The freebXML Registry [OMAR] team is pleased to announce the release of version 3.1 of our royalty-free open source implementation of the ebXML Registry standard [OVERVIEW].
This release culminates more than a year of work and incorporates experience gained from a diverse community of users of freebXML Registry [USAGE].
*Release Contents*
Our latest release provides numerous bug fixes and a few new features. For a detailed list see [RELNOTES].
The new version provides a near, feature complete implementation of Registry Full conformance profile for the OASIS ebXML Registry 3.0 standard [ebRR]. The only missing feature is support for Single Sign On (SSO) based on the Registry SAML Profile. This implementation therefor currently only claims conformance to the Registry Lite profile for the OASIS ebXML Registry 3.0 standard.
The freebXML Registry also provides a feature complete implementation of level 1 conformance profile of the Java API for XML Registries API [JAXR].
Also included are implementation of two profiles [PROF] of ebXML Registry:
-ebXML Registry Profile for WSDL
-ebXML Registry Profile for WSRP Remote Portlets
*Latest Release Notes*
See [RELNOTES] for details.
*Downloading Software*
Download instructions are available at:
Click Here >
Documentation*
The documentation for the release is available at:
Click Here>
Additional information is available in the project's wiki at:
Click Here>
A good place to start is the installation and setup guide:
Click Here>
*Reporting Bugs and Requests For Enhancements (RFEs)*
See instructions at:
Click Here >
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
Google Expands Internet Apps and Office Base
Mountain View, California-based Google said the universities of North
Carolina Greensboro, Clemson, Texas San Antonio, Kennesaw State, and
Arkansas State have signed up for its free Google Apps Education
Edition service, which comprises of email, messaging, online calendars,
word processing, and spreadsheets. Registered non-profit organizations
now qualify for Google Apps Education Edition at no cost. The five
universities join other universities like the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, Trinity College in Dublin and Nihon University in Tokyo,
who already use Google's applications... The move impacts Microsoft,
a company that Google is going after in the applications space and
also battling with over online advertising and other web-based services.
Microsoft has its headquarters in Redmond, a suburb of Seattle, which
is stone's throw away from Google's three new office buildings located
in neighboring Kirkland. This adds to the existing engineering office
that Google has in the city, which employs roughly 400 people. It also
has a 30-man sales office in the area as well. In May Google also
subleased 60,000 square feet of office space in Fremont, another
suburb of Seattle.
Carolina Greensboro, Clemson, Texas San Antonio, Kennesaw State, and
Arkansas State have signed up for its free Google Apps Education
Edition service, which comprises of email, messaging, online calendars,
word processing, and spreadsheets. Registered non-profit organizations
now qualify for Google Apps Education Edition at no cost. The five
universities join other universities like the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, Trinity College in Dublin and Nihon University in Tokyo,
who already use Google's applications... The move impacts Microsoft,
a company that Google is going after in the applications space and
also battling with over online advertising and other web-based services.
Microsoft has its headquarters in Redmond, a suburb of Seattle, which
is stone's throw away from Google's three new office buildings located
in neighboring Kirkland. This adds to the existing engineering office
that Google has in the city, which employs roughly 400 people. It also
has a 30-man sales office in the area as well. In May Google also
subleased 60,000 square feet of office space in Fremont, another
suburb of Seattle.
How to Write Your Own ISO Standard
You too can write your own ISO standard! Here are the steps: (1)
Download the ISO/IEC Directives Part 2 Rules for the structure and
drafting of International Standards. These give the general editorial
guidelines. Read it all. (2) Download the documentation for the XML
schema for ISO Standards, which is in Technical Report 9357-11.
(3) Download the Open Source schemas and stylesheets are available
at SourceForge and embody a lot of the rules of the ISO/IECDirectives
Part 2; install and configure your production environment to use them.
(4) Try to follow these [good-] writing guidelines... (5) Write your
draft (6) Track down IP issues to the best of your ability; also, try
to have reviewed it for Internationalization, Security and Accessibility
issues... (7) Decide whether it should be an ISO/IEC International
Standard, an ISO/IEC Internation Standard through fast-track, a Publicly
Available Specification, an ISO/IEC Technical Report, a National Standard,
a Consortium Standard, or just something on your own website... (8)
When a draft is produced, contact the various technical committees
around the world to help answer questions... (9) Ask the committee to
ask ISO to get the standard added to ISO's free list; a standard that
is not on the WWW is at a total disadvantage. (10) Assuming the vote
on the Final Draft was 'yes', you now have your standard! Congratulations,
that has only taken three years or so. Now you have to commit a little
time over the next few years to maintain it and fix corrections that
come up, and to try to get buy-in from the public. Remember a good
standard is one that meets its particular user's needs, not one that
takes over the world. However, your name won't be in the standard
(unlike W3C or OASIS), or in the bibliographic entries. So don't do it,
or participate on committees, if you want to see your name on Amazon.
Download the ISO/IEC Directives Part 2 Rules for the structure and
drafting of International Standards. These give the general editorial
guidelines. Read it all. (2) Download the documentation for the XML
schema for ISO Standards, which is in Technical Report 9357-11.
(3) Download the Open Source schemas and stylesheets are available
at SourceForge and embody a lot of the rules of the ISO/IECDirectives
Part 2; install and configure your production environment to use them.
(4) Try to follow these [good-] writing guidelines... (5) Write your
draft (6) Track down IP issues to the best of your ability; also, try
to have reviewed it for Internationalization, Security and Accessibility
issues... (7) Decide whether it should be an ISO/IEC International
Standard, an ISO/IEC Internation Standard through fast-track, a Publicly
Available Specification, an ISO/IEC Technical Report, a National Standard,
a Consortium Standard, or just something on your own website... (8)
When a draft is produced, contact the various technical committees
around the world to help answer questions... (9) Ask the committee to
ask ISO to get the standard added to ISO's free list; a standard that
is not on the WWW is at a total disadvantage. (10) Assuming the vote
on the Final Draft was 'yes', you now have your standard! Congratulations,
that has only taken three years or so. Now you have to commit a little
time over the next few years to maintain it and fix corrections that
come up, and to try to get buy-in from the public. Remember a good
standard is one that meets its particular user's needs, not one that
takes over the world. However, your name won't be in the standard
(unlike W3C or OASIS), or in the bibliographic entries. So don't do it,
or participate on committees, if you want to see your name on Amazon.
AtomPub Interop Event Notes
Context: Atom developers participated in an online Interop Event on
August 6-7, 2007: anyone with working APP client or server code was
invited. The Atom Publishing Protocol (APP) is an application-level
protocol for publishing and editing Web resources. The protocol is
based on HTTP transfer of Atom-formatted representations, where the
Atom format is documented in the "Atom Syndication Format"
specification (IETF Request for Comments #4287). APP uses HTTP
(RFC 2616) and XML 1.0. The protocol supports the creation of Web
Resources and provides facilities for: (1) Collections: Sets of
Resources, which can be retrieved in whole or in part; (2) Services:
Discovery and description of Collections; (3) Editing: Creating,
editing, and deleting Resources. APP uses Atom-formatted
representations to describe the state and metadata of those Resources.
It defines how Collections of Resources can be organized, and
specifies formats to support their discovery, grouping and
categorization. Joe Cheng (Microsoft) writes in the Blog: "I spent
most of yesterday and today participating in the virtual Atom interop
event; you can see (and attempt to decipher) the results [online].
Windows Live Writer comes out sitting pretty! All of the servers I
was able to try worked great, although a bug fix or two needed to
be made along the way. Since the last time we did an interop event
like this (April 2007) I have implemented image uploads to media
collections as well as ETag conflict management, and both of those
areas seem very solid now... A few caveats need to be made before
concluding that AtomPub interop between production-quality blogging
services and WLW will go this smoothly: (1) A couple of the services
had no authentication at all, and the rest were doing Basic, with
or without TLS/SSL. Last time we ran into a bunch of servers that
used WSSE, not sure why there weren't any this time. Hopefully servers
will stick to the common auth schemes, plus WSSE. (2) Almost none of
the services had an actual HTML representation (like a blog homepage);
that is, they were mostly pure AtomPub servers; I'm thinking about
implementing a web app that takes any AtomPub endpoint and makes a
blog out of it, although I would love it if someone beat me to it.
(3) Categories still need figuring out, at least as they relate to
Windows Live Writer... I've got a list forming of (small) things
AtomPub blogging server implementers need to be aware of if they want
to have the best results with WLW. With the AtomPub core spec, plus
APE, plus that list, it should generally be pretty clear to server
implementers exactly how they should behave."
August 6-7, 2007: anyone with working APP client or server code was
invited. The Atom Publishing Protocol (APP) is an application-level
protocol for publishing and editing Web resources. The protocol is
based on HTTP transfer of Atom-formatted representations, where the
Atom format is documented in the "Atom Syndication Format"
specification (IETF Request for Comments #4287). APP uses HTTP
(RFC 2616) and XML 1.0. The protocol supports the creation of Web
Resources and provides facilities for: (1) Collections: Sets of
Resources, which can be retrieved in whole or in part; (2) Services:
Discovery and description of Collections; (3) Editing: Creating,
editing, and deleting Resources. APP uses Atom-formatted
representations to describe the state and metadata of those Resources.
It defines how Collections of Resources can be organized, and
specifies formats to support their discovery, grouping and
categorization. Joe Cheng (Microsoft) writes in the Blog: "I spent
most of yesterday and today participating in the virtual Atom interop
event; you can see (and attempt to decipher) the results [online].
Windows Live Writer comes out sitting pretty! All of the servers I
was able to try worked great, although a bug fix or two needed to
be made along the way. Since the last time we did an interop event
like this (April 2007) I have implemented image uploads to media
collections as well as ETag conflict management, and both of those
areas seem very solid now... A few caveats need to be made before
concluding that AtomPub interop between production-quality blogging
services and WLW will go this smoothly: (1) A couple of the services
had no authentication at all, and the rest were doing Basic, with
or without TLS/SSL. Last time we ran into a bunch of servers that
used WSSE, not sure why there weren't any this time. Hopefully servers
will stick to the common auth schemes, plus WSSE. (2) Almost none of
the services had an actual HTML representation (like a blog homepage);
that is, they were mostly pure AtomPub servers; I'm thinking about
implementing a web app that takes any AtomPub endpoint and makes a
blog out of it, although I would love it if someone beat me to it.
(3) Categories still need figuring out, at least as they relate to
Windows Live Writer... I've got a list forming of (small) things
AtomPub blogging server implementers need to be aware of if they want
to have the best results with WLW. With the AtomPub core spec, plus
APE, plus that list, it should generally be pretty clear to server
implementers exactly how they should behave."
Stepping into Apache Synapse
Apache Synapse is a mediation framework for Web services, based on
the Apache Axis2 project, a set of XML, security, and Web services
related projects and standards. Synapse provides a lightweight service
bus and the basic infrastructure for the implementation of a Service
Oriented Architecture. In this article, you will learn the basic
architecture of Synapse and how to configure it. Synapse supports
most of the tasks of a service bus in a SOA. Synapse is inherently
extensible even though it is designed to support a large set of
useful functions out-of-the-box. The main functions of Synapse
can be divided into three major areas: (1) Connect: Connecting
systems. Synapse is designed to support connecting systems with
different transports with different protocols and Quality of
Service (QoS). The protocols/transports that Synapse currently
supports include SOAP/HTTP,SOAP/HTTPS, SOAP/JMS, SOAP/SMTP,
XML/HTTP, XML/JMS and many more. Synapse offers termination and
initiation of QoS tasks like Reliable Messaging and WS Security.
Synapse can route messages based on XPath expressions or Regular
expressions applied over the message header or content to an
endpoint reference. Virtualization is achieved by routing the
messages from virtual/logical URIs to real EPRs. (2) Manage:
Managing interactions. Synapse supports Failover and Load-balancing
to multiple endpoints. In the failover case, there are several sets
of endpoints grouped as a failover group. When a particular endpoint
fails to deliver the message, Synapse will try to deliver the message
to other endpoints in the group. During load-balancing, Synapse will
balance the load among the load-balancing endpoint group depending
on the algorithm provided for load-balancing. Synapse also lets you
trace the messages flowing in the enterprise by enabling tracing in
the mediation. Authorization and authentication tasks for an
organization can be delegated to Synapse through mediation, by using
WS Security. (3) Transform: Transforming messages. Synapse can be
used for message transformations through mediation with various
languages, including most of the scripting languages, with the Bean
Scripting Framework (BSF) and most importantly with XSLT. Apart from
that, Synapse offers protocol switching, for example -- SOAP to JMS
or XML/HTTP to SOAP. Mediation inside Synapse is designed with care,
and there are two possible types of mediations that can happen inside
Synapse. They are: (a) Message Mediation -- managing and transforming
the messages flowing between the client and a service in an enterprise,
and (b) Service Mediation -- Mediating messages coming into a specific
service by specifying the target URI as a Synapse mediation service.
the Apache Axis2 project, a set of XML, security, and Web services
related projects and standards. Synapse provides a lightweight service
bus and the basic infrastructure for the implementation of a Service
Oriented Architecture. In this article, you will learn the basic
architecture of Synapse and how to configure it. Synapse supports
most of the tasks of a service bus in a SOA. Synapse is inherently
extensible even though it is designed to support a large set of
useful functions out-of-the-box. The main functions of Synapse
can be divided into three major areas: (1) Connect: Connecting
systems. Synapse is designed to support connecting systems with
different transports with different protocols and Quality of
Service (QoS). The protocols/transports that Synapse currently
supports include SOAP/HTTP,SOAP/HTTPS, SOAP/JMS, SOAP/SMTP,
XML/HTTP, XML/JMS and many more. Synapse offers termination and
initiation of QoS tasks like Reliable Messaging and WS Security.
Synapse can route messages based on XPath expressions or Regular
expressions applied over the message header or content to an
endpoint reference. Virtualization is achieved by routing the
messages from virtual/logical URIs to real EPRs. (2) Manage:
Managing interactions. Synapse supports Failover and Load-balancing
to multiple endpoints. In the failover case, there are several sets
of endpoints grouped as a failover group. When a particular endpoint
fails to deliver the message, Synapse will try to deliver the message
to other endpoints in the group. During load-balancing, Synapse will
balance the load among the load-balancing endpoint group depending
on the algorithm provided for load-balancing. Synapse also lets you
trace the messages flowing in the enterprise by enabling tracing in
the mediation. Authorization and authentication tasks for an
organization can be delegated to Synapse through mediation, by using
WS Security. (3) Transform: Transforming messages. Synapse can be
used for message transformations through mediation with various
languages, including most of the scripting languages, with the Bean
Scripting Framework (BSF) and most importantly with XSLT. Apart from
that, Synapse offers protocol switching, for example -- SOAP to JMS
or XML/HTTP to SOAP. Mediation inside Synapse is designed with care,
and there are two possible types of mediations that can happen inside
Synapse. They are: (a) Message Mediation -- managing and transforming
the messages flowing between the client and a service in an enterprise,
and (b) Service Mediation -- Mediating messages coming into a specific
service by specifying the target URI as a Synapse mediation service.
Image Annotation on the Semantic Web
W3C announced that the Multimedia Semantics Incubator Group has published
a report on "Image Annotation on the Semantic Web." The previously
published "Multimedia Vocabularies on the Semantic Web" discusses a
number of individual vocabularies that are relevant for image annotation.
Both publications are part of the Incubator Activity, a forum where W3C
Members can innovate and experiment. The W3C Incubator Group Report on
Image Annotation is written for anyone with an interest in image
annotation, ranging from non-professional end-users that are annotating
their personal digital photos to professionals working with digital
pictures in image and video banks, audiovisual archives, museums,
libraries, media production and broadcast industry, etc. Many
applications that process multimedia assets make use of some form of
metadata that describe the multimedia content. The goals of this
document are to explain the advantages of using Semantic Web languages
and technologies for the creation, storage, manipulation, interchange
and processing of image metadata. In addition, it provides guidelines
for Semantic Web-based image annotation, illustrated by use cases.
Relevant RDF and OWL vocabularies are discussed, along with a short
overview of publicly available tools. The Report briefly surveys some
currently available vocabularies and tools that can be used to
semantically annotate images so that machines can better process them.
The use of Semantic Web technologies has significant advantages in
applications areas in which the interoperability of heterogeneous
metadata is important and in areas that require an explicitly defined
and formal semantics of the metadata in order to perform reasoning
tasks. Commonly accepted, widely used vocabularies for image annotation
are still missing. Having such vocabularies would help in sharing
metadata across applications and across multiple domains. Especially,
a standard means to address subregions within an image is still
missing. In addition, tool support needs to improve dramatically
before Semantic Web-based image annotation can be applied on an
industrial scale: support needs to be integrated in the entire
production and distribution chain. Finally, many existing approaches
for image metadata are not based on Semantic Web technologies, and
work is required to make these approaches interoperable with the
Semantic Web.
a report on "Image Annotation on the Semantic Web." The previously
published "Multimedia Vocabularies on the Semantic Web" discusses a
number of individual vocabularies that are relevant for image annotation.
Both publications are part of the Incubator Activity, a forum where W3C
Members can innovate and experiment. The W3C Incubator Group Report on
Image Annotation is written for anyone with an interest in image
annotation, ranging from non-professional end-users that are annotating
their personal digital photos to professionals working with digital
pictures in image and video banks, audiovisual archives, museums,
libraries, media production and broadcast industry, etc. Many
applications that process multimedia assets make use of some form of
metadata that describe the multimedia content. The goals of this
document are to explain the advantages of using Semantic Web languages
and technologies for the creation, storage, manipulation, interchange
and processing of image metadata. In addition, it provides guidelines
for Semantic Web-based image annotation, illustrated by use cases.
Relevant RDF and OWL vocabularies are discussed, along with a short
overview of publicly available tools. The Report briefly surveys some
currently available vocabularies and tools that can be used to
semantically annotate images so that machines can better process them.
The use of Semantic Web technologies has significant advantages in
applications areas in which the interoperability of heterogeneous
metadata is important and in areas that require an explicitly defined
and formal semantics of the metadata in order to perform reasoning
tasks. Commonly accepted, widely used vocabularies for image annotation
are still missing. Having such vocabularies would help in sharing
metadata across applications and across multiple domains. Especially,
a standard means to address subregions within an image is still
missing. In addition, tool support needs to improve dramatically
before Semantic Web-based image annotation can be applied on an
industrial scale: support needs to be integrated in the entire
production and distribution chain. Finally, many existing approaches
for image metadata are not based on Semantic Web technologies, and
work is required to make these approaches interoperable with the
Semantic Web.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
XML Security Next Steps Workshop and C14N11/XML Signature Interop Event
W3C has issued a renewed call for papers in connection with the Workshop on Next Steps for XML Signature and XML Encryption, to be held September 25-26, 2007 in Mountain View, California, hosted by VeriSign. Position papers are due 14-August-2007. Workshop Chairs include Frederick Hirsch (Nokia; Chair, XML Security Specifications Maintenance Working Group, W3C) and Thomas Roessler (W3C Security Activity Lead).
Workshop attendees will discuss next steps for the XML Signature and XML Encryption specifications and share their experiences implementing and developing these standards. Topics may include interoperability and robustness, performance, legal requirements for digital signature formats, and the impact of the evolving XML environment. The Workshop is expected to give its recommendations to the XML Security Specifications Maintenance Working Group. The Workshop is free free and open to all; however, submission of position papers is required of all participants.
In conjunction with the workshop, the XML Security Specifications Maintenance Working Group will hold an interop test on 27-September-2007 to test C14N11 (Canonical XML 1.1) and XML Signature Core.
See also Canonical XML 1.1
Workshop attendees will discuss next steps for the XML Signature and XML Encryption specifications and share their experiences implementing and developing these standards. Topics may include interoperability and robustness, performance, legal requirements for digital signature formats, and the impact of the evolving XML environment. The Workshop is expected to give its recommendations to the XML Security Specifications Maintenance Working Group. The Workshop is free free and open to all; however, submission of position papers is required of all participants.
In conjunction with the workshop, the XML Security Specifications Maintenance Working Group will hold an interop test on 27-September-2007 to test C14N11 (Canonical XML 1.1) and XML Signature Core.
See also Canonical XML 1.1
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