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XML and Web Services In The News - 06 March 2006
Provided by OASIS |
Edited by Robin Cover
This issue of XML.org Daily Newslink is sponsored by SAP
HEADLINES:
Tech Rallies Around Open Document Format
Clint Boulton, InternetNews.com
Several high profile and groups have banded together to show solidarity
for the OpenDocument Format (ODF), a collection of office document
formats to help organizations share digital information. The Software
& Information Industry Association, IBM, Sun Microsystems and a host of
other vendors and groups today announced the creation of the OpenDocument
Format Alliance (ODF Alliance). The group's goal is to push the creation
of software in the ODF format, which is based on XML. ODF allows text,
spreadsheet and presentation files to work with one another even if
they were created with different vendors' applications. ODF addresses
the concern that, as documents and services are migrated from paper to
electronic form, governments and other public agencies may not be able
to read important documents if they are not all using a common file
format. The alliance is clearly aimed at desktop software leader
Microsoft. The software giant employs different formats in current
versions of Office and does not support ODF and will not support it in
its upcoming Office 12 release later this year. Microsoft officials
perceived the ODF Alliance as a stab at its own efforts and welcomed
the competition.
See also: the announcement
Push to Create OpenDocument Standards
Steve Lohr, New York Times and CNet News.com
With government records, reports and documents increasingly being
created and stored in digital form, there is a software threat to
electronic access to government information and archives. The problem
is that public information can be locked in proprietary software whose
document formats become obsolete or cannot be read by people using
software from another company. To cope with the problem, [some] 30
companies, trade groups, academic institutions and professional
organizations are expected to announce on Friday the formation of the
OpenDocument Format Alliance, which will promote the adoption of open
technology standards by governments. "The goal is to ensure that the
largest number of people possible are able to find, retrieve and
meaningfully use government information," said Patrice McDermott,
deputy director of government relations for the American Library
Association, a member of the alliance. The problem, she said, is bad
and getting worse. She noted that the National Archives and Records
Administration was engaged in a costly project so the electronic
documents it saves from federal agencies can be opened and read. The
alliance supports a particular solution, called the OpenDocument
Format, for standard office word processing, presentation and
spreadsheet documents.
See also: related articles
The Perfect Search
Penny Crosman, IntelligentEnterprise.com
Google-style search is all right for some, but an enterprise search
demands a mix of technologies and techniques that lead to better accuracy.
Accurate enterprise search depends on intelligent use of state-of-the-art
taxonomies, metatags, semantics, clustering and analytics that find
concepts and meaning in your data and documents. A few vendors are using
XQuery, a command-oriented, SQL-like standard for creating search
statements, to exploit the structure of XML-tagged content. Siderean
Software's Seamark Metadata Assembly Process Platform converts
unstructured and structured data to RDF (Resource Description Framework),
generates metadata such as page title and date; and organizes the content
and tags into relational tables. Assuming you need more than one search
technology, how do you knit disparate solutions together? IBM's answer
is Unstructured Information Management Architecture. Recently published
on SourceForge.net, UIMA is an XML standard framework whose source code
is available to third-party search technologies. It acts as a backbone
into which text analytics and taxonomy tools can be plugged. There's
little to challenge UIMA other than a couple of XML initiatives that also
address the standardization of data formats for search engines. One such
initiative is Exchangeable Faceted Metadata Language, an open XML format
for publishing and connecting faceted metadata between Web sites, but
that standard doesn't have the momentum of something being pushed by IBM.
See also: UIMA and Web services
Getting to Know XForms
Craig Caulfield, XML Journal
The author explains why XForms are the perfect partner for Web Services.
XForms are XML tags embedded in host documents such as XHTML that, when
rendered by an XForms-aware browser, give applications some rich and
dynamic capabilities such as: XForms can take advantage of the strong
data typing offered by XML Schemas to validate user input at the client
without using any scripting. More sophisticated data validation is also
possible, such as enforcing relationships between different form values;
XForms' user interface components are device-independent, meaning they
are rendered according to whatever device they are being displayed on;
and, XForms create and consume XML, rather than name/value pairs, making
them the ideal client for Web services. To show how some of these
capabilities can be used, this article walks through the development of
a simple XForms application that uses an Amazon Web service to query and
display a typical book search.
See also: XML and Forms
SOAP 1.1 Binding for MTOM 1.0
IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP AG; Consultation Draft
A "SOAP 1.1 Binding for MTOM 1.0" specification released as a
Consultation Draft details the necessary modifications to the SOAP
Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM) and XML-binary
Optimized Packaging (XOP) specs necessary to successfully use these
technologies with SOAP 1.1. It is designed to (1) specify the minimal
changes to MTOM and XOP to enable these facilities to be used
interoperably with SOAP 1.1; (2) allow substantial parts of a SOAP 1.2
MTOM/XOP implementation to be reused with SOAP 1.1; (3) clarify that
SOAP 1.1 envelopes so constructed must use XML 1.0 for interoperability;
(4) illustrate updates to the "Describing Media Content of Binary Data
in XML" specification (syntax changes) since the publication of XOP.
Also released as of March 2, 2006: "WSDL 1.1 Binding Extension for
SOAP 1.2." This document endeavors to (1) provide functionality
comparable to binding for SOAP 1.1 [WSDL 1.1] for SOAP 1.2, and
specifically: [a] indicate that a binding is bound to the SOAP 1.2
protocol, [b] specify an address for a SOAP endpoint, [c] specify the
URI for the action parameter of the application/soap+xml Content-Type
HTTP header value for the HTTP binding of SOAP, [d] define Headers that
are transmitted as part of the SOAP Envelope. (2) indicate whether an
action parameter is required by a SOAP 1.2 endpoint. (3) provide
extensibility for more sophisticated and/or currently unanticipated
scenarios.
See also: the ref page
Hello Saxon on .NET! - An ASP.NET Introduction
M. David Peterson, XML.com
With the release of Saxon 8.7 comes a brand new .NET engine for the
Saxon XSLT 2.0, XPath 2.0, and XQuery 1.0 processor developed directly
by Dr. Michael Kay and fully supported by Saxonica. M. David Peterson
presents the first sample of what will become a mini-series of simple,
quick, and easy to consume sample applications that showcase how to
integrate the Saxon processing engine into your daily .NET development
life. The author has taken "a minimized approach to both the code and
commentary, annotating the code directly, letting this, and the code,
do all of the talking. Enjoy!"
Europe's Digital Library Taking Shape
Steve Ranger, CNET News.com
At least 6 million books, documents and other cultural works will be
made available online over the next five years under a planned European
Digital Library. The European Commission has released more details
about its plans to finance a series of "digitization centers" across
the continent and create a framework for protecting intellectual
property rights. The centers will house the skills and expertise
"needed to achieve excellence for digitization and preservation
processes. People will be able to search the collections of libraries,
archives and museums through a single, multilingual entry point, which
will take the form of a Web portal. Two million books, films, photographs,
manuscripts and other works are expected to become accessible through
the library by 2008, rising to 6 million by 2010. The EC said the final
figure would be much higher as "every library, archive and museum in
Europe will be able to link its digital content to the European Digital
Library."
See also: the portal
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