Web Services Calendar (WS-Calendar) TC to Create Common Scheduling Standard
OASIS announced a new Web Services Calendar (WS-Calendar) TC, chartered to adapt existing calendaring and scheduling specifications to develop a Common Scheduling standard that defines how schedule, event, and interval information is passed between/within services. Beginning with the 'iCalendar XML Representation' standard from CalConnect/IETF, the TC will create a specification for creating, retrieving, updating, and deleting calendar events on a schedule.

OASIS Public Review: Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) v1.0
The OASIS Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) TC approved a Committee Draft of the CMIS Version 1.0 specification for public review through December 22, 2009. CMIS defines a domain model along with Web Services and Restful AtomPub bindings that can be used by applications to work with different content management repositories/systems. CMIS defines generic/universal CMS capabilities, and the interface is layered on top of existing CM systems.

Apache Software Foundation Launches Chemistry Incubation Effort for CMIS
The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) announced a new Incubator project to support the OASIS Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) specification. The Apache Chemistry Incubation development effort will implement the latest draft of the CMIS specification and provide input to the TC on the implementation details. It is also anticipated that the group will produce a CMIS Reference Implementation (RI) and a CMIS Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK).

W3C XML Security Working Group Invites Public Review of New Working Drafts
The W3C XML Security Working Group has published eight (First Public) Working Drafts for review, including "XML Signature 1.1" and "XML Encryption 1.1". Members of the WG would appreciate feedback on these documents, with special attention to the algorithms and other proposed changes. In parallel with this v1.1 technical work, the XML Security Working Group is developing requirements and designs for a more radically different version 2 of XML Signature.

Open Virtualization Format (OVF) Version 1.0 Published as a DMTF Standard
Distributed Management Task Force has published "Open Virtualization Format Specification v1.0 as a DMTF Standard. OVF describes an open, secure, portable, and extensible format for packaging and distribution of software to be run in virtual machines. OVF uses XML for capturing metadata about virtual appliances. Packaging virtual appliances in OVF independent software allows vendors to create pre-packaged appliances that run on any virtualization platform.

Charter Proposed for OASIS Emergency Management Adoption Technical Committee
OASIS members have published a Proposed Charter for creation of a new TC to support adoption of emergency management specifications. The OASIS Emergency Management (EM) Adoption Technical Committee draft charter identifies the goal as collaboration to provide expertise and resources to educate the marketplace on the value of the Emergency Management OASIS Standards, including the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) and Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL).

OASIS Members Form Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) Committee
Brocade, EMC/RSA, HP, IBM, LSI, NetApp, Seagate, and Thales submitted a charter proposal for an OASIS Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) TC, based upon draft specifications. The TC will standardize KMIP for interoperability of key management services with key management clients. KMIP addresses requirements for key lifecycle management, key sharing, and long-term availability of cryptographic objects (public/private keys, certs, symmetric keys).

Oracle Beehive Object Model Proposed for Standardization in OASIS ICOM TC
OASIS published a charter for a proposed TC to define an integrated collaboration object model supporting a complete range of enterprise collaboration activities. The ICOM data model is based upon the Oracle Beehive Object Model. The new standard model, interface, and protocol supports contextual collaboration within business processes for an integrated collaboration environment which includes communication, teamwork, content, and coordination artifacts.

Microsoft Publishes Implementation Notes for File Formats in Office 2007 SP2
Microsoft announced the publication of an initial set of document-format implementation notes for the company's ODF 1.1 implementation in Office 2007 SP2. The Document Interoperability Initiative (DII) Web site provides hypertext access to the detailed notes, linked from the online ODF specification, covering implementation decisions, additional file data, and implementation variances. Similar implementation notes will be published for Open XML (ECMA 376).

Web Services Test Forum (WSTF) Addresses End User Interoperability Scenarios
Industry partners have announced the Web Services Test Forum (WSTF), designed as an open community to improve the quality of the Web services standards through interoperability testing. The Forum provides a customer-centric focus driven by end user testing scenarios. WSTF has a lightweight structure: no Board, no centralized authority, no dues, few barriers to participation, and no allowance for IPR encumbrances. Individuals and corporate entities may join.

Office Open XML File Formats Published as ISO/IEC 29500:2008 Final Standard
ISO announced the publication of the Office Open XML File Formats specification as an ISO/IEC joint standard. ISO/IEC 29500 specifies a family of XML schemas, collectively called Office Open XML, which define the XML vocabularies for word-processing, spreadsheet, and presentation documents, as well as the packaging of documents that conform to these schemas. A new Document Interoperability WG will help align ISO/IEC 29500 with ISO/IEC 26300 (OpenDocument).

W3C Forms New Web Services Resource Access (WS-RA) Working Group
W3C has launched the Web Services Resource Access (WS-RA) Working Group, chartered to standardize a general mechanism for accessing and updating the XML representation of a resource-oriented Web Service and metadata of a Web Service, as well as a mechanism to subscribe to events from a Web Service. W3C Recommendations will be produced based upon five Member Submissions: WS-Transfer, WS-ResourceTransfer, WS-Enumeration, WS-MetadataExchange, and WS-Eventing.

Microsoft 'Geneva' Framework Supports SAML 2.0, WS-Federation, and WS-Trust
Microsoft has announced a new identify management strategy under code-name 'Geneva'. This single, simplified, claims-based identity model includes support for several standards in the federated identity space, including SAML 2.0, WS-Federation, and WS-Trust. Components include Geneva Framework for building claims-aware .NET applications, Geneva' Server, and Windows CardSpace 'Geneva'. A Beta release was unveiled at the Microsoft PDC, available for download.

Public Review for OpenID Provider Authentication Policy Extension (PAPE) 1.0
Members of the OpenID Provider Authentication Policy Extension (PAPE) Working Group have released PAPE Draft 7 for 60-day public review. The PAPE extension to the OpenID Authentication protocol provides a mechanism by which a Relying Party can request that particular authentication policies be applied by the OpenID Provider when authenticating an End User. For example, phishing-resistant, time-related, or multi-factor authentication methods may be requested.

EAS-CAP Industry Group Publishes Profile for the Common Alerting Protocol
The EAS-CAP Industry Group has released a draft "EAS-CAP Industry Group EAS-CAP Profile Recommendation EAS-CAP-0.1" for public comment. ECIG is providing the profile as a recommendation to U.S. governmental agencies and industry associations on the use of CAP (Common Alerting Protocol) for Emergency Alert System (EAS) purposes, including the FCC, FEMA, National Weather Service, and other organizations. CAP is an OASIS Standard and an ITU-T Recommendation.

Planamesa Software has posted the fourth alpha release of NeoOffice/J 2.0, a Mac port of...
Planamesa Software has posted the fourth alpha release of NeoOffice/J 2.0, a Mac port of OpenOffice 2.0.2 using a Java-based GUI. Mac OS X 10.3 or later is required. This release is now compatible with the Intel Macs. NeoOffice is published exclusively under the GPL.

The W3C Web Services Choreography Working Group has posted the first working draft of Web...
The W3C Web Services Choreography Working Group has posted the first working draft of Web Services Choreography Description Language: Primer. "This primer is intended to give an overview of WS-CDL and can be read by WS-CDL users (e.g. a software professional wishing to write choreography descriptions) and WS-CDL implementers (e.g software...

The W3C Web Services Activity.
The W3C Web Services Activity. has posted the first public working draft of Semantic Annotations for WSDL. According to the draft, More...

The W3C Web Application Formats Working Group has published the first official working draft of...
The W3C Web Application Formats Working Group has published the first official working draft of XML Binding Language (XBL) 2.0. More...

The W3C has published the candidate recommendation of Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 Basic...
The W3C has published the candidate recommendation of Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 Basic Guidelines. Here's the summary of the guidelines: More...

John Cowan has released TagSoup 1.0.1, an open source, Java-language, SAX parser for nasty, ugly...
John Cowan has released TagSoup 1.0.1, an open source, Java-language, SAX parser for nasty, ugly HTML. According to Cowan, "Previous versions of TagSoup always ignored whitespace in elements that don't have PCDATA as a possible child. Now, if you turn on the ignorableWhitespaceFeature (or use the --ignorable option), that whitespace will be...

The OpenOffice Project has released OpenOffice 2.0.3, an open source office suite for Linux and...
The OpenOffice Project has released OpenOffice 2.0.3, an open source office suite for Linux and Windows that saves all its files as zipped XML. It also runs on the Mac with X-Windows. This is a bug fix release that includes several security fixes. All users should upgrade. OpenOffice is dual licensed under the LGPL and Sun Industry Standards...

Microsoft has posted the third beta of Internet Explorer 7 (Windows only).
Microsoft has posted the third beta of Internet Explorer 7 (Windows only). Feed reading is supposed to be feature complete in this release. Other new features in IE3 include tabbed browsing and print-to-fit. I hope it still supports XML, XSLT, and CSS; though Microsoft doesn't seem to say that anywhere I can find; and I don't feel like booting...

The Modis Team has released Sedna 1.0, an open source native XML database for Windows and Linux...
The Modis Team has released Sedna 1.0, an open source native XML database for Windows and Linux written in C++ and Scheme and published under the Apache License 2.0. Sedna supports XQuery and its own declarative update language.

Opera Software has released version 9.0 of their namesake free-beer web browser for Windows,...
Opera Software has released version 9.0 of their namesake free-beer web browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris. Opera supports XML, CSS, and XSLT. New features in Opera 9 include a content blocker, BitTorrent support, and per-site preferences.

Sometime in the last 24 hours some virus or spammer started using the cafeconleche.org domain as...
Sometime in the last 24 hours some virus or spammer started using the cafeconleche.org domain as the from address in its messages. Consequently I began getting a plethora of bounces. I don't actually use any e-mail addresses in the cafeconleche.org domain so I just cancelled the MX record that forwards everything to my real e-mail address. Feel...

The W3C WebCGM Working Group has posted the first public working draft of WebCGM 2.0, an updated...
The W3C WebCGM Working Group has posted the first public working draft of WebCGM 2.0, an updated version of the ISO Computer Graphics Metafile standard (ISO/IEC 8632:1999). "WebCGM 2.0 adds a DOM (API) specification for programmatic access to WebCGM objects, and a specification of an XML Companion File (XCF) architecture, for externalization of...

DataDirect Technologis has released DataDirect XQuery 2.0, a closed source Java library for...
DataDirect Technologis has released DataDirect XQuery 2.0, a closed source Java library for integrating XQuery functionality into your application. As well as supporting XML documents, it can query relational databases, EDI, and CSV data. DataDirect XQuery 2.0 implements the XQuery API for Java. Pricing is not available.

The W3C has published four proposed edited recommendations for the core XML specs.
The W3C has published four proposed edited recommendations for the core XML specs: More...

John Cowan has released TagSoup 1.0, an open source, Java-language, SAX parser for nasty, ugly HTML.
John Cowan has released TagSoup 1.0, an open source, Java-language, SAX parser for nasty, ugly HTML. XOM uses TagSoup to convert JavaDoc to well-formed XHTML.