Re: [saml-dev] question about metadata Organization elements

[Ian Young <ian@iay.org.uk>]

Scott Cantor wrote:

>> One obvious use for this pattern is to have "the" organization name 
>> expressed in several different languages:
> 
> That was the main use case, I suppose adding aliases would be another.
> 
>> Another use might be for an organization that has more than one name:
> 
> You can't connect the different elements together except by ordering them or
> something, and the schema wouldn't have been set up that way. It's just one
> organization.

OK, fair enough.  One organization, but potentially with several 
equivalent names with no implied relationship.

> That might have been a bug, but then again, I always argue for acting under
> different names when acting as a gateway anyway, so maybe not.

Some of the use cases we're looking at involve a particular gateway; 
others are (massively) aggregated attribute stores representing very 
large numbers of very small organisations (primary and secondary 
schools).  It's not clear that we even want those small organisations to 
be visible at the OrganisationDisplayName level, but it sounds to me 
like you'd suggest expressing their relationship with the entity some 
other way.

I guess we can always go down the extension route if we have to.

	-- Ian