RE: [xacml] Registration of XACML Media Type(s) with IANA

[<remon.sinnema@emc.com>]

Robin,


From: xacml@lists.oasis-open.org [mailto:xacml@lists.oasis-open.org] On Behalf Of Robin Cover
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 1:45 AM
To: Sinnema, Remon
Cc: Hal Lockhart; Bill Parducci; XACML TC List; Robin Cover; Chet Ensign; TCA
Subject: [xacml] Registration of XACML Media Type(s) with IANA

>> Hello Ray.  I noted the  XACML TC's submission request for a
template to create a Standards Track specification related to an
anticipated registration application to IANA on media/mime
types.

It's been customary for a few years to have TC Administration
handle IANA registrations (ports, media/mime types, relationTypes,
etc) rather than having the TC handle the actual registrations.
Part of that is to ensure coordination and to provide for a
permanent contact of record that's based upon email on the
oasis-open.org Internet Domain.

I've been assigned to help with IANA registrations on behalf
of Staff, and want to stay in the loop as discussions and
spec development progress in the XACML TC. <<

Thank you. It is my understanding that we need some sort of formal work product in which we define the media types, which we can then reference from the IANA registrations. Is this understanding correct? The TC decided yesterday that this work product should be a separate profile, hence my request for a new Standards Track specification.

We plan to register at least three media types: application/xacmlpolicy+xml, application/xacmlrequest+xml, application/xacmlresponse+xml. I'm also working on a REST profile for XACML, which would lead to more media types, at least the JSON representations of the three XML media types.


I do have one technical question regarding the IANA registration that you may be able to help me with: How is versioning usually handled? The XML schemas for the 2.0 and 3.0 versions of the XACML spec are very different, so it would make sense to be able to distinguish between the two. Does that mean we need different media types, or should we use a 'Version' parameter on the media type, or is there some other mechanism we can take advantage of?

I know that HTML used a version parameter at one point in time, but dropped it later for the DOCTYPE [1]. We could use the schema information in the XML instance for the XML media types, but that wouldn't work for the JSON ones.


>> Perhaps you could alert me if you think any XACML TC meeting
will especially focus on issues relating to the IANA
registration process.

I have opened a JIRA ticket to help track with the progress
of spec development and other plans.  Please let me know if
something significant has happened that escaped my notice
(evidenced by absence of any comment in the JIRA ticket):

"Register XACML Media Type with IANA"
http://tools.oasis-open.org/issues/browse/TCADMIN-844 <<

Will do.


Thanks,
Ray


[1] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2854.txt