet draft. Calendar and Contacts Server is presently implemented as two separate servers: Calendar Server and Contacts Server. The plan is the merge these into one code base..."

Talking with Doug Day About the iCalendar Validator
Jon Udell, Blog

A podcast hosted by Jon Udell on an 'Innovators show' features Doug Day joins in a discussion of "a new iCalendar validator recently deployed on Azure. The project draws inspiration from the pathbreaking RSS/Atom feed validator originally created by Mark Pilgrim and Sam Ruby. The RSS/Atom validator's test-driven and advice-oriented approach is exemplary, and the iCalendar validator follows in its footsteps.

The tests, in this case, are iCalendar snippets that are, or are not, valid according to the spec. These snippets, packaged into XML files, form a library of examples that does not depend on the programming language used to run the tests. So although Doug's validator, based on his open source parser, is written in C#, another validator written in Java or Python or Ruby could use the same test suite.

Doug Day's validator is up and running [online]. It's based on the DDay.iCal, which is the same .NET-based iCalendar class library used by the elmcity aggregator. But, like the RSS/Atom validator, it's driven by an extensible and language-independent suite of tests. The validator reports numerical scores for an iCalendar file, and gives advice about how it will be handled by popular calendar applications....

Although calendars seem to be ubiquitous, familiar, and interoperable, the examples I've been collecting in the wild show that, even though the standard has been around for over a decade, the iCalendar ecosystem is still very immature. This validator will help that ecosystem evolve..."

IESG Evaluation for Link Relations for Simple Version Navigation
Al Brown, Geoffrey Clemm, Julian Reschke (eds), IETF Internet Draft

A revised -06 version of the specification Link Relations for Simple Version Navigation has been advanced to IESG Evaluation. Changes in this version include revision of VERSION-CONTROL example to return 204, fixing country names in contact information, and resolving issues with "expose-urls".

This IETF specification defines link relations that may be used on a resource that exists in a system that supports versioning to navigate among the different resources available, such as past versions. These link relations are used in the AtomPub RFC bindings of the "Content Management Interoperability Services" (CMIS) specification. The link relations defined in Section 3 also correspond to various properties used in WebDAV Versioning and JCR (JSR-283)...

Now in the 'IESG Evaluation' state: The "document is now being formally reviewed by the entire IESG. Documents are discussed in email or during a bi-weekly IESG telechat. In this phase, each AD reviews the document and airs any issues they may have. Unresolvable issues are documented as 'discuss' comments that can be forwarded to the authors/WG... "

Note: CMIS Specification Section 3.4.3 presents "CMIS Link Relations." These CMIS link relation types are used in addition to the link relations specified by Atom and Atom Publishing Protocol; see the IANA registry for Atom Link Relations e.g., alternate, current, describedby, edit, edit-media, enclosure, first, last, license, next, next-archive, payment, prev-archive, previous, related, replies, self, service, up, via. Certain 'Hierarchy Navigation Internet Draft Link Relations' are taken from the IETF Internet Draft Hierarchy Relations for Atom.

Lotus Gets Open Source Infusion from Alfresco
John Fontana, Network World

"Alfresco announced that it would ship this spring [2010] software to integrate its content management software with the lineup of IBM Lotus software, notably Lotus Quickr... Alfresco executives said the REST architecture played a big role in the quick integration between the two platforms as did support for the Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) standard. IBM officials called it a match made in CMIS heaven...

John Powell, president and CEO of Alfresco says the multi-tenancy capabilities of Alfresco also make it easier to move ECM capabilities to the cloud. IBM/Lotus next week plans to expand on the Lotus cloud strategy it began detailing at the 2009 edition of Lotusphere. Alfresco also supports a host of other standards to help join the two platforms, especially from a developers perspective, including APIs, protocols and services such as Java, PHP, CIFS, XForms, SOAP, and .net..."

According to the Alfresco announcement: "Alfresco and IBM worked together to develop a seamless, fully featured integration between Alfresco ECM and IBM Lotus social software in record time due to the modern, open, REST-based architecture of Alfresco's ECM software and the forthcoming Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) standard... At Lotusphere (January 17-21, 2010), Alfresco Software is demonstrating the technical preview of Alfresco Content Services for IBM Lotus. The integration between Alfresco's open source enterprise content management (ECM) system and IBM Lotus social collaboration products extends to Lotus Quickr, Lotus Notes, Lotus Connections and WebSphere Portal... Alfresco ECM uses a flexible architecture to address organizations' content management requirements—Document Management, Records Management, Web Content Management, or Email Archiving - through one value-based solution..."

Facebook Sponsors Apache Software Foundation
Sean Michael Kerner, Developer.com

"After spending years using open source Apache Software Foundation (ASF) technologies to help build its social networking site, Facebook is now spending its money to give back to effort. Facebook is now a gold sponsor of the ASF, contributing $40,000 per year to the open source foundation and its initiatives. Facebook uses a number of Apache technologies, including Hadoop...

The ASF just recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, and is home to many popular open source projects including the Apache HTTP Web server. One of the hallmarks of the ASF is that it is a meritocracy for developers, and that money is not the key influencer for technical decisions.

Facebook is no stranger to the ASF, and according to Jagielski, it was Facebook developer David Recordon who approached the ASF about a potential sponsorship: 'We are pleased to announce that we are becoming a Gold sponsor of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), which has been instrumental in fostering open source adoption and providing structure to build successful open source communities. The ASF has over 100 different projects which all help the Web grow as it continues to evolve. As Jim Jagielski said, "sponsoring the ASF helps us grow existing projects, incubate new initiatives, promote community development, host user events, expand our outreach, and provide the infrastructure that keeps the Foundation running on a day-to-day basis." Beyond funding the ASF to help the organization grow, we really want to continue focusing on building, releasing, and fostering great open source software which tackle hard scaling problems'...

Starting in 2008, Microsoft began sponsoring the ASF with a $1 million a year commitment. The ASF would like to continue to see other organizations join with Facebook, Microsoft and others to pad its roster of sponsors..."

See also: David Recordon's blog

HP, Microsoft Announce $250 Million Cloud Computing Pact
Paul McDougall, InformationWeek

"Tech heavyweights Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft have announced an ambitious partnership under which they will jointly invest $250 million over three years to develop and market systems geared toward cloud computing. Cloud computing is a new-wave IT architecture under which business tap their data and applications over the Internet or intranets instead of from local servers.

Under the tie up, Microsoft and HP will work together to build and integrate technologies, including virtualization, systems management and storage, that support cloud computing. For instance, HP will reengineer some of its hardware to improve its ability to run Microsoft's SQL Server database and Hyper-V virtualization server software. It will also enhance management software such as HP Insight and Business Technology Optimization for tighter integration with Windows datacenter environments.

The companies soon plan to add new Microsoft System Center management tools to HP ProLiant servers that will give IT managers the ability to better control power management within datacenters. That's key, as datacenters—where racks and racks of power hungry servers are stored -- are the hubs of cloud computing's hosted setups. Microsoft and HP are also jointly developing new run book automation solutions designed to improve the management of datacenter workflows..."

See also: the Microsoft announcement


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