I disagree with the assertion that Anders has identified a flaw.
Anders appears to be confusing SAML, bizTalk and ebXML. The somewhat strange
assertion is made that they are all the same.
The same criticism could be made of email since the SMTP specification does
not specify the content type and in any case SMTP is the same as FTP and
NNTP.
Every successful specification addresses about 80% of a well defined problem
and is capable of extension to address both the other 20% and other problems
outside the initial scope.
If people want to we can make Advice subject to the same extension
mechanisms as other elements - use abstract types and require extension of
the base class.
Differentiating information that can be ignored in an extension from
information that cannot is one of the most important issues for extensible
application.
There are certainly communities that want to apply systems built on SAML
with extensions to address specific applications that are outside SAML
scope. The assertion that they are all by their nature 'closed' and do not
require 'interoperability' is false.
Standards facilitate interoperability. Standards cannot enforce
interoperability nor are they actually essential for interoperability. The
banking industry has racks of standards and racks of hardware that
(unhappily) interoperates with other racks of hardware at other banks using
protocols that bear no relation at all to the carefully crafted standards.
Industry would like us to produce a standard that will facilitate their
interoperability efforts. However they will get their job done in the end
with or without our help.
Phill
Phillip Hallam-Baker FBCS C.Eng.
Principal Scientist
VeriSign Inc.
pbaker@verisign.com
781 245 6996 x227
>