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XML and Web Services In The News - 27 July 2006
Provided by OASIS |
Edited by Robin Cover
This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by BEA
HEADLINES:
Cut, Paste, Split, And Assemble XML Documents with VTD-XML
Jimmy Zhang, Java World
Despite the wide adoption of the Document Object Model (DOM) and the
Simple API for XML (SAX), enterprise developers face the numerous
shortcomings of these technologies almost daily. Performance and
usability problems aside, DOM and SAX are infamous for their inabilities
to efficiently apply changes to XML content. For tasks as simple as
changing a text node, DOM and SAX impose the round-trip overhead of
parsing and reserialization, making any effort to optimize application
performance all but meaningless. As an incremental-update-capable
XML-processing API, VTD-XML provides a simple solution that resoundingly
eliminates the inefficiency normally associated with XML content change
and, along the way, opens up an array of new possibilities that should
further free XML from its alleged "slowness." VTD-XML eliminates several
problems: there is no encoding conversion, no discrete strings, and
virtually no object allocations. Virtual Token Descriptor (VTD) is the
name of the "non-extractive" tokenization technique largely responsible
for VTD-XML's unrivaled efficiency. VTD records are 64-bit integers
that encode the lengths, starting offsets, types, and nesting depths
of tokens in XML. In other words, digging a little deeper, you will
find that the old, discrete-string-based tokenization is doing a
little too much; offsets and lengths (also known as non-extractive
tokenization) are all you need to represent tokens. By using code
examples, this article shows you some of VTD-XML's new features and
how to take advantage of them in your next XML project.
What Is RDF?
Joshua Tauberer, XML.com
RDF was originally created in 1999 as a standard on top of XML for
encoding metadata—literally, data about data. Metadata is, of course,
things like who authored a web page, what date a blog entry was
published, etc., information that is in some sense secondary to some
other content already on the regular web. Since then, and perhaps
especially after the updated RDF spec in 2004, the scope of RDF has
really evolved into something greater. The most exciting uses of RDF
aren't in encoding information about web resources, but information
about and relations between things in the real world: people, places,
concepts, etc. The six documents composing the RDF specification tell
us two things. First, it outlines the abstract model, i.e., how to
use triples to represent knowledge about the world. Second, it
describes how to encode those triples in XML. The simplicity and
flexibility of the triple in combination with the use of URIs for
globally unique names makes RDF unique, and very powerful. It's a
specification that fills a very particular niche for decentralized,
distributed knowledge and provides a framework to enable computer
applications to answer questions we wouldn't dream of asking computers
today.
See also: W3C RDF resources
Google Launches Open-Source Repository
Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com
In its latest effort to further the open-source programming movement,
Google opened a site Thursday where programmers can host their software
projects. As expected, Google engineering manager Greg Stein announced
the project hosting site during a talk at the O'Reilly Open Source
Convention in Portland, Oregon. "One of our goals is to encourage
healthy, productive open-source communities. Developers can always
benefit from more choices in project hosting," Google said on a
frequently-asked-questions site. One choice for programmers is VA
Software's SourceForge.net, which hosts more than 100,000 open-source
projects. Google's hosting service, which accumulated dozens of new
projects on its opening day, features mechanisms to store software,
discuss it with mailing lists and track bugs. Google permits projects
under a variety of open-source licenses — but not the full range.
Google's service uses hosting software called Subversion, which Stein
had worked on in his previous job at CollabNet. That start-up, which
still oversees Subversion development and sells hosts distributed
programming projects for its clients, welcomed Google's move.
Integrating Security Policies via Container Portable Interceptors
Tom Ritter, et al., IEEE Distributed Systems Online
A generic framework to define and evaluate security policies is
necessary, and that framework must be integrated with the middleware
platform. We designed and developed a security framework, integrated
it into the CORBA Component Model middleware platform, and evaluated
it in a real-world project. To overcome CORBA security's limitations
for CCM-based applications, we developed the OpenPMF policy management
framework to define, manage, and enforce security policies in
distributed systems. Although this article focuses on our CCM
middleware platform, we designed OpenPMF to protect other platforms
and applications as well. OpenPMF is based on an abstract model of
middleware security policies, defined in UML. From the abstract model,
we generated a policy repository to store concrete instantiations of
security policies. Rich policies are defined in a consolidated way
using a policy description language. The policies are fed into the
repository using a PDL compiler. At startup or during policy updates,
the application's security agents, called Policy Enforcement Points
(PEP), obtain the policy from the repository and instantiate it. The
central aspect of the policy management framework isn't the language
but the policy's abstract information model — the metapolicy. This
metapolicy provides an abstract way to describe policies, completely
independent from how the policy is expressed. We used the OMG's
Meta-Object Facility (MOF) and defined the metapolicy as a UML model.
Our metamodel is flexible and describes in a consolidated, unified
way how to express policy hierarchies, rules, and the entities used
for the rule definitions. This also allows the handling and definition
of security policies based on different security models such as
discretionary access control, mandatory access control, or role-based
access control by mapping the high-level security policies to the
metapolicy's low-level rules. The next version of OpenPMF will use
the PDL only as an internal representation for the GUI and will
support XML.
GPL 3: Making Room on Patents, DRM
Sean Michael KernerInternetNews.com
The second draft release of the GNU General Public License (GPL)
Version 3 is out, including a softening on its terms about DRM
(Digital Rights Management) and patents. The latest draft release
softened its stance from the prior by noting that its own DRM
provision under the open source license is meant to prevent DRM users
from disallowing people from modifying or sharing GPL version 3
licensed software. "The clarified DRM section preserves the spirit
of the original GPL, which forbids adding additional unfree
restrictions to free software," The Free Software Foundation (FSF)
said in a statement about the latest release. "GPLv3 does not prohibit
the implementation of DRM features, but prevents them from being
imposed on users in a way that they cannot remove." The group working
on the GPL draft also removed significant amounts of text from
section 11 of GPL version 3, which deals with the other contentious
issue introduced in the first draft: patents. Originally the section
was titled "Licensing of Patents." In the latest draft, it's simply
titled: "Patents." In its rationale document for draft 2 of GPL v.3,
the FSF said it removed the reference to licensing since the section
"is no longer concerned solely with granting of and distribution
under patent licenses." The group added: "We have replaced the express
patent license grant with a covenant not to assert patent claims, and
the new paragraph on reservation of implied rights is not limited to
implied patent licenses." The second draft of GPL version 3 also
includes a modification to the license compatibility section, which
is intended to make GPL v.3 more palatable to projects that include
it along with other free and open source licenses. There are also new
provisions for sharing GPL license software on file sharing networks.
See also: the GPL v.3 draft
Telematics Technology to Become Royalty-Free
Staff CBR Online
Seeking to spur greater utilization of the technology, five of the
principals behind the Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGi) are
promising they won't charge royalties to access the necessary patents.
In effect, the new initiative grants the same patent-free access
currently enjoyed by fellow OSGi Alliance members to companies outside
the group. The five companies involved are IBM, Nokia, Samsung,
Gatespace Telematics, and ProSyst Software. They claim to be
responsible for the vast majority of technology underlying the OSGi
framework. With the fourth version of the OSGi framework now available,
the backers consider the technologies stable enough for broad adoption.
The technology behind OSGi originated as part of an initiative to
develop a so-called services gateway for Java-based home multimedia
set-top boxes. The original vision was for an open technology that
home services providers, ranging from cable TV companies to electric
utilities, would tap to deliver services such as interactive broadband
or smart appliances. Instead the technology found the most interest
among Java handset manufacturers, which saw its potential for
delivering software updates to Java phones. With over a billion Java-
equipped devices in circulation, OSGi backers see a fat target for
adoption.
See also: the declarations
Oracle Releases PeopleSoft Version 9
Jeremy Kirk, InfoWorld
Oracle released version 9 of its PeopleSoft Enterprise application
suite on Monday, an upgrade the company said will prepare customers
to move toward a service-oriented architecture (SOA). The new release
is integrated with Oracle's Fusion Middleware, a portfolio of server
software that allows applications from different vendors to
interoperate. The integration allows better use of other Oracle
technologies including XML Publisher, Business Activity Monitoring
and Customer Data Hub, the company said. Oracle said the version 9
release adds features related to corporate governance and compliance,
CRM (customer relationship management) improvements for customer
service agents, and enterprise-level planning. The company also
expanded capabilities for areas such as the public sector, health
care, financial services, communications, and higher education.
Oracle appointed a new general manager, Doris Wong, to run its
PeopleSoft Enterprise wing, a move it said would centralize leadership
and development of the product. Oracle has stressed that Fusion will
be developed with an eye toward the SOA model, working with standards
such as BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) and XML
(Extensible Markup Language). Oracle executives recently offered some
details of how its various application suites will be merged into
the forthcoming Fusion family; Fusion applications are expected in 2008.
See also: Open Management Consortium web site
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