Re: [provision] Liberty Identity Personal Profile example...

[Gearard Woods <gewoods@us.ibm.com>]

These examples show how the SPML might communicate this XML document::

  <InformalName>theWanderer</InformalName>
  <CommonName>
    <CN>Zita Lopes</CN>
    <AltCN>Maria Lopes</AltCN>
  </CommonName>
  <LegalIdentity>
    <LegalName>Zita Maria Oliveira da Figueira Lopes</LegalName>
    <VAT>502677123</VAT>
  <LegalIdentity>

I urge the committee members to examine the documents that Jeff has worked
up and consider them against this and in the light of previous issues
raised on this list.  Some important points to consider in my view are:

1. The examples introduce a naming system to relate hierarchical elements
that are naturally related in the simple XML document.  This naming system
exists only for the benefit of the SPML and is not present in the target
document.
2. The examples force the implementor to perform a quite complex mapping of
request structures to the XML document
3. It's still not clear how attributes (as opposed to elements) in the
target document are conveyed clearly in the SPML
4. The sheer complexity of the SPML approach

And there are additional problems associated with the schema.  We have not
yet seen how an SPML schema might look for these documents but there is
some form of mapping required to transform the schema from XML Schema to
SPML schema.  Also, if I use the native Liberty XML Schema as published, I
can use tools such as XMLSpy to analyse, validate or create instance
documents whereas with the SPML schema I have no such tool support.  I can
include or reference the XML Schema in a WSDL document verbatim to allow
consumers to generate client libraries to talk to my service.  These tools
are not available for SPML schema.

These examples illustrate to me that there is a very large penalty to pay
with the SPML.  The hoops that implementors of the SPML will have to jump
through to communicate a simple XML document represent the tip of the
iceberg.  Along with the document transformations are schema
transformations and the inability to use off-the-shelf tools.  The fact
that schemas and documents published by almost all Web Services and
toolkits available today will need these complex transformations to be used
with the SPML at all is a fundamental problem.

There are still unanswered questions about aspects of this problem, but
without going any deeper into this argument it seems to me that the SPML
approach must be viewed as an unsatisfactory solution.  I will certainly
not stand in front of my management, technical review boards, and
ultimately IBM customers, and suggest that this is the best way to
communicate their XML data and provide access to their Web Services.  From
other discussions on the list it is obvious to me that there is a number of
other committee members who see the ability to transport raw XML and use
XML Schema within the SPML as desirable, if not a requirement.  As we move
towards SPML 2.0, I respectfully suggest that we re-examine the foundations
that lead to these problems.
Gerry



|---------+---------------------------->
|         |           "Jeff Bohren"    |
|         |           <jbohren@opennetw|
|         |           ork.com>         |
|         |                            |
|         |           07/30/2003 08:18 |
|         |           PM               |
|---------+---------------------------->
  >------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
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  |       To:       <provision@lists.oasis-open.org>                                                                             |
  |       cc:                                                                                                                    |
  |       Subject:  [provision] Liberty Identity Personal Profile example...                                                     |
  >------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|




There has been an interesting discussion on the list concerning handling
structured data in SPML. The discussion started with the question of how a
Project Liberty Personal Profile could be created using an SPML Web
Service.

Attached are two examples that show how this could be done using SPML as it
is currently specified. One example shows how it could be done using a
hierarchical model and one shows a referential model.

Just my 2 cents.

Jeff Bohren
 OpenNetwork Technologies


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#### addrequest_hierarchical.xml has been removed from this note on July
31, 2003 by Gearard Woods
#### addrequest_referential.xml has been removed from this note on July 31,
2003 by Gearard Woods