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XML Daily Newslink. Thursday, 08 November 2007
A Cover Pages Publication http://xml.coverpages.org/
Provided by OASIS http://www.oasis-open.org
Edited by Robin Cover

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This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by
BEA Systems, Inc. http://www.bea.com
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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

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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."

http://www.w3.org/2007/11/tpac07-pressrelease
See also the HTML5/XForms session blog: http://www.w3.org/QA/2007/11/tpac-2007-html-5-xhtml-20-fun.html

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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.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-xformsxslt/
See also XML and Forms: http://xml.coverpages.org/xmlForms.html

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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.

http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/
See also the WHATWG community FAQ document http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/FAQ

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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.

http://xml.coverpages.org/draft-saintandre-header-pres-01.txt
See also XMPP Instant Messaging and Presence: http://xml.coverpages.org/draft-saintandre-rfc3921bis-04.txt

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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)

http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/45388-1.html
See also the DISA staff description of JEDS: http://www.military-information-technology.com/article.cfm?DocID=2025

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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.

http://xml.coverpages.org/reliableMessaging.html#paul-fremantle-qcon-london
See also WSRM 1.1: http://docs.oasis-open.org/ws-rx/wsrm/v1.1/wsrm.html

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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.

http://xml.coverpages.org/eml.html#EML-InteropReport-20071029
See also the EML TC public pages: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/election/

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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.

http://dev2dev.bea.com/pub/a/2007/11/weblogic-server-10-tech-preview.html
See also SAML references: http://xml.coverpages.org/saml.html

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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.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/11/07/sun-jdk7_1.html
See also the JDK v6 web site: http://java.sun.com/javase/6/

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XML Daily Newslink and Cover Pages are sponsored by:

BEA Systems, Inc. http://www.bea.com
EDS http://www.eds.com
IBM Corporation http://www.ibm.com
Primeton http://www.primeton.com
SAP AG http://www.sap.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc. http://sun.com

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