Cover Pages: XML Daily Newslink: Wednesday, 23 June 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:
ISIS Papyrus http://www.isis-papyrus.com

Headlines

W3C Plans Formation of Point of Interest Working Group
Guidelines for Authors and Reviewers of YANG Data Model Documents
Mapping YANG to Document Schema Definition Languages and Validating NETCONF Content
Last Call Review for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 Second Edition
Eclipse Helios Simultaneous Release
PsychoPath Processor Invades Apache
EDXL Sharp: C# and .NET 3.5 Implementation of OASIS EDXL Specifications
Enabling Rule-Based Decision Services as Web Services
Red Hat Launches Hybrid Cloud Platform

W3C Plans Formation of Point of Interest Working Group
Phil Archer, Blog

"Following the successful W3C Workshop 'Augmented Reality on the Web' in Barcelona, work is now underway to establish a W3C Working Group to develop one or more Recommendation Track documents to encode data about Points of Interest.

The W3C Workshop for 'Augmented Reality on the Web' was held to discuss whether and how this area can benefit from Web technologies. AR predates the Web and so it is unsurprising that there are clear gaps between the two worlds, but are those gaps substantial? The workshop was hosted in Barcelona at Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC). It attracted over 40 attendees and 22 papers. The participants represented a broad range of telecom operators, device manufacturers, AR service delivery companies, AR users from the advertising world, academics, and standards bodies... Participants presented a range of ideas on how AR can be seen in a broader context: social networking, the uploading of relevant data, and context-based filtering of the mass of data available and potentially relevant to a given user at a given location at a given time...

An important standard already exists in this area (KML) which was developed for and is used in Google Earth, but at least two groups have developed extensions to KML to meet their use cases (ARML and KARML). Outside the field of Augmented Reality there are other areas where a standardized, interoperable method of describing real world locations is called for. Primary among these non-AR fields is linked data, especially linked data published by governments, where tying the data to geographical areas can be the key to making sense of what the data is telling us... ARML is an initiative to standardize the way points of interest are described. Similar to web browsers this would enable content providers to create their data once and it can be viewed across all browser that support the standard; KML is an open standard officially named the OpenGIS KML Encoding Standard (OGC KML), and is maintained by the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC).

A full report on the workshop is in preparation and will be published in the very near future however, a public mailing list has already been established and exists to act as a communication channel for those wishing to help create the charter for the new group and, all being well, participate in it. We are aiming to make the charter available for review in July 2010 with a view to holding the kick off face-to-face meeting in October, collocated with ISMAR..."

Guidelines for Authors and Reviewers of YANG Data Model Documents
Andy Bierman (ed), IETF Internet Draft

The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) has received a request from the IETF NETCONF Data Modeling Language Working Group (NETMOD) to consider Guidelines for Authors and Reviewers of YANG Data Model Documents [draft-ietf-netmod-yang-usage-07.txt] as an IETF Informational RFC. The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the IETF mailing lists by 2010-07-08.

"The standardization of network configuration interfaces for use with the NETCONF protocol (RFC 4741) requires a modular set of data models, which can be reused and extended over time. The I-D 'YANG: A Data Modeling Language for the Network Configuration Protocol' presents YANG as a data modeling language used for configuration and state data manipulated by the Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) protocol, NETCONF remote procedure calls, and NETCONF notifications. YANG is used to model both the the operations and content layers of NETCONF. The YANG data model is represented in the Extensible Markup Language (XML).

The 'Guidelines' memo provides guidelines for authors and reviewers of standards track specifications containing YANG data model modules. Applicable portions may be used as a basis for reviews of other YANG data model documents. Recommendations and procedures are defined, which are intended to increase interoperability and usability of NETCONF implementations which utilize YANG data model modules.

Many YANG constructs are defined as optional to use, such as the description statement. However, in order to maximize interoperability of NETCONF implementations utilizing YANG data models, it is desirable to define a set of usage guidelines which may require a higher level of compliance than the minimum level defined in the YANG specification... In addition, YANG allows constructs such as infinite length identifiers and string values, or top-level mandatory nodes, that a compliant server is not required to support. Only constructs which all servers are required to support can be used in IETF YANG modules..."

Mapping YANG to Document Schema Definition Languages and Validating NETCONF Content
Ladislav Lhotka, Rohan Mahy, Sharon Chisholm (eds), IETF Internet Draft

A revised Internet Draft Mapping YANG to Document Schema Definition Languages and Validating NETCONF Content specifies the mapping rules for translating YANG data models into Document Schema Definition Languages (DSDL), a coordinated set of XML schema languages standardized as ISO 19757. Several DSDL schema languages are addressed by the mapping: RELAX NG, Schematron and DSRL. The mapping takes one or more YANG modules and produces a set of DSDL schemas for a selected target document type - datastore content, NETCONF message etc. Procedures for schema-based validation of such documents are also discussed.

ISO/IEC 19757 defines a set of Document Schema Definition Languages (DSDL) that can be used to specify one or more validation processes performed against Extensible Markup Language (XML) or Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) documents, where XML is an application profile of SGML - ISO 8879. A document model is an expression of the constraints to be placed on the structure and content of documents to be validated against the model and the information set that needs to be transmitted to subsequent processes... The main objective of ISO/IEC 19757 is to bring together different validation-related tasks and expressions to form a single extensible framework that allows technologies to work in series or in parallel to produce a single or a set of validation results. The extensibility of DSDL accommodates validation technologies not yet designed or specified...

Since NETCONF uses XML for encoding its messages, it is natural to express the constraints on NETCONF content using standard XML schema languages. For this purpose, the NETMOD WG selected the Document Schema Definition Languages (DSDL)... The DSDL framework comprises a set of XML schema languages that address grammar rules, semantic constraints and other data modeling aspects, but also, and more importantly, do it in a coordinated and consistent way.

The YANG DSDL mapping procedure is divided into two steps: In the first step, the structure of the data tree, signatures of RPC operations and notifications is expressed as the so-called 'hybrid schema'—a single RELAX NG schema with annotations representing additional data model information (metadata, documentation, semantic constraints, default values etc.). The second step then generates a coordinated set of DSDL schemas that can be used for validating specific XML documents such as client requests, server responses or notifications, perhaps also taking into account additional context such as active capabilities or features..."

See also: DSDL references

Last Call Review for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 Second Edition
Erik Dahlstroem, Jon Ferraiolo, FUJISAWA Jun (et al., eds), W3C Technical Report

W3C has announced a Last Call review for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 (Second Edition) specification. This document defines the features and syntax for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Version 1.1, a modularized language for describing two-dimensional vector and mixed vector/raster graphics in XML. The specification incorporates SVG 1.1 errata. The W3C SVG Working Group has released an expanded test suite for SVG 1.1, along with an implementation report for the subset of tests which are affected by errata items. Public comments is invited through 13-July-2010.

SVG is a language for describing two-dimensional graphics in XML. SVG allows for three types of graphic objects: vector graphic shapes (e.g., paths consisting of straight lines and curves), images and text. Graphical objects can be grouped, styled, transformed and composited into previously rendered objects. The feature set includes nested transformations, clipping paths, alpha masks, filter effects and template objects. SVG drawings can be interactive and dynamic. Animations can be defined and triggered either declaratively (i.e., by embedding SVG animation elements in SVG content) or via scripting.

Sophisticated applications of SVG are possible by use of a supplemental scripting language which accesses SVG Document Object Model (DOM), which provides complete access to all elements, attributes and properties. A rich set of event handlers such as 'onmouseover' and 'onclick' can be assigned to any SVG graphical object. Because of its compatibility and leveraging of other Web standards, features like scripting can be done on XHTML and SVG elements simultaneously within the same Web page.

SVG is a language for rich graphical content. For accessibility reasons, if there is an original source document containing higher-level structure and semantics, it is recommended that the higher-level information be made available somehow, either by making the original source document available, or making an alternative version available in an alternative format which conveys the higher-level information, or by using SVG's facilities to include the higher-level information within the SVG content. For suggested techniques in achieving greater accessibility, see Accessibility. SVG 1.1 is a modularization of SVG 1.0. And see the Document Type Definition appendix for details on how the DTD is structured to allow profiling and composition with other XML languages..."

Eclipse Helios Simultaneous Release
Alex Blewitt, InfoQueue

Eclipse is an open source community, whose projects are focused on building an open development platform comprised of extensible frameworks, tools and runtimes for building, deploying and managing software across the lifecycle... "This year's Eclipse release brings beta Git support out of the box with the EGit project; as the chosen distributed version control system for the future of Eclipse, out of the box Git support will be key for future releases... The embedded Eclipse Marketplace Client which can browse (and install) applications from the recently launched Eclipse Marketplace. This makes it easier to find Eclipse plug-ins; and can be integrated with the recent Eclipse Labs open source hosting site.

The Web Tools Platform has released support for the latest JavaEE platform, including Servlet 3.0, JSF 2.0 and Tomcat 7 support. In addition, XML editing and processing support (including XHTML editing) has been improved with the PsychoPath XPath 2.0 processor..."

From the announcement: "On June 23, 2010 the Eclipse community delivered its annual release train, a coordinated release of the major Eclipse projects. For the seventh year in a row, the 2010 release train, code named Helios, arrived on time and is now available for download. The Helios release is the largest release train produced by the Eclipse community, including 39 different project teams, over 33 million lines of code are released and the work of 490 committers. The release train makes it easier for users and adopters of Eclipse technology to adopt new versions of the different Eclipse projects. The Eclipse community also makes available 12 different Eclipse packages that target different types of developer usage, including Java EE developers, PHP developers, C/C++ developers and many more...

The Helios release including many new features and projects updates. Some of the highlights include: (1) A new Linux IDE package makes it easier for Linux developers to use an integrated tool chain for building C/C++ applications for the Linux operating system. (2) Eclipse Marketplace Client provides developers an 'app-store' experience to easily discover and install new Eclipse plug-ins. (3) Support for Git, a popular distributed version control (DVCS), is provided by the new Eclipse EGit and JGit projects; the new EGit 0.8 release includes a new Git repositories view and support for fast forward merging and tagging. (4) The Web Tools Platform project has introduced support for creating, running, and debugging applications written for the latest Java EE Specifications (Java EE 6) including, Servlet 3.0, JPA 2.0, JSF 2.0, and EJB 3.1. (5) Improved support in the JavaScript Development Tools project (JSDT) for JavaScript developers... (6) Eclipse Xtext 1.0, a popular framework for creating domain specific languages (DSL), introduces 80 new features, including improved performance and scalability by up to 30 times previous versions. (7) A new release of Acceleo 3.0 implements the OMG Model-to-text (MTL) specification and provides the features required for a code generator IDE..."

See also: the Helios announcement

PsychoPath Processor Invades Apache
David Carver, Blog

"With all the concentration on the Eclipse Helios release, something quietly happened earlier in the week that is pretty significant. Xerces-J 2.10 has been released. Why is this significant to those in eclipse land? Because the PsychoPath XPath 2.0 processor that is part of the Eclipse Helios release with Web Tools Platform 3.2, is included and used by the latest Xerces-J 2.10 release... it has no dependencies on OSGI. It can be used standalone as a regular JAR. PsychoPath also provides an XML Schema Aware processor for XPath 2.0, Something that is typically only available in commercial processors.

From an XML standpoint, Xerces-J 2.10's release is significant, as it provides a viable alternative to the commercial version of Saxon for XML Schema 1.1 support. PsychoPath is used to provide full XPath 2.0 support to the XML Schema 1.1 assertion support provided by Xerces-J. Xerces-J includes a minimal/optimized XPath engine, but it will at times gracefully switch to using PsychoPath when necessary.

PsychoPath had an interesting road. It started off as a College project, and after that project was completed, posted on Sourceforge. There it sat unnoticed for about four years... The XSLT project at eclipse was created and we needed a way to support XPath 2.0 validation and functionality. However, the only open source java processor that supported XPath 2.0 was, Saxon 8 at the time. Due to various concerns from the eclipse IP team, Saxon can not be distributed with eclipse. This lead my search to SourceForge where I found the PsychoPath processor, sleeping quietly...

Xerces-J is the first project outside of Eclipse to adopt PsychoPath, but there are some rumblings that other projects like Xalan and Apache ODE are looking into it as well. Sometimes if you build it... eventually they will come..."

EDXL Sharp: C# and .NET 3.5 Implementation of OASIS EDXL Specifications
Donald P. McGarry, OASIS EM-TC Posting

Don McGarry of MITRE Corp posted an announcement for the release of Codeplex Open Source EDXL Libraries called EDXL Sharp. EDXL Sharp is a C# / .NET 3.5 implementation of the OASIS Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) family of standards. This set of libraries can be used to generate, read, and validate CAP, DE, HAVE, RM, SitRep, and TEP messages. The software is licensed as open source under the Apache 2.0 License...

The EDXL Sharp wiki documentation initially covers getting started, reading and writing messages, as well as the full source code and a downloadable installer. Provisionally, the API documentation has been compiled into an HTML help file in CHM format.

The version 1.0 release includes a Library for CAP v1.2, a Library for Common Types across the EDXL Standards, and a Library for EDXL DE v1.0. The next version is expected to include: Library for EDXL-HAVE v1.0; Library for EDXL-RM v1.0; GUI EDXL-DE Test Tool; Library for GeoOASIS Where GML Profile; Library for EDXL xPIL Profile; Beta Library for EDXL-SitRep; Beta Library for EDXL-TEP...

The purpose of these libraries are to allow developers to: (1) Parse EDXL Messages from a string / underlying stream; (2) Programmatically create EDXL messages; (3) Validate EDXL Messages to the schema; (4) Validate that EDXL Messages conform to the additional business rules specified in the standards documentation; (5) Write EDXL messages to a string / underlying stream..."

Enabling Rule-Based Decision Services as Web Services
Yang Chen Ming, IBM developerWorks

JRules "provides functionality to build and deploy rule-based applications for Java, mainframe and SOA-based environments... it offers a comprehensive development environment for rule-based applications that is built on the Eclipse IDE (Rule Studio). It provides a robust, scalable and secure execution engine for rule-based applications, with a managed deployment and monitoring environment (Rule Execution Server). Supported operating systems include AIX, HP Unix, Linux, Sun Solaris, Windows, and z/OS.

JRules offers a complete set of execution capabilities, including: a high-performance and scalable rule engine, providing either inference or sequential-based rule execution; hot deployment of changes into production without having to restart the server; one-click deployment of rulesets as web services for SOA-based integration; monitoring through the administration web console or through JMX-based connectivity to enterprise system management tools, such as IBM Tivoli...

This developerWorks article highlights how to expose the business decision services as web services combine business rules' agility with SOA's flexibility. It facilitates an easy integration with other SOA-enabled products. The business scenario is very simple. Assume there is a Java EE web-based loan quotation application that takes in customer information and invokes the decision service to determine the loan rate if the loan application is eligible. For simplicity, we determine the loan rate with the loan amount and the age of the applicant provided. Two key entities are Customer and Loan... There are two ways to model JRules Execution Object Model (XOM), which is the underlying object model that JRules leverages on during the actual execution. The domain objects can be either modeled in Java or XML...

JRules introduces a feature called Hosted Transparent Decision Server (HTDS) that allows the decision services to be exposed as web service with no additional program coding required... IBM WebSphere ILOG JRules is a leading Business Rule Management System (BRMS) that offers a comprehensive set of features covering all aspects of business rules, from design, development, testing, deployment, execution to maintenance..."

See also: JRules documentation

Red Hat Launches Hybrid Cloud Platform
Joab Jackson, ComputerWorld

"Red Hat has launched a comprehensive package, called Red Hat Cloud Foundations, that will allow organizations to run applications in both public clouds and their own private clouds... The announcement was one of a number of cloud-related announcements that the company made during the kickoff of its Red Hat Summit, being held in Boston, MA. The company also has added new partners to its Red Hat Certified Cloud Provider Program. It has released version 2.2 of its Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) package, and has integrated Cisco's Virtual Network Link (VN-Link) technology within the RHEV package.

The first edition of the Red Hat Cloud Foundations package includes a set of Red Hat programs, a reference architecture, and a number of consulting services and training classes. The Red Hat programs include Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Red Hat Network Satellite, RHEV, JBoss and the company's messaging software. The company also announced that IBM, NTT Communications and Savvis are new partners in the Certified Cloud Provider Program. They join Amazon Web Services, which was the program's first partner in the program, which certifies that users can run Red Hat cloud software in these environments with no additional customization..."

From the announcement: "Red Hat today announced Red Hat Cloud Foundations, a major new offering family delivering comprehensive solutions for planning, building and managing Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service private and public clouds. Each Red Hat Cloud Foundation offering includes industry-leading products, implementation cookbooks and reference architectures, expert professional services and training classes - elements necessary to successfully create and operate clouds.

With Cloud Foundations, customers can achieve the benefits of the cloud today, with lower risk and simple, easy implementation. These offerings are designed to significantly expand the reach and appeal of cloud, offer the richest set of development and deployment environments in the industry and deliver consistency between the datacenter and public clouds..."

See also: the Red Hat announcement


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