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XML Daily Newslink. Tuesday, 17 June 2008
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
Sun Microsystems, Inc. http://sun.com
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HEADLINES:

* W3C Publishes Three Working Draft Specifications on HTML 5
* Get Ready for Firefox 3.0: A Web developer's Guide
* XBRL to Support Interactive Data Initiatives
* Geolocation API Specification
* IETF Centralized Conferencing Manipulation Protocol
* OASIS Opens SAML XML.org Community Web Site
* W3C Launches Web Applications Working Group
* The Era of Closed Formats is Dead

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W3C Publishes Three Working Draft Specifications on HTML 5
I. Hickson, D. Hyatt, A.van Kesteren, M Smith (eds.), W3C TRs

W3C has announced the release of three draft documents relating to
HTML 5, where the W3C HTML Working Group is the W3C working group
responsible for the HTML 5 specification progress along the W3C
Recommendation track. (1) "HTML 5: A Vocabulary and Associated APIs
for HTML and XHTML", for which a non-normative diff-marked version
is also available. HTML 5 "defines the fifth major revision of the
core language of the World Wide Web: the Hypertext Markup Language
(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. "HTML" was primarily designed
as a language for semantically describing scientific documents,
although its general design and adaptations over the years has
enabled it to be used to describe a number of other types of documents.
The main area that has not been adequately addressed by HTML is a
vague subject referred to as Web Applications. This specification
attempts to rectify this, while at the same time updating the HTML
specifications to address issues raised in the past few years. The
HTML 5 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. (2) "HTML 5 Differences from HTML 4" describes the
differences between HTML 4 and HTML 5 and provides some of the
rationale for the changes. The single language called HTML 5 can be
written in a "custom" HTML syntax and in XML syntax, and Section 1.4
"Impact on Web Architecture" identifies HTML 5 areas or 'features'
believed to impact the Web architecture. The HTML 5 language "custom"
HTML syntax is compatible with both HTML 4 and XHTML1 documents
published on the Web, but is not compatible with the more esoteric
SGML features of HTML 4.... documents using this "custom" syntax must
be served with the 'text/html' MIME type. HTML 5 also defines detailed
parsing rules (including "error handling") for this syntax which are
largely compatible with popular implementations. (3) "HTML 5
Publication Notes" was produced by the W3C HTML Working Group, part
of the HTML Activity in the W3C Interaction Domain. It provides
supplemental information on the 10-June-2008 working draft of the
HTML 5 specification, primarily documenting changes that have been
made to the HTML 5 draft specification since the time of its
22-January-2008 publication as a First Public Working Draft. The
initial section "Summary: High-level List of Selected Changes"
identified twenty-nine (29) important differences introduced in the
latest HTML 5 specification.

http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-diff-20080610/
See also the W3C news item: http://www.w3.org/News/2008#item109

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Get Ready for Firefox 3.0: A Web developer's Guide
Uche Ogbuji, IBM developerWorks

This article provides a Web developer's guide to the many new features
in this popular browser, especially the offline application features.
Mozilla Firefox 3 is a major release with many enhancements, some of
which are targeted at users, and some at developers. One of the most
interesting updates gives Web developers the ability to build Web
applications that work even when the user is disconnected from the
Internet... Firefox 3 support for continued work while the user is
offline is based on the HTML 5 working draft. A user can have a static
Web page online several ways: from using the browser cache, to having
a local caching proxy, to just downloading the Web content to disk.
More and more of what we do on the Web is dynamic, including reading
Web mail or Web feeds, browsing our favorite shops, or using our
favorite social networks. Even the most standard productivity
applications have gone Web-happy with online versions of word processors,
spreadsheets, and presentation tools, as well as new categories of
these applications such as Wikis. These applications would be even
more valuable if you could continue to use them when no network is
available. Firefox 3 makes it possible for you to offer this capability
in your Web application... Firefox 3.0 promises an impressive array
of improvements for the Web user and developer alike. The platform's
innovation gives developers a head start on Web trends, and its
standards support means that even on the cutting edge of these trends,
Firefox offers transparency in its features that accelerates adoption
and improves compatibility. I encourage you to explore a few other new
features in Firefox. Web-based protocol handlers let you define new
URI types beyond built-ins, such as 'http:' and 'mailto:'. For XML
developers, Firefox 3 adds support for many EXSLT extensions, which
greatly increase the power of XSLT transforms. It also improves support
for the XML-based vector graphics standard SVG.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/wa-ffox3/
See also the eWEEK review: http://etech.eweek.com/content/web_technology/firefox_30_the_next_generation_web_browser.html

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XBRL to Support Interactive Data Initiatives
Staff, XBRL US Announcement

XBRL US, the national consortium for XML standards for business and
financial information reporting, announced that the infrastructure it
developed for US GAAP reporting in XBRL format is ready and able to
support future interactive data reporting applications. XBRL US
completed a contract with the SEC this Spring to build out the collection
of financial and business reporting terms representing U.S. GAAP required
disclosures and common reporting practices (taxonomies) that public
companies will use to create their own XBRL-formatted financial
statements. XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) is a
royalty-free, open specification for software that uses XML data tags
to describe business and financial information for public and private
companies and other organizations. XBRL benefits all members of the
information supply chain by utilizing a standards-based method with
which users can prepare, publish in a variety of formats, exchange and
analyze financial statements and the information they contain. The
SEC has issued three announcements within the past 30 days related to
rule proposals requiring the use of XBRL. On May 14, 2008, the SEC
commissioners met in an open meeting and unanimously approved a
comprehensive rule proposal that would mandate the use of interactive
data for public company filing, following a phased approach requiring
the largest accelerated filers using US GAAP (those with a worldwide
public float over $5 billion) to submit their financial statements in
XBRL format starting in Q1 2009. One year later, all other large
accelerated filers would be required to submit financials in XBRL
format and one year after that, all other public company filers would
follow suit.

http://xml.coverpages.org/XBRL-InteractiveData.html
See also US GAAP Taxonomies 1.0 and Supporting Documentation: http://xbrl.us/pages/us-gaap.aspx

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Geolocation API Specification
Andrei Popescu (ed), W3C Technical Report

A revised Editor's Draft for the "Geolocation API Specification" has
been released for public comment. The draft Geolocation API defines a
high-level interface to location information associated with the
hosting device, such as latitude and longitude. The API itself is
agnostic of the underlying location information sources. Common sources
of location information include Global Positioning System (GPS) and
location inferred from network signals such as IP address, RFID, WiFi
and Bluetooth MAC addresses, and GSM/CDMA cell IDs. The API is
designed to enable both "one-shot" position requests and repeated
position updates in addition to the ability to query the last-known
position. Location information is represented by latitude and longitude
coordinates and optionally by reverse geocoded address information.
The Geolocation API in this specification builds upon earlier work in
the industry, including "Geolocation in Firefox and Beyond", "Gears
Geolocation API," and LocationAware.org's draft. The document currently
has only informal support through the W3C 'public-geolocation' list,
but the Use-Cases section presents eight example use cases motivating
the requirements and other design. Examples: (1) Find points of
interest in the user's area: "Someone visiting a foreign city could
access a Web application that allows users to search or browse through
a database of tourist attractions; using the Geolocation API, the Web
application has access to the user's approximate position and it is
therefore able to rank the search results by proximity to the user's
location." (2) Annotating content with location information; (3) Automatic
form-filling; (4) Show the user's position on a map; (5) Turn-by-turn
route navigation; (6) Alerts when points of interest are in the user's
vicinity; (7) Up-to-date local information; (8) Location-tagged status
updates in social networking applications: "A social network application
allows its users to automatically tag their status updates with location
information; it does this by monitoring the user's position with the
Geolocation API and using only certain parts from the Address object."

http://dev.w3.org/geo/api/spec-source.html
See also the W3C public list: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-geolocation/

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IETF Centralized Conferencing Manipulation Protocol
Mary Barnes (et al, eds), IETF Internet Draft

Members of the IETF Centralized Conferencing (XCON) Working Group have
published a version -00 Internet Draft for a "Centralized Conferencing
Manipulation Protocol" specification. The IETF Framework for Centralized
Conferencing (XCON) defines a signaling-agnostic framework, naming
conventions and logical entities required for constructing advanced
conferencing systems. A primary concept introduced in the XCON framework
is the existence of a conference object. The framework introduces the
conference object as a logical representation of a conference instance
which represents the current state and capabilities of a conference.
The Centralized Conferencing Manipulation Protocol (CCMP) defined in
this document allows the creation, manipulation and deletion of a
conference object by authenticated and authorized clients. This includes
adding and removing participants, changing their roles, as well as
adding and removing media streams and associated end points. CCMP
implements a client-server model. The server is the Conference Control
Server defined in the XCON framework. The client is the Conference and
Media Control Client in the XCON framework. This document describes
the protocol used by the client for conference control. CCMP manipulates
conferences based on their semantic properties and is based on a
client-server Remote Procedure Call (RPC) mechanism, with the Simple
Object Access Protocol (SOAP) used to carry out the appropriate
client-server protocol transactions. The common information contained
in conference objects is defined using an XML representation based on
the schema in the XCON data model. These data structures are used as
the basis for the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) definition
and XML schema. Document Sections 12 and 13 supply the XML Schema and
WSDL Definition.

http://xml.coverpages.org/draft-ietf-xcon-ccmp-00.txt
See also the IETF Centralized Conferencing (XCON) Working Group: http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/xcon-charter.html

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OASIS Opens SAML XML.org Community Web Site
Staff, OASIS Announcement

The OASIS international standards consortium today introduced a new
XML.org online community web site dedicated to supporting the Security
Assertion Markup Language (SAML). The new site will serve as the
official information resource for the SAML OASIS Standard, which
provides an XML-based framework for online partners to exchange user
authentication, entitlement, and attribute information. SAML is a
flexible and extensible standard designed to be used by other by other
standards. The Liberty Alliance, the Internet2 Shibboleth project, and
the WS-Security OASIS Standard have all adopted SAML as a technological
underpinning for various purposes. All pages on SAML XML.org are
accessible by the public, and users are encouraged to contribute
content. The site features a wiki knowledgebase of information on
using and understanding SAML. It also includes sections where readers
can post related news, event information, listings for products and
services, links to white papers, case studies, and other resources.
Forums that support interactive discussions and blogs are also featured.
Eve Maler, director of technology in Business Alliances at Sun
Microsystems: "SAML is recognized as the gold standard for federated
identity; OASIS has created SAML XML.org as a way to enable users,
developers, vendors, and other standards efforts from around the world
to share information and learn from one another. Sun has taken an
active role in SAML's spec development, product support, interoperability,
and education since its earliest days, and we're delighted to see the
launch of this new resource."

http://xml.coverpages.org/SAML-XML-org.html
See also SAML references: http://xml.coverpages.org/saml.html

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W3C Launches Web Applications Working Group
Staff, W3C Announcement

W3C has announced the launch of a new Web Applications (WebApps) Working
Group, co-Chaired by Art Barstow (Nokia) and Charles McCathieNevile
(Opera Software). "This group merges the former Web APIs and Web
Application Formats Working Groups. Per the charter for the Web
Applications Working Group, the group's mission is to provide
specifications that enable improved client-side application development
on the Web, including specifications both for application programming
interfaces (APIs) for client-side development and for markup vocabularies
for describing and controlling client-side application behavior. The
target environments for the Web Applications Working Group's deliverables
include desktop and mobile browsers as well as non-browser environments
that make use of Web technologies. The group seeks to promote universal
access to Web applications across a wide range of devices and among a
diversity of users, including users with particular accessibility needs.
The APIs must provide generic and consistent interoperability and
integration among all target formats, such HTML, XHTML, and SVG. W3C
has also rechartered the Compound Document Formats (CDF) Working Group,
to continue to develop specifications which combine selected existing
document formats from the W3C and elsewhere, and which specify the
runtime behavior of such combined documents. A Compound Document is
the W3C term for a document that combines multiple formats, such as
XHTML, SVG, SMIL and XForms. The W3C Compound Document Formats (CDF)
Working Group will specify the behaviour of some format combinations,
addressing the needs for an extensible and interoperable Web. Both
Working Groups will conduct their work in public. The first order of
business of the rechartered CDF Working Group is to propose Chair
candidates to the Director."

http://www.w3.org/News/Public/pnews-20080616
See also the Web Applications Working Group Charter: http://www.w3.org/2008/webapps/charter/

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The Era of Closed Formats is Dead
Bob Jolliffe, Tectonic Blog

The South African e-documentation workgroup is hosting a number of the
world's most influential XML and open standards activists at the 'XML
in Government Workshop' next week. One of the key figures behind the
event -- and indeed behind much of the XML and digital standards work
in South Africa -- is Bob Jolliffe. A member of the South African
department of science and technology, a founder of Freedom to Innovate
South Africa (FTISA), and someone who has spent the best part of the
past year arguing the merits and demerits of OOXML, he explains here
how far the movement to open standards and XML in government has
progressed. Jolliffe, on the intention of the XML in Government Workshop:
"The South African government has made a strong commitment to the use
of XML and open standards for interoperability. Yet we are only at the
very beginning of understanding all of the possibilities and implications
of these commitments. One of the factors which surfaces repeatedly is
that we do not necessarily have all the expertise required to fully
realise the potential of open standards-based interoperability. I
firmly believe that in South Africa, contrary to what we have heard
recently, capacity does exist, but it is dispersed amongst government,
the private sector, academia, the wider FOSS community and the public.
We hope in this workshop to bring some of that public together to look
at building collaborative forums for further developing XML based open
standards. It is not by accident that this workshop is being driven by
the Presidential National Commission on the Information Society and
Development eDocumentation workgroup. Open standards are an information
society issue as much as a technical one..."

http://www.tectonic.co.za/?p=2492
See also Rick Jelliffe's blog: http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2008/06/the_era_of_closed_formats_is_d.html

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XML Daily Newslink and Cover Pages are sponsored by:

BEA Systems, Inc. http://www.bea.com
IBM Corporation http://www.ibm.com
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Sun Microsystems, Inc. http://sun.com

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