Group items tagged

The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) has just announced that it has completed its mission and will betransitioning all further efforts to OASIS. As their recent press release states: The release of WS-I member approved final materials for Basic Profile (BP) 1.2 and 2.0, and Reliable Secure Profile (RSP) 1.0 fulfills WS-I’s last milestone as an organization. By publishing the final three profiles, WS-I marks the completion of its work. Stewardship over WS-I’s assets, operations and mission will transition to OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), a group of technology vendors and customers that drive development and adoption of open standards. Now at any other time this kind of statement from a standards organization might pass without much comment. However, with the rise of REST, a range of non-WS approaches to SOA and the fact that most of the WS-* standards have not been covered by WS-I, is this a reflection of the new position Web Services finds itself in, over a decade after it began? Perhaps this was inevitable given that the over the past few years there has been a lot more emphasis on interoperability within the various WS-* working groups? Or are the days of interactions across heterogeneous SOAP implementations in the past?

So the question remains: has interoperability pretty much been achieved for WS-* through WS-I and the improvements made with the way in which the specifications and standards are developed today, or has the real interoperability challenge moved elsewhere, still to be addressed?

Today W3C, the International Standards Organization (ISO), and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) took steps that will encourage greater international adoption of W3C standards. W3C is now an "ISO/IEC JTC 1 PAS Submitter" (see the application), bringing "de jure" standards communities closer to the Internet ecosystem. As national bodies refer increasingly to W3C's widely deployed standards, users will benefit from an improved Web experience based on W3C's standards for an Open Web Platform. W3C expects to use this process (1) to help avoid global market fragmentation; (2) to improve deployment within government use of the specification; and (3) when there is evidence of stability/market acceptance of the specification. Web Services specifications will likely constitute the first package W3C will submit, by the end of 2010. For more information, see the W3C PAS Submission FAQ.

On October 06, 2008, OASIS issued a public call for participation in a new technical committee chartered to define specifications for use of Web services and Web 2.0 interfaces to enable information sharing across content management repositories from different vendors. The OASIS Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) TC will build upon existing specifications to "define a domain model and bindings that are designed to be layered on top of existing Content Management systems and their existing programmatic interfaces. The TC will not prescribe how specific features should be implemented within those Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems. Rather it will seek to define a generic/universal set of capabilities provided by an ECM system and a set of services for working with those capabilities." As of February 17, 2010, the CMIS technical work had received broad support through TC participation, industry analyst opinion, and declarations of interest from major companies. Some of these include Adobe, Adullact, AIIM, Alfresco, Amdocs, Anakeen, ASG Software Solutions, Booz Allen Hamilton, Capgemini, Citytech, Content Technologies, Day Software, dotCMS, Ektron, EMC, EntropySoft, ESoCE-NET, Exalead, FatWire, Fidelity, Flatirons, fme AG, Genus Technologies, Greenbytes GmbH, Harris, IBM, ISIS Papyrus, KnowledgeTree, Lexmark, Liferay, Magnolia, Mekon, Microsoft, Middle East Technical University, Nuxeo, Open Text, Oracle, Pearson, Quark, RSD, SAP, Saperion, Structured Software Systems (3SL), Sun Microsystems, Tanner AG, TIBCO Software, Vamosa, Vignette, and WeWebU Software. Early commentary from industry analysts and software engineers is positive about the value proposition in standardizing an enterprise content-centric management specification. The OASIS announcement of November 17, 2008 includes endorsements. Principal use cases motivating the CMIS technical work include collaborative content applications, portals leveraging content management repositories, mashups, and searching a content repository.

Just as any new technology claims to offer the most advanced development; that their definition of progress will cure society’s ills or make life easier by eliminating the drudgery of antiquated appliances, the Wifi Alliance  was organized as a worldwide wireless network to connect ‘everyone and everything, everywhere” as it promised “improvements to nearly every aspect of daily life.”    The Alliance, which makes no pretense of potential health or environmental concerns, further proclaimed (and they may be correct) that there are “more wifi devices than people on earth”.   It is that inescapable exposure to ubiquitous wireless technologies wherein lies the problem.   

Even prior to the 1997 introduction of commercially available wifi devices which has saturated every industrialized country, EMF wifi hot spots were everywhere.  Today with the addition of cell and cordless phones and towers, broadcast antennas, smart meters and the pervasive computer wifi, both adults and especially vulnerable children are surrounded 24-7 by an inescapable presence with little recognition that all radiation exposure is cumulative.    

The National Toxicology Program (NTP), a branch of the US National Institute for Health (NIH), conducted the world’s largest study on radiofrequency radiation used by the US telecommunications industry and found a ‘significantly statistical increase in brain and heart cancers” in animals exposed to EMF (electromagnetic fields).  The NTP study confirmed the connection between mobile and wireless phone use and human brain cancer risks and its conclusions were supported by other epidemiological peer-reviewed studies.  Of special note is that studies citing the biological risk to human health were below accepted international exposure standards.    

While CMIS, cloud computing and market commoditization have left some vendors struggling to determine the future of enterprise content management (ECM), Alfresco Software today unveiled Alfresco Enterprise Edition 3.3 as the platform for composite content applications that will redefine the way organizations approach ECM. As the first commercially-supported CMIS implementation offering integrations around IBM/Lotus social software, Microsoft Outlook, Google Docs and Drupal, Alfresco Enterprise 3.3 becomes the first content services platform to deliver the features, flexibility and affordability required across the enterprise.

Quick and simple development environment to support new business applications Flexible deployment options enabling content applications to be deployed on-premise, in the cloud or on the Web Interoperability between business applications through open source and open standards The ability to link data, content, business process and context

Build future-proof content applications through CMIS — With the first and most complete supported implementation of the CMIS standard, Alfresco now enables companies to build new content-based applications while offering the security of the most open, flexible and future-proof content services platform. Repurpose content for multiple delivery channels — Advanced content formatting and transformation services allow organizations to easily repurpose content for delivery through multiple channels (web, smart phone, iPad, print, etc). Improve project management with content collaboration — New datalist function can be used to track project related issues, to-dos, actions and tasks, supplementing existing commenting, social tagging, discussions and project sites. Deploy content through replication services — Companies can replicate and deploy content, and associated information, between content platforms. Using powerful replication services, users can develop and then deploy content outside the firewall, to web servers and into the cloud. Develop new frameworks through Spring Surf — Building on SpringSource, the leader in Java application infrastructure used to create java applications, Spring Surf provides a scriptable framework for developing new content rich applications.

The Linux Foundation and the LiMo Foundation issued a joint statement on Wednesday morning to announce the launch of Tizen, a new Linux-based open source mobile operating system. The platform's application stack and third-party developer frameworks will be built around standards-based Web technologies. The new Tizen website says that Intel and Samsung are jointly backing the effort. The new platform effort will displace the unsuccessful MeeGo project, an open source mobile operating system that was launched last year when Intel and Nokia sought to unify their respective mobile Linux platforms with the help of the Linux Foundation. MeeGo began to unravel when Nokia abandoned Linux in favor of Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 operating system.

In 2012, The Guardian reported on Facebook’s arbitrary and ridiculous nudity and violence guidelines which allow images of crushed limbs but – dear god spare us the image of a woman breastfeeding. Still, people stayed – and Facebook grew. In 2014, Facebook admitted to mind control games via positive or negative emotional content tests on unknowing and unwilling platform users. Still, people stayed – and Facebook grew. Following the 2016 election, Facebook responded to the Harpie shrieks from the corporate Democrats bysetting up a so-called “fake news” task force to weed out those dastardly commies (or socialists or anarchists or leftists or libertarians or dissidents or…). And since then, I’ve watched my reach on Facebook drain like water in a bathtub – hard to notice at first and then a spastic swirl while people bicker about how to plug the drain. And still, we stayed – and the censorship tightened. Roughly a year ago, my show Act Out! reported on both the censorship we were experiencing but also the cramped filter bubbling that Facebook employs in order to keep the undesirables out of everyone’s news feed. Still, I stayed – and the censorship tightened. 2017 into 2018 saw more and more activist organizers, particularly black and brown, thrown into Facebook jail for questioning systemic violence and demanding better. In August, puss bag ass hat in a human suit Alex Jones was banned from Facebook – YouTube, Apple and Twitter followed suit shortly thereafter. Some folks celebrated. Some others of us skipped the party because we could feel what was coming.

On Thursday, October 11th of this year, Facebook purged more than 800 pages including The Anti-Media, Police the Police, Free Thought Project and many other social justice and alternative media pages. Their explanation rested on the painfully flimsy foundation of “inauthentic behavior.” Meanwhile, their fake-news checking team is stacked with the likes of the Atlantic Council and the Weekly Standard, neocon junk organizations that peddle such drivel as “The Character Assassination of Brett Kavanaugh.” Soon after, on the Monday before the Midterm elections, Facebook blocked another 115 accounts citing once again, “inauthentic behavior.” Then, in mid November, a massive New York Times piece chronicled Facebook’s long road to not only save its image amid rising authoritarian behavior, but “to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros.” (I consistently find myself waiting for those Soros and Putin checks in the mail that just never appear.)

What we need is an open source, non-surveillance platform. And right now, that platform is Minds. Before you ask, I’m not being paid to write that.