Public Newsletter

Call for Review: XForms 1.1 Proposed Recommendation Published

2009-08-18: The Forms Working Group has published a Proposed Recommendation of XForms 1.1. XForms is not a free-standing document type, but is intended to be integrated into other markup languages, such as XHTML, ODF or SVG. XForms 1.1 refines the XML processing platform introduced by XForms 1.0 by adding several new submission capabilities, action handlers, utility functions, user interface improvements, and helpful datatypes as well as a more powerful action processing facility, including conditional, iterated and background execution, the ability to manipulate data arbitrarily and to access event context information. Comments are welcome through 22 September. Learn more about the XForms Activity. (Permalink)

Last Call: Widgets 1.0: APIs and Events

2009-08-18: The Web Applications Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Widgets 1.0: APIs and Events. Widgets are full-fledged client-side applications that are authored using Web standards. Examples range from simple clocks, stock tickers, news streamers, games and weather forecasters, to complex applications that pull data from multiple sources to be "mashed-up" and presented to a user in some interesting and useful way. The APIs and Events specification defines a set of APIs and events for the Widgets 1.0 family of specifications. Comments are welcome through 15 September. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)

Namespaces in XML 1.0 (Third Edition) is a W3C Proposed Edited Recommendation

2009-08-06: The XML Core Working Group has published the Third Edition of Namespaces in XML 1.0 as W3C Proposed Edited Recommendation. XML Namespaces provide a simple method for qualifying element and attribute names used in Extensible Markup Language documents by associating them with namespaces identified by URI references. The Third Edition as proposed incorporates all outstanding errata. The review period is open until 14 September 2009. Learn more about the XML Activity. (Permalink)

Last Call for Widgets 1.0: Access Requests Policy

2009-08-04: The Web Applications Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Widgets 1.0: Access Requests Policy. This specification defines the security model controlling network access from within a widget, as well as a method for widget authors to request that the user agent grant access to certain network resources. Comments are welcome through 20 September 2009. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)

CSSOM View Module: Updated Working Draft

2009-08-04: The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of CSSOM View Module. This specification describes APIs that should be useful for Web application authors. The APIs inspect and manipulate the view information of a document, such as the position of element layout boxes, the width of the viewport, and also an element's scroll position. Learn more about the Style Activity. (Permalink)

Six XML Security Documents Published

2009-07-31: The XML Security Working Group published six documents related to XML signature and encryption. XML Signatures provide integrity, message authentication, and/or signer authentication services for data of any type, whether located within the XML that includes the signature or elsewhere.

• XML Signature Best Practices. This Working Draft describes best practices related to improving security and mitigating attacks, yet others are for best practices in the practical use of XML Signature, such as signing XML that doesn't use namespaces, for example.
• XML Signature Syntax and Processing Version 1.1. This Working Draft updates the signature specification.
• XML Signature Transform Simplification: Requirements and Design. This Working Draft outlines a proposed simplification of the XML Signature Transform mechanism, intended to enhance security, performance, streamability and to ease adoption.
• W3C XML Encryption Syntax and Processing Version 1.1. This Working Draft updates the encryption specification.
• XML Security Generic Hybrid Ciphers. This First Public Working Draft augments XML Encryption Version 1.1 by defining algorithms, XML types and elements necessary to enable use of generic hybrid ciphers in XML Security applications.
• XML Security Algorithm Cross-Reference. This Group Note collects the various known URIs for encryption algorithms (at the time of its publication) and indicates which specifications define them.

Learn more about the Security Activity. (Permalink)

Daniel Weitzner Named to Run US Government Internet Policy Unit

2009-07-30: Daniel Weitzner has been named Associate Administrator for the Office of Policy Analysis and Development at the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Danny will have a leading role in fulfilling the NTIA's mandate to provide the President advice on telecommunications and information policy issues.

Danny will thus be leaving the W3C staff, which he joined in 1998 as the Technology and Society Domain Lead. During these 11 years, Danny has contributed significantly to advances in many areas where policy meets technology, including privacy, security, intellectual property, and trust. As Chair of the Patent Policy Working Group, Danny led the effort that culminated in W3C's Royalty-Free Patent Policy, now a cornerstone of W3C's value proposition to the Web community.

Before joining the W3C, Danny was co-founder and Deputy Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology and was Deputy Policy Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Danny is also Director of the the MIT CSAIL Decentralized Information Group with Tim Berners- Lee and a founding director of the Web Science Research Initiative and holds an appointment as Principal Research Scientist at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

While W3C regrets that Danny will be stepping down from W3C, it is encouraging that US policy may well be shaped by someone who has demonstrated a commitment to open standards as a tool for improving society. Danny, good luck! (Permalink)