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XML Daily Newslink. Wednesday, 05 December 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
SAP AG http://www.sap.com
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HEADLINES:

* Federating Identity for the Web
* OpenID 2.0 Spec Approved
* Microsoft Offers Volta Preview for Web Apps Development
* Sun Announces Open-Source Awards Program
* Adobe PDF Version 1.7 Close to International Standard
* The Google Widget Toolkit's AJAX Recipe: Less JavaScript, More Speed
* OpenOffice.org 2.3 Impresses

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Federating Identity for the Web
Phillip J. Windley, InfoWorld

Federated identity has long been a goal of many IT organizations.
Empowering one organization to serve as an identity provider for
another frees IT from having to manage the identities of partnering
organizations' employees and customers, thereby facilitating the
pursuit of competitive-advantage projects. In this era of increasing
enterprise decentralization, thanks in large part to the Web,
establishing a federated identity framework is fast proving as
essential as it is hard to pull off. "user-centric identity" is a
new approach to federation that has gained momentum as of late. Two
technologies in particular have emerged to catch the attention of
organizations looking to accelerate their federation efforts: CardSpace,
a standard developed by Microsoft to provide a comprehensive solution
to user-centric identity problems; and OpenID, a lightweight standard
that's the result of the work of multiple companies to create
identities based on URLs. CardSpace is built on standards such as
WS-Trust, Secure Token Service, and WS-Security. As a result,
CardSpace benefits from the public security reviews of these standards.
And because both CardSpace and OpenID are open architectures, thorough
security reviews of each are possible. The biggest threat to individuals
is the so-called 'social engineering' that any identity system allows.
Of these, phishing poses the biggest threat at present, and OpenID,
like any Web-based authentication scheme, is especially vulnerable.
CardSpace's identity selector was invented specifically to foil
phishing and related attacks. Moreover, CardSpace's rigid insistence
on a consistent user experience reduces the diverse authentication
contexts users face when tapping Web-based authentication technologies,
thereby increasing the likelihood that they will recognize something
out of the ordinary when asked for credentials.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/12/03/49FE-identity-federation_1.html

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OpenID 2.0 Spec Approved
John Dorsey, Dr. Dobb's Journal

The OpenID Foundation announced the finalized version of OpenID
Authentication 2.0 and the related OpenID Attribute Exchange 1.0
specifications. Three members of the OpenID Foundation announced the
finalized versions of OpenID Authentication 2.0 and the related OpenID
Attribute Exchange 1.0 spec on Monday. David Recordon, Dick Hardt,
and Josh Hoyt, who participated in the authoring of OpenID, were
attending the Internet Identity Workshop at Computer History Musuem
in Mountain View, California when they announced the finalization of
the specification, which defines a decentralized, open-source,
single-sign on identity framework. OpenID has been adopted by AOL,
LiveJournal, WordPress and thousands of other web sites to allow
visitors to identify themselves without needing to create a new
login or share sensitive information. Google's Blogger and the Drupal
content management platform already support the new spec. The OpenID
Attribute Exchange 1.0 spec, also announced on Monday, is a service
extension that provides a mechanism for moving identity information
between web sites. According to the OpenID web site: "As part of the
IPR work over the past few months we've collected non-assertion
agreements from contributors to both of these specifications as well
as all past specifications. These agreements are a way for contributors
(and others) to formally declare that they will not assert any patent
rights against OpenID implementations. It's important to remember
that this has been the work of many folks not only within the OpenID
community but also the OpenID Foundation, AOL, Cordance, JanRain,
Microsoft, NetMesh, Six Apart, Sxip, Sun Microsystems, Symantec,
Verisign and Yahoo!. Microsoft was instrumental in helping with legal
support and guidance combined with the insight of Sun and Yahoo! with
their joint work in developing the right language. This is great news
as it means that today not only is OpenID 2.0 final, but all of the
contributors have sent a strong message that OpenID must be freely
implementable world-wide."

http://www.ddj.com/linux-open-source/204701485
See also the OpenID web site: http://openid.net/

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Microsoft Offers Volta Preview for Web Apps Development
Paul Krill, InfoWorld

Microsoft is releasing a technology preview of its Volta Web developer
toolset, which is intended to make it easier to build multitier Web
applications, including applications useful in SaaS (software as a
service) environments. Volta furthers Microsoft's software plus
services efforts, including SaaS, because it enables easier development
of multitier applications, the company said. Volta takes advantage of
technologies such as Microsoft's LINQ (Language Integrated Query) and
AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and automates certain low-level
aspects of distributing applications across multiple tiers. Developers
can instead focus on distinguishing features of an application.
End-to-end debugging and performance profiling are featured as well.
Volta measures the speed and performance of an application to see
how it performs on the client and server. Fine-tuned adjustments are
enabled, such as moving a piece of code from the client to the server
late in the development process. The secret sauce, so to speak, of
Volta is its use of MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language), which is
the language used to compile applications written in .Net languages.
The MSIL-to-MISL rewriting technique employed in Volta takes
post-compilation steps to rewrite client IL to run in JavaScript and
rewrite server IL to run on ASP.Net. Web services are generated
when IL is rewritten to ASP.Net.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/12/05/ms-volta_1.html
See also the Volta web site: http://labs.live.com/volta/

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Sun Announces Open-Source Awards Program
Eric J. Bruno, DDJ

Sun has announced that it will be offering approximately $1 million
per year in awards to participants of any of several contests. Community
involvement in any of the following six open-source initiatives is
required: (1) GlassFish, Sun's open-source Java EE 5-compilant
application server; (2) NetBeans, Sun's open-source IDE; (3) OpenJDK,
the GPL-licensed open-source version of Java SE; (4) OpenOffice.org,
Sun's open-source office productivity suite; (5) OpenSolaris, the
open-source version of the popular server OS, Sun Solaris; (6)
OpenSPARC, an open-source community that works on chip design in the
open for all to contribute. According to the announcement: "Sun
Microsystems made a public commitment to Free and Open Source software
(FOSS) and in doing so has contributed billions of dollars, as well
as more code, to Free software than any other organization in the
public or private sector. In addition to leveraging many industry-wide
open source projects, Sun has taken the unique step of opening its
core software, hardware and storage technologies and sharing them as
Free and open source. This action enables Sun to build its products
through the preferred means of co-production and to grow the potential
market for Sun products and services by directly attracting users to
a free platform, while allowing developers the freedom to identify new
opportunities and therefore new markets for the technologies."

http://www.ddj.com/linux-open-source/204701396
See also the announcement: http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2007-12/sunflash.20071205.1.xml

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Adobe PDF Version 1.7 Close to International Standard
Antone Gonsalves, InformationWeek

The next version of Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) Systems' PDF document format
has received overwhelming approval from an international standards
body, taking the format close to final adoption. Out of the 15
countries represented on the standards committee of the International
Standards Organization, nine voted yes without comments and four gave
their approval with comments, James King, PDF architect and senior
principal scientist at Adobe said in the company's Inside PDF blog.
France was the only member to vote against PDF 1.7, with Russia
abstaining. Italy sent comments, but is a non-voting member of the
panel. Overall, 205 comments were submitted, which means the concerns
will have to be addressed before the file format becomes ISO standard
32000. King, who was nominated by the U.S. as technical editor, said
he would prepare responses to all the comments in time for the
January 21-23 [2008] meeting of the working group. The U.S. was the
sponsoring country for PDF 1.7, and the one with the most comments
(125). PDF is a popular electronic document format found in business,
and Web publishing. Last month, Adobe and Yahoo unveiled plans to
launch a service that would insert ads into online PDF documents,
and share revenue with the publishers.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=204701395
See also the O'Reilly blog: http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2007/12/previously_uncooperative_multi.html

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The Google Widget Toolkit's AJAX Recipe: Less JavaScript, More Speed
Glen Kunene, DevX.com

In this article, the co-creator of the Google Widget Toolkit (GWT)
explains how his team plans to release a GWT version that compiles
faster AJAX code than a JavaScript expert could write by hand. In a
media briefing at the conference, Google Engineering Manager and GWT
co-creator Bruce Johnson explained the mission his team undertook
when Google open sourced GWT under the Apache 2 license in December
2006: create a better user experience by enabling Java developers to
create high-performance web applications using only the Java tools
they know rather than trying to master the JavaScript skills that are
necessary for creating responsive web interfaces for all the browsers
out there. "The average usability of web sites sucks," he said, citing
all-too-familiar examples of web user headaches [...] GWT's goal is
to free Java developers from having to make that choice by taking the
client-side scripting out of their hands. GWT is composed of two
components: an AJAX widget library and a cross-browser compiler that
converts Java code into AJAX. Java developers can use each component
independently if they choose to, but they don't have to write a single
line of JavaScript code by hand. When asked to differentiate GWT from
other freely available AJAX toolkits and frameworks such as Dojo,
Prototype, and jQuery, Johnson emphasized Google's commitment to
making AJAX faster and smaller (i.e., containing less JavaScript code).
The GWT team uses a benchmarking subsystem to measure the performance
of its compiled code for any given browser permutation, which enables
them to "optimize like crazy." The result is an application like GWT
mail sample, which Johnson cited for its speed. When GWT 1.5 arrives,
Johnson said it will also offer full language support for Java 1.5
(Generics, etc.). This feature would enhance the current 1.4 version's
features, notably AJAX internationalization, which uses message
templates to enable developers to compile code for 400 locales from
one code base, and browser history support.

http://www.devx.com/Java/Article/36177

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OpenOffice.org 2.3 Impresses
Tiffany Maleshefski, eWEEK

The release of OpenOffice.org 2.3 brings several significant improvements
to the open-source office productivity suite, including easier upgrade
paths for existing Microsoft Office users, improved measures to prevent
security breaches, and an array of snazzy new features introduced in
the suite's word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and database
applications. Meanwhile, all-around improvements to the suite's
presentation application, Impress, continue to give users some of the
bells and whistles coveted in PowerPoint, such as the ability to now
integrate sound across an entire presentation. General improvements
made to the spreadsheet application, Calc, and word processing application,
Writer, make the case for OpenOffice 2.3 as a potentially easier and
definitely cheaper upgrade path for existing Microsoft Office users,
who may be considering a transition to Microsoft Office 2007. Though
file conversion fidelity continues to improve with each subsequent
release of OpenOffice, file fidelity issues still surfaced in my tests,
such as page-break issues discovered when trying to convert a
Word-formatted document in Writer... OpenOffice.org 2.3's most persuasive
set of features, however, continues to be that it is an entirely free
product and supports seven platforms: Windows, Linux x86 and PowerPC,
Solaris x86 and SPARC, Mac OS X and FreeBSD... I tested the most
significant addition to OpenOffice's Writer application, the ability
to export newly created files to the MediaWiki format, a feature-rich
collaborative editing software that runs Wikipedia... I cut and pasted
an entire document into a blank Wiki page and discovered that the
italicized text made it through the conversion, as did the hyperlink.
The underlined text and bold text, however, did not pass the test.
Apostrophes also fared poorly, not maintaining their "smart quotes"
status...

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2224467,00.asp
See also the OpenOffice web site: http://www.openoffice.org/

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