Steering Committee Minutes 2009-08-04

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(NOTE: These minutes were not being submitted for approval since no there were no issues that required formal voting.)

URL: http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/Steering_Committee_Minutes_2009-08-04

Contents

Attendees

  • Jon Ferraiolo, IBM
  • David Boloker, IBM
  • Krip Zyp, Dojo Foundation (Sitepen)
  • Mike Milinkovich, Eclipse Foundation
  • Bertrand Le Roy, Microsoft
  • Joelle Lamb, Aptana

Minutes

Introductions

(Because this was first phone call for Kris and Joelle, we did quick introductions. Jon gave a high-level overview of the responsibilities of the Steering Committee.)

Status report on current activities

(Jon gives a status report on current activities at the alliance)

Hub 2.0 (Interoperability WG)

Jon: After two years, we finished OpenAjax Hub 2.0. It was approved by the Steering Committee a few weeks ago. The plan is to promote the approval of Hub 2.0 with a press release. We have a draft press release and plan on sending it out on Aug 18. I will be asking companies for quotes for the press release. We have two white papers in process to go along with the press release. Just an announcement of completion with explanation of what it is and why it is important to the industry. Any questions or comments?

(none)

Metadata 1.0 (IDE WG)

  • Major effort in 2009 to finish spec and develop open source widget loader
  • Major effort in 2009 to fix OA Widgets, particularly its APIS, to incorporate experience learned by existing commercial products and OpenSocial Gadgets
  • Spec is complete, ready for final review
  • Once reviews are complete, then finalize/approve
  • Dreamweaver as industry driver for widget format
    • Lots of Dreamweaver widgets in the OA Widget format on Adobe Exchange

Jon: After two years, we are almost done. The spec is finished and there are no open issues. The working group is reviewing the detailed wording in the spec chapter by chapter. Looks like we should finish towards the end of September. If no problems, then Metadata 1.0 would be submitted for approval just like what happened with Hub 2.0 recently. Any questions or comments?

(none)

Mashup single sign-on (Security TF)

Jon: Mashups sometimes contain widgets that require authentication. Better if multiple widgets can share the same sign-on information. Two key technologies in industry in this space are OpenID and SAML on the Java Enterprise side. The key question is how to use the Hub in single signon scenarios. We worked on this in the first months of 2009 and then put it aside to focus on Hub 2.0 and Metadata 1.0 completion. The key product is a set of sample applications that show how to use the Hub with single-signon systems. We should resume work in the next couple of months. Any questions or comments?

(none)

ARIA tooling ( Accessibility TF)

  • Develop a standard set of accessibility validation rules, geared toward meeting compliance to WCAG 2 using WAI-ARIA and WAI-ARIA Best Practices. These rules must be consumable by major accessibility test tools.
  • Develop best practices for reporting accessibility compliance by accessibility test tools
  • Develop IDE best practices to assist developers to produce Accessible RIAs
  • One of the key tools will be the Eclipse ACTF Web Validation Componentry (Webelo) as the open-source reference implementation

Jon: We have about 10 organizations working together in the Accessibility task force on ARIA tooling. The impetus behind this effort is that there are standards for accessibible RIAs, such as ARIA and WCAG-2, but tools aren't providing help to RIA developers. The initiative is delivering best practices and coordinating with tools to help developers make accessible RIAs.

Mike: I see that they are using an Eclipse tool. Is there a conflict with licensing since OpenAjax uses the Apache license.

Jon: No conflict. Apache license is for code on the OpenAjax open source project. OK to use and reference tools on other open source sites that have different licenses.

Possible additional future activities

Hub enhancements

  • So far, just planning open source enhancements, no spec changes
  • Plan to add VBScript messaging for IE6/IE7 to remove clicking noise

Jon: No proposals to change Hub 2.0 spec. However, we will be updating the open source, particularly to take a trick from OpenSocial for passing messages in IE6/IE7 that gets around clicking noises.

Metadata enhancements

Jon: We have some features that were postponed out of Metadata 1.0 in an appendix. We also might standardize JSDoc. There are multiple variations out there today. We might want to choose a particular flavor and make it into an industry standard.

Jon: Regarding JSON Schema, I have suggested to Kris to take it to IETF as plan A, and if that doesn't work, then OpenAjax standardization would be plan B.

Kris: Have talked with IETF and they have encouraged me. Just need to submit. Then comes community review. One thing they brought up is that the current JSON spec is just an informative spec because there is no JSON workin group. I might see if there is interest in a JSON working group. If not a working group, then publish JSON Schema as an informative document.

Jon: I would propose that OpenAjax Alliance would review and probably ultimately support and help to promote. Any objections?

Mike/David: Good idea

Jon: Promotion might just be a supportive blog posting, or if there is a press release, we provide a supportive quote.

Jon: JSON Schema is critical for some workflows, even if most people just use JSON in a loosey-goosey manner.

OpenAjax Registry as self-service web app at OpenAjax.org

  • Ajax toolkits define their usage of JavaScript globals, custom HTML markup, CSS classes
  • Mashup registry: pubsub topics and payloads, shared properties
  • IDE registry: widget categories
  • Downplaying OpenAjax Conformance

Jon: At the face-to-face last fall, we agreed to change direction with the Registry. At first, we were thinking about the Interoperability WG reviewing the Registry submissions and casting judgment. But we agreed this wasn't going to be a good approach, so instead we are planning a self-service web application. Maybe the Interop WG might review on an exceptional basis if there are bad entries, but mostly self-service. Not just JavaScript globals. Also, markup such as dojoType and CSS classes. For widgets, we have a notion of widget categories. Also, mashup topics, payloads and shared properties.

Bertrand: I told Jon about a tool that evaluations libraries and checks interactions.

Jon: Yes, two things we can do: self-service registry and supportive tools. No progress yet. Waiting on me, and I haven't had time. Not an urgent thing for industry, but would be valuable if it exists. For example, there is a Server JavaScript effort and they are defining some globals, such as exports. Would be good to reserve those names.

Kris: They have some globals, but not exports. requires is a global. Lots of discussion about this. Would be useful to reserve their names.

Bertrand: For custom markup, there are compatibility issues with HTML. For example, dojoType won't validate.

Jon: I think we should do something that's useful. We could document markup and put a warning on the self-service tool about compatibility problems.

Bertrand: Are there things for OpenAjax to do to influence HTML5? They have data- attributes for validating custom attributes.

Jon: That gets into browser wishlist, which we'll discuss in a moment. Regarding the Registry, my plan is to get to it when I have some time.

"Enterprise OpenSocial"?

Jon: Background on this is that OpenSocial is lacking a few things that the Enterprise guys want. There has been some early discussion about whether OpenAjax Alliance might be a place for some of this work. However, my recommendation is that Plan A is for companies to first try to work with OpenSocial directly. But maybe they'll need OpenAjax as a place to talk about Enterprise issues for OpenSocial.

Mike: Would you expect the usual suspects?

Jon: At Google I/O, there were a number of companions at the Enterprise OpenSocial mini-summit. Atlassian, Salesforce, IBM. I don't remember the full list.

Mike: Google?

Jon: Yes. They organized it. Chris Schalk led it. He used to run the Server committee at OpenAjax. Definitely friendly to us.

Jon: One area that relates to OpenAjax is integration of OpenAjax Hub with Shindig. Some potential security and performance gains that are important to Enterprises.

Jon: I brought it up just to make sure no one had any objections. Nothing happening now, and when/if something does happen, I'll tell you about it before anything gets started.

Update to browser wishlist?

Jon: Last year we had a successful industry initiative. Lat fall, at least one browser vendor, the IE team, told me that they use the wishlist to plan future versions and requested an update in 2009. I had promised to do an updated wishlist in the spring, but haven't had the bandwidth. Right now, looks like it won't happen.

Bertrand: What is the effort?

Jon: Can reuse most of the infrastructure from last year. It took Coach and me about a man-month each last year. Probably a similar effort.

Bertrand: I could try to find a volunteer.

Jon: If we do another wishlist initiative, we need to make sure it will have a positive industry impact.

Mobile Ajax initiatives?

Jon: I am bringing this up to see if anyone things we should be doing something in the mobile space. We haven't done anything in Mobile Ajax recently. Last year we did a big push around Mobile Device APIs, that we transferred to OMTP, that fed into BONDI, which is now feeding into the newly formed Device APIs Working Group at the W3C. We got things started and then declared victory. But since then, nothing go on now.

Ajax state of the world white paper?

Jon: I have talked in the past about such a white paper, but haven't had time to work on it.

Anything else that SC wants OAA to pursue?

Kris: How about standardizing the JSON object that is passed via postMessage?

Jon: This came up during the final phases of Hub 2.0. One of IBM's products wanted to futureproof so that if the mashup container app upgrades to a future version of the Hub and brings in widgets that use an earlier version. We didn't want to standardize the payload that late in the Hub 2.0 cycle, but did make sure there was versioning information so that both sides could verify compatibility.

Jon: Maybe an extensible payload definition.

Other topics to discuss

Upcoming Steering Committee elections

  • (~Oct 1. End of terms for MS, Nexaweb, TIBCO)

Jon: I'll send out notices in September.

All-member meeting and/or webinar

Jon: Recommend against a face-to-face. I don't think there would be a critical mass of people traveling to piggyback any of the Ajax conferences this year.

Mike: Eclipse has had web meetings and they are working well. Also, having an OpenAjax meeting in conjunction with EclipseCon might be good. In Santa Clara in March.

Next meeting

Jon: I don't think we need another phone call until this fall. Until then, just deal with issues via email. Any objections?

(none)

End of meeting

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