RE: DSML 2.0 requirements

[James Tauber <JTauber@bowstreet.com>]

> - We discussed the concept of representing each LDAP protocol 
> operation in XML. I am not convinced at this point that such 
> an approach would provide all the benefits to non-LDAP-aware 
> clients that the XML environment makes possible. I don't know 
> how realistic it is, but an ideal XML view of the LDAP world 
> would be as just another XML document, where XLink is used to 
> identify directory entries (roots of subtrees) and XPath to 
> query and extract entries and attributes within a subtree.

I agree that this is ideal but also don't know how realistic it is. You
would essentially need to tree an LDAP AS IF it were an XML document. It
would be too inefficient for the entire directory to be an actual XML
document (ie a string with angled brackets).

Something worth thinking some more about, though. It ties in nicely with the
issue of the overlap that I see between RDF's model and directories.

Also, it raises a possible dependency issue with the XML query work the W3C
is currently doing.

> - XML/DSML is not a transport protocol. One can anticipate 
> exchanging DSML documents over HTTP, SMTP, and other 
> transports. In many cases a user will want to take advantage 
> of the authentication and privacy provided by the transport 
> layer, and DSML is oblivious to the carrier.

I think there is general agreement that DSML not define its own transport
protocol. However, I think it is still possibly an open issue as to whether
DSML uses a specific transport protocol versus being completely agnostic.
Being agnostic makes interoperability potentially more difficult.

Let's keen this discussion going (including the other points raised by Rob)

James