[Odrl-version2] Proposal: Multiple Actions

[ri at odrl.net]

At the moment, we only allow one Action per Permission. This means that if we want to assign Display, Print, and Copy actions for the same Asset, we need three Permissions, such as:

    <permission>
       <asset uid="urn:ebook:shakespeare:romeo+juliet"/>
       <action name="http://odrl.net/2.0/action/display"/>
       <assigner uid="william at shakespeare.biz"/>
       <assignee uid="hamlet at denmark.lit"/>
     </permission>
    <permission>
       <asset uid="urn:ebook:shakespeare:romeo+juliet"/>
       <action name="http://odrl.net/2.0/action/print"/>
       <assigner uid="william at shakespeare.biz"/>
       <assignee uid="hamlet at denmark.lit"/>
     </permission>
    <permission>
       <asset uid="urn:ebook:shakespeare:romeo+juliet"/>
       <action name="http://odrl.net/2.0/action/copy"/>
       <assigner uid="william at shakespeare.biz"/>
       <assignee uid="hamlet at denmark.lit"/>
     </permission>

This is rather verbose. We could allow Action to be repeated to support:

    <permission>
       <asset uid="urn:ebook:shakespeare:romeo+juliet"/>
       <action name="http://odrl.net/2.0/action/display"/>
       <action name="http://odrl.net/2.0/action/print"/>
       <action name="http://odrl.net/2.0/action/copy"/>
      <assigner uid="william at shakespeare.biz"/>
       <assignee uid="hamlet at denmark.lit"/>
     </permission>

Which is a bit more compact. The reason we went for the former was to make it easier to deal with Constraints - as they only applied to the one Action.

I think we can also support the latter if we also stipulate that you can't have Constraints with Permissions with multiple Actions (if you do, then use the former method)


Cheers

Renato Iannella
ODRL Initiative
http://odrl.net