RE: [wsrp-interfaces] user profile proposal

I think there is a semantic difference between “This part of the spec where we know what kind of extension will be needed” and “That part of the spec where we want to allow implementations to extend in unexpected ways”.

I believe we both think that user profile is implemented in portals as something that is inherently extendable (think LDAP), while client data is implemented as either a rigid structure or unparsed string.

Yossi.

From: Rich Thompson [mailto:richt2@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 5:10 PM
To: wsrp-interfaces@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [wsrp-interfaces] user profile proposal

Are you arguing that extended items we expect to be passed to the portlet be treated differently than extended items we expect the Producer to consume? If so, this impacts a lot more than user profile items. If not, then I still don't see any semantic difference ...

Rich

"Yossi Tamari" <yossi@giloventures.com>

08/31/05 09:52 AM

To	<wsrp-interfaces@lists.oasis-open.org>
cc
Subject	RE: [wsrp-interfaces] user profile proposal

In my opinion, the difference is that the “extended client data item” is seen by the producer, and there is no generic reason to expect the producer to pass this to the portlet (the client data structures tend to be monolithic), while the “extended user profile item that provides the address where a vehicle is garaged” is just a member in a user profile name-value pairs passed to the portlet as the user profile.
In other words, I believe user profile tends to be treated by the portlet (content creator), while generic extension information tend to be treated by the producer (container). Of course, since anything can be an extension in WSRP, this is a generalization, but I believe it is the correct way to look at it.

Yossi.

From: Rich Thompson [mailto:richt2@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 3:49 PM
To: wsrp-interfaces@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [wsrp-interfaces] user profile proposal

As this discussion has been proceeding, I am becoming more convinced that we are trying to draw an artificial distinction between custom user profile items and extensions. In v1, we put a minor hook for describing extensions related to the user profile because we expected these to be common, but the further we move from that original model, the more this looks artificial to me.

Can someone clearly articulate a concrete difference between a Consumer supplying an extended user profile item that provides the address where a vehicle is garaged and a Consumer supplying an extended client data item that provides information about the user's device???

What I see:
- In both cases, the protocol provides a defined extensibility point (using an open content model) for carrying the extended information (regardless of which proposal one is preferring)
- In both cases, the only semantics the protocol defines is that the extended information is related to the type which carries it (section 5.1.1 and equivalent in the various user profile proposals)
- In both cases, the Consumer needs to supply identity, syntactic and semantic information to the Producer in order for the information to be useful.
- In both cases, these points combine to produce the warning the spec includes in 5.1.1 that such items are less interoperable than spec-defined items.

What I don't see are differences from a protocol perspective!
I look forward to being enlightened ...

Rich

Subbu Allamaraju <subbu@bea.com>

08/30/05 08:07 PM

To	wsrp-interfaces@lists.oasis-open.org
cc
Subject	Re: [wsrp-interfaces] user profile proposal

> On your answer to extensions vs. things we define in the protocol: I am
> happy to remove the [relatively] useless
> customUsiptioerProfileItemDescriptions from serviceDescrn and
> customUserProfileData field from registrastionData so that its clear
> that this is no different then any other extension that could be
> supported.

But isn't the whole debate about making custom profile items more useful
than they are currently.

Subbu

> -Mike-
>
> Andre Kramer wrote:
>
>> Just to answer Mike’s questions: Yes, I propose to allow multiple
>> kinds of profiles. One use case would be allowing the common 1.0 P3P
>> derived values to be transmitted along with a more sophisticated
>> encoding of additional user data.
>>
>>
>>
>> I would agree the XML schema is superficially similar but note that no
>> <extensions> tag need be used in order to allow the two communicating
>> parties to exchange profile elements! And that is how it should be for
>> all explicit extension points we define in the protocol, in my opinion.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Andre
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* Michael Freedman [mailto:michael.freedman@oracle.com]
>> *Sent:* 24 August 2005 18:43
>> *To:* wsrp-interfaces@lists.oasis-open.org
>> *Subject:* Re: [wsrp-interfaces] user profile proposal
>>
>>
>>
>> Why did you define this so the producer can receive multiple
>> profiles? What is the use case for this? Where do we expect
>> consumers to manage/construct more then one?
>>
>> Also, I find it interesting that in the end you have turned user
>> profiles into an extension. i.e. they have the same form. To me this
>> is a step backwards -- and instead I would prefer to continue to carry
>> the P3P style user profile formally in the UserContext as we did in
>> 1.0 to reflect the fact that this is the preferred/protocol profile
>> and then tell consumers/producers that decide to use a different
>> profile to merely carry that profile in the extensions field. This is
>> especially true given your strong preference not to attempt to provide
>> more meta data in the protocol related to user profiles
>> -Mike-
>>
>>
>> Andre Kramer wrote:
>>
>> The following should allow alternative types of profile data to flow,
>> making our old P3P based information one example of such profile
>> descriptions:
>>
>> In 1.0 we had:
>>
>> <complexType name="*UserContext*">
>>
>> <sequence>
>>
>> <element name="*userContextKey*" type="*xsd:string*" />
>>
>> <element name="*userCategories*" type="*xsd:string*"
>> minOccurs="*0*" maxOccurs="*unbounded*" />
>>
>> <element name="*profile*" type="*types:UserProfile*"
>> minOccurs="*0*" />
>>
>> <element name="*extensions*" type="*types:Extension*"
>> minOccurs="*0*" maxOccurs="*unbounded*" />
>>
>> </sequence>
>>
>> </complexType>
>>
>> <element name="*UserContext*" type="*types:UserContext*" />
>>
>> /Proposal/: Replace "*profile*" element in above with a "*profiles*"
>> element (note different type and that mulitple occurances are now
>> allowed):
>>
>> <element name="*profiles*" type="*types:Profile*" minOccurs="*0*"
>> maxOccurs="*unbounded*" />
>>
>> Where the new* Profile* type is defined as follows:
>>
>> <complexType name="*Profile*">
>>
>> <sequence>
>>
>> <any />
>>
>> </sequence>
>>
>> </complexType>
>>
>> We would also define a global "*userProfile*" element, as well as
>> keep the (P3P)* UserProfile* type in our schema (could move
>> UserProfile to separate useful types xsd):
>>
>> <element name="*userProfile*" type="*types:UserProfile*"/>
>>
>> This allows 0, 1 or many profiles to be communicated in the user
>> context in <profiles> elements. The understanding is that all such
>> profiles relate to the user. A specific usage is to communicate the
>> 1.0* UserProfile* data. This would now be carried in an element named
>> "*profiles*" :
>>
>> <userContext>
>>
>> ...
>>
>> <profiles>
>>
>> <userProfile> … 1.0 P3P stuff ...</userProfile> 
>>
>> </profiles>
>>
>> …
>>
>> <extensions> … </extensions> ...
>>
>> </userContext>
>>
>> Possible types of profiles can be listed using
>> ServiceDescription.customUserProfileItemDescriptions and
>> RegistrationData.customUserProfileData. On reflection, I strongly
>> prefer not to attempt to provide more meta data in the protocol
>> related to user profiles. If a XML processor recognizes the namespaced
>> elements it will already have the schema (if defined).
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Andre
>>
>>
>>
>

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