[OpenAjaxMobile] Minutes 2008-09-04

[Jon Ferraiolo]

Sorry it took me a few days to post the minutes.

URL: http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/Mobile_Minutes_2008-09-04

Mobile Minutes 2008-09-04


Attendees
      David Boloker, IBM (co-chair)
      Jon Ferraiolo, IBM
      Paddy Byers, Aplix
      John Hardi, Motricity
      Rotan Hanrahan, MobileAware
      Andrew Sledd, Ikivo (co-chair)
      Ian Hay, Orange France-Telecom
      David Pollington, Vodafone

Minutes

OMTP BONDI review


Paddy: I am editor of the architecture document and attended most of the
other meetings.


Jon: How baked are the documents and technologies under development at
OMTP?


Paddy: My assessment. People are bringing requirements mainly, not always
solutions. Closer collaboration with W3C. Better attention to feasibility
lately. Ambitious on the time frame. Actually interfaces aren't that
difficult, but if you want quality APIs, it will be a challenge to fit
within the target timeframe. Regarding architecture and security, good
discussion at the requirements level and a good amount of sympathy for our
efforts at W3C webapps. Good target to shoot for. But finding a reference
implementation that meets all of the goals, particularly quality, will be
more challenging. We have been involved in quite intensive work. A lot of
buy-in so far. But the ending impact depends on the quality of what we
produce.


DavidP: I would agree. A lot of effort from the operators to make it
successful. A good set of requirements. Trick is turning the requirements
into APIs and reference code.


Jon: Has the reference implementation chosen yet?


DavidP/Paddy: Will be discussed next week in Austin.


Andrew: Is there a push towards things that are already defined and
implemented within the industry?


Paddy: Will discuss next week. My view is that there won't be an all or
nothing reference implementation. Note that the RI doesn't need to be all
open source or all from a single vendor. Of course we don't want a
Frankenstein's monster with pieces that don't fit together. Aplix has
offered a framework that will allow for independent implementations of the
pieces.


Jon: Yes, given your loader research, you seem well-suited for that.


Jon: Regarding the BONDI specs themselves, I am highly positive about what
I see so far. I have looked at the specs in depth and read them all. The
only major negative I see so far is the ridiculous verbosity of XACML. I
have talked to Nick Allott about this and he says that the OMTP
participants recognize this and will be exploring approaches to find ways
to simplify.


Paddy: Yes, I agree. We found that XACML fit our needs nicely. It allowed
us to move forward quickly. But it comes with a huge amount of baggage. Not
just its verbosity, but also its generality. For example, you can use
arbitrary XPath expressions in the rules. In my opinion, too much for
mobile. We aren't sure yet how to address this.


Andrew: Does everyone agree that this needs to be addressed?


Paddy: I do. I think most of the OMTP members think so also. We need some
sort of profiling.


Jon: My advice is to use real-life scenarios to help figure out the
subsetting. And I mean real-life, and the existing use cases and examples
might be too artificial. Therefore, it might be necessary to cycle back on
the use cases for a bit in order to best inform the profiling initiative.


Paddy: It is a good thing that we have separated out the security language
from the security implementation. For example, the fact that something is
signed is not necessarily a requirement for policy.


Rotan: I'm not sure what exactly the problem is with XACML. Two main
reasons why a particular XML format isn't suitable. First, potential
complexity of human authoring. If there are scenarios where you need to
hand-code, then you don't want it to be too complex. Second, complex
processing. Sometimes you want to design an XML format to allows for
efficient implementation of complex logic.


Jon: XACML has shortcomings on both fronts. I believe it will be hand-coded
often and by people with little knowledge of XACML. Also, it has high
processing requirements which is bad on devices where you want to preserve
the battery.


Paddy: XACML isn't natural for hand-coders.


Jon: Don't mean to bash XACML. Just saying for this scenario it is too
verbose and complex.


Paddy: Adapting lock stock and barrel won't work


Jon: But Rotan makes good points


Rotan: Just restating W3C best practices. Need to provide an exact
proposal.


Paddy: Had had some discussions with XACML people.


Rotan: I can bring issues to the W3C


Paddy: First we meet next week, then I'll info to you



Jon's review of W3C geolocation


Paddy: Jon's discussion of geoloc could be a big benefit to us


Andrew: How is OMTP and W3C liaison going?


Paddy: Lots of discussions at OMTP but Jon's proposals are more advanced.
Would be good to have a style guide


Jon: My overall assessment is that W3C geolocation has reasonable APIs.
When I think about how it might be improved, I have a hard time justifying
proposed changes. It is clear that for each decision they made they had a
reason behind it. I also looked at whether their approaches could be a
model for other device APIs and concluded that their approaches can be used
for other APIs. One huge benefit to the geolocation work is that it can
establish precedent which others can adopt and thereby streamline and
accelerate standards development.


Paddy: I agree. Good to abstract those principles into a style guide.


Rotan: Talking about JavaScript APIs or general APIs?


Jon: At OpenAjax, we are focused only on JavaScript.


Rotan: I think it would be good to explicitly say that your comments are
only for JS APIs. That will help get favorable attention at W3C. Maybe
someone else can define language-neutral APIs.


Paddy: In Java, every API locks because of multithreading. This approach
should work with Java. Also, Java is typed. Problem is that the optimal JS
API will be different than the optimal Java API.


Jon: OK, I'll start work on an OpenAjax style guide.


DavidP: Makes perfect sense.


Jon: I'll work with Adam Peller, who is on this committee and one of the
Dojo experts. We can review it here and with the rest of OpenAjax Alliance.


Paddy: I think this would be really valuable.



W3C


Rotan: W3C MWI will be coming to a close, to be followed by MWI2. Whereas
MWI1 wrote specs, MWI2 will focus on workshops on prominent topics,
designed for quick turnaround. Maybe there will be an exception with Best
Practices and affect of proxies when in the presence of Ajax and other
active content. For that, we will be doing a set of guidelines for the
industry. Tech Plenary next month. Afterwards, lots of announcements.


Rotan: geolocation WG is still being formed, probably close to completion.
Matt Wormer is the organizer.


Jon: Is OMTP looking at DCCI?


Rotan: The request has come in. But need to understand their requirements
to make sure we can meet their needs. OMA has a server technology. Then W3C
has DCAP and DCCI on browser. All based on UWA ontololgies for
compatbility.


Jon: geolocation doesn't have feature feature. Maybe use DCCI for that?


Rotan: Matt in a prior life implemented DCCI before calling map APIs. Only
impediment is political.


JF/RH: Maybe DCCI to discover, then call other APIs


Jon: Seems like the winning strategy. Maybe OAA can help by making a
recommendation


Rotan: Would be good



Next meeting


Andrew: Jon, can you be ready for a call in 2 weeks?


Jon: DavidP and I will be at a conference on that date.


(discussion)


Decision: Next call on Sept 25 at normal time (9am US-PT)
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