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Sun Releases Open Source XACML Language

Posted by Hemos on from the building-the-tools dept.

LowneWulf writes "An InternetNews.com article mentions that the OASIS standards group today ratified the Extensible Access Control Markup Language 1.0 specification. But even better, Sun Microsystems Labs has backed this up with an open-source version in Java on Sourceforge."

4 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. How? by JanusFury · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How can a language be open source? A language doesn't need source; it's a syntax. Compilers need source, not languages. 'Open Source Language' sounds like more hype to me. I may be stupid, but I don't know of any truly open source implementations of the Java that this 'Open Source Language' is in (Last I checked, Sun had a pretty strict licensing scheme going for Java implementations)

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  2. I'd hardley say useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    there are real reasons why this new markup language is needed. It is intended for complex distributed processes that cross several application domains. the common example is a travel agent, who needs to book travel plans for a customer. The booking includes, flights, trains, cars, hotels and motels. Given the complexity of booking that many items in one single transaction across multiple booking systems, you need a common authentication mechanism. What would you prefer? Everyone write their own authen scheme, which may be secure, but will take a couple months to implement. Multiply by the number of companies the travel agent connects to book reservations.

    there are those who disagree, but those whose jobs require complexity, it is a step towards easier integration. Microsoft should just go with the architecture Oasis has laid out for ebXML and dump their piece of junk which originally had no concept of coreography.

  3. "Open source" reference implementation by yerricde · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How can a language be open source?

    I consider a language to be "open source" if it has a reference implementation available to the public as OSI Certified(TM) open source software.

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  4. RTFP people by f00zbll · · Score: 5, Informative
    For those who are too damn lazy to read what the language does and why Sun wrote a reference implementation.

    * One standard access control policy language can replace dozens of application-specific languages

    * Administrators save time and money because they don't need to rewrite their policies in many different languages

    * Developers save time and money because they don't have to invent new policy languages and write code to support them; they can reuse existing code

    * Good tools for writing and managing XACML policies will be developed, since they can be used with many applications

    * XACML is flexible enough to accommodate most access control policy needs and extensible so that new requirements can be supported

    * One XACML policy can cover many resources; this helps avoid inconsistent policies on different resources

    * XACML allows one policy to refer to another; this is important for large organizations, for instance, a site-specific policy may refer to a company-wide policy and a country-specific policy.

    Before someone else rants about copy protection, find out what it is before you start typing. I'm guitly of it in the past, but this is a useful language will real benefits.