[higgins-dev] Notes for Higgins developers call on Thursday, January 29,

["Mary Ruddy" <mary@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Notes for Higgins dev call – Jan 29, 2009

 

 

Attendees

 

• Brian Carroll - Serena
• Andy Hodgkinson - Novell
• Mary Ruddy - Meristic
• Jim Sermersheim - Novell
• Paul Trevithick - Parity
• Brian Walker - Parity
• Tom Carroll - Parity 
• Hank Mauldin - Cisco

 

 

Logistics
Time: noon EST
Dial-in: 1-866-362-7064 / 892048#

Agenda
1. [Brian] 1.1M6 - targeted for February 27
 

• See  http://wiki.eclipse.org/Higgins_1.1M6 for current list       
• 1.1 Milestone planning http://wiki.eclipse.org/Higgins_1.1_Plan
• XML project plan   
• [BrianW] M6 status.  Haven’t refreshed the target bug list yet. Still targeting the end of February.  Still hoping to get some feedback on the cornerstone changes – particularly WS-Trust and SOAP.  I will be doing some work in Eclipse bugzilla to get M6 registered.  27^th of February is the goal.  There are about 90+ candidates going forward.  I will do some better pruning of the candidate list.
• [BrianW]Had some good dialog on the 1.1 proposed list also.  Got good input on proposed priorities for IdAS.  So I will make some more updates for that also.  Hopefully we will get a more refined list.
• [Mary] Once we have the next set of milestones, I will work on getting the webpage converted to the Eclipse XML project format.

2. [Brian, Alexander, Andy]  Selector Architecture Harmonization
 

• Alexander has posted some initial work on data objects for protocol [1] and more will follow by end of week (authentication and REST API definition)
• Axel Nennker suggested we layer over WebDAV (as Mozilla Weave does). Alexander? Andy?
• Use Google Protocol Buffers?
• Andy has made some progress on Phase I of harmonization effort
• [BrianW]  Did some good work with Andy and Alexander.  Paul sent out link to Alexander’s update there.  Continuing to iterate on that.  So the content is posted for review.  I will coordinate with Alexander and Andy about sending a general update. 
• [Andy] Alexander sent an email, I think to Mary, yesterday for Google Protobuf use.  I didn’t know if it was previously approved.
• [Mary] Can you re-forward that message?
• [Andy]It has the new BSD license.  All code that Google has authored.
• [Brian] So the next step is to iterate.  Have the placeholders on the Eclipse Higgins wiki page.  Still have some gaps. Next step is to send a message to Higgins dev.  Alex is very interested in this as well.
• [Paul] Axel has suggested that we look at WebDAV instead of rolling our own.  Was that considered?
• [Andy] I think Alexander responded with some of his thoughts.  I would need to go back and review some of his comments. 
• [Brian] He would like to reuse Jersey WebDAV support.  So it is still under consideration.
• [Paul] You can use WebDAV and Protobuf together?  That would be surprising
• [Andy] I don’t think so.  We would need to do one.
• [Paul] I think it is important to have as many discussions as possible on this list.  There is a lot of interest in this: Axle, FC2.  Microsoft is planning a card syncing protocol.  One reason to do it on the list is to that any one who cares can see the  decision process.  For example it wouldn’t be a surprise if Microsoft didn’t want to use Google Protobuf.  So if we are leaning towards any technical decision I want to give it as wide an audience as possible.
• [Andy] You’re right.  WebDAV, might be more palatable to Microsoft.
• [John] Microsoft has its own implementation of WebDAV. We need to watch out as it was written by a company bought by Microsoft.
• [Paul] Axle pointed out it was used by Mozilla.
• [BrianC] It is.  There’s an SEM company Serena has used and worked on WebDAV and it is a good solid protocol.  A recent technical knock: REST community used it as a bad example of HTTP as it extends the HTTP verb set.
• [John] …it can have problems with cache.
• [John] Yes, I see why it is attractive, but we need to consider web transportability and security aspects.
• [John]  It  as caused endless amount of grief.
• [Paul] Humm….
• [Andy] Maybe we should look more at REST.
• [Paul] So this is an area we need to keep investigating, and have the pros and cons on the list.
• [BrianW] I will tie-up with Andy and Alexander and call out the three key design points so far and include them on an email blast to the list.
• [Paul] This it’s a Higgins project and we want this to work for as wide a community as possible. Mary look into the IPR.  We could try pinging them.
• [Paul] I’m concerned with the RESTful thing.  We have a shot to try doing something not using SOAP.  Would like it to be RESTful.
• [John]  Some say WebDEV is not RESTful

3. [Mary] IPR -  requests for Galileo are due by Saturday
 

• Jersey next steps.  CDDL expected to be   OK.
• Other anticipated items??
• [Mary] A CDDL licensed subset of Jersey was previously approved by Eclipse, so we can probably get Jersey approved.   This is the time of year when Eclipse switches gears to focus most of their IP legal resources to reviewing items needed for their June release – called Galileo this year.   So CQ items submitted after Saturday will probably have to wait until after Galileo.  I have a request into Dick for information about OpenID4java IP processes.
• [Hank] Dick has just resurfaced.  He was physically moving. Has just gotten back into the mailing list for OpenID stuff. He is in an all week meeting
• [John] I talked to him, he isn’t really interested in this any more. So he has proposed removing it from the interoperability test. Johnny, the main author would like to keep it going, he doesn’t have resources.  
• [Mary] Did Johnny write all the code?
• [John] Johnny is the main author.  Dick provided money and support. I could contact Johnny if you would like.
• [Mary] Yes.
  [John] I will send his contact info.
• [Mary]  Sounds like he needs some place to host the code and have it maintained.
• [Paul] Higgins is a possibility.
• [John] Higgins is a possibility, if Higgins wants to take this one.  Right now I think the code is in the Google repository.  It was moved about a year ago.
• [Paul] The Higgins project has at least two components that want to consumer this library.
• [John] Should we approach them? I don’t know who else is consuming it.
• [John] It also has a dependency on Markus’ XRI resolver, which is pretty circular.
• [John] So it sort of makes sense.
• [Paul] It being an orphaned project has been a problem for Higgins.
• [John] I can do that.
• [Mary] Great.
• [Paul] Mary, do a preliminary check on Protobuf.

4.  [Paul] Component Renaming

• Paul: I’d like to rename Higgins Selector Selector to Higgins Selector Switch
• Paul: Didn’t get the survey designed for renaming “Web Proxy”, will do soon
• [Paul] Have feedback that the Higgins Selector Selector [name] is confusing to novices.
• [John] Do we see OpenID and SAML as part of this function?
• [Paul] No. Above the HSS, may have support for OpenID things, etc.  This component is a pure switch.  It doesn’t look at the packages, it just shunts them to the chosen selector. 
• [Paul] This is pure info card selecting.
• [Paul] Arbitrary messages can be passed through the switch.  Currently only info-cards.  It could be extended to do other things. I don’t know if it will grow beyond just information card messages.
• [Paul] Today the architecture is a TCP/IP server. On the back end it uses selector plugins. The modularity of the connectors added latency. Long term the thought is to merge the connectors into the switch.
• ….
• [John] It is an identity message router.
• [Paul] I’m concerned about confusing people
• [John] Eventually will need something like WS-Policy.
• [Paul] If change functionally the new name may [also] be wrong.. If you look at the component as it is today.. Can change name now, and change again if function changes again.
• [BrianW] My understanding is we should drive for changing the name as it is confusing to the novice. 
• [John] From a user point of view, it is an identity component control panel.
• [Paul] I was not thinking about end user as much as amongst ourselves.
• [Hank] I think switch is fine. 
• [Paul] The feedback is that selector selector [name] isn’t parse-able.
• [Paul] I will put up a survey for the web proxy.

5. [Paul] Personal Cards with Arbitrary Claims

• Paul: mentioned this within ICF list and on Monday’s OSIS call.
• Reactions on OSIS call varied from “no objection” to “good idea”
• [Paul] I’ve been socializing this.  There were not negatives.  The current spec is somewhere between allowed and unclear
• [Hank] I think it could be useful. 
• [Andy] May also need a compatibility mode on export for compatibility for prior versions of CardSpace. 
• [John] Microsoft can’t change history.

6. [Paul, Jim, Markus] Updating IdAS API/interfaces to our consensus on multiple EntityIds per Entity

• Tony motivated requirements for this. I think we designed a solution that satisfied all requirements.
• Need to tie up this loose ends
• [Paul] We had come to a consensus and I don’t think we changed the IdAS API’s.   Jim or Markus may remember
• [Andy] Jim needed to drop off
• [Paul] I will revisit this to see
• Paul] That’s all I have. Mary?
• [Mary] Hank do you have some questions about the Higgins white paper that you want to ask now?
• [Hank] It is up for next week.
• [Hank] Hope to have copy to get out to the list for feedback.
• [Hank] It would be helpful for you to provide a sentence or two indicating why did it
• [Paul] Sure.
• [Hank] Think about it.
• [Mary] Yes.
• [Hank] Sometimes those facts are interesting for people.
• [Mary] Can also help people to understand the approach.
• [Hank] Hope to get draft out by next call.
• [John]  Mary, the idtrust member section at OASIS is co-sponsoring the European Identity conference in Munich May 5-8.  One of the things we are thinking is an afternoon workshop centered around info cards. No ready why  we shouldn’t mention Higgins and its identity selectors.   My travel budget is thin, so I’m thinking of asking Axel
• [Paul] Or Markus.  He is over there.  Axel is part of Higgins, but not a committer.
• [Paul] We want to make Axel  a committer. We could ask him
• [John] I’m still trying to get his membership in OASIS straightened out so I can get him on the IMI TC.  Anyone on this call who wants to be on the IMI TC it is just an OASIS membership away.
• [Paul] Great. Thanks everyone.  Talk to you next Thursday,

[1] http://wiki.eclipse.org/Selector_Architecture_Harmonization#Card_Sync_Protocol