Interoperability Charter v1

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Contents

Introduction, including status of this document

This document contains the approved version 1 charter for the Interoperability Working Group. The version 1 charter expires on Dec. 31, 2008. An updated version 2 charter is being developed to extend the Working Group. For more information, please refer to the following other important wiki pages:

This vesion 1 charter for the Interoperability Working Group was approved by the OpenAjax Alliance Steering Committee on May 14, 2007, with the result that the Interoperability Working Group was formally launched. This charter was developed collaboratively by the Members of OpenAjax Alliance and then submitted for review/commenting by the Members and review/approval to the Steering Committee, in accordance with the OpenAjax Alliance Development Process.

This wiki page should not be changed except via coordination with the Chair (see below).

Minutes from Creation Review Phone Call

The Creation Review phone call for the proposed Interoperability Working Group occurred on May 3. Minutes for the phone call can be found at:

Schedule

  • Interoperability Working Group Declaration - Jan. 29, 2007
  • Proposal Phase - Jan. 29, 2007 - April 18, 2007
  • Interoperability Working Group Charter temporarily frozen - April 18, 2007
  • Interoperability Working Group Creation Review phone call
    • Thursday, May 3, 2007, 8amPST, 11amEST, 5pmParis
    • US toll-free: 1-888-227-9220, Int'l: 719-785-4480, Passcode 871757
  • Member voting - May 4-May 11, 2007
  • Steering Committee voting - May 11-May 18, 2007

Initiating Member and Proposal Lead

The OpenAjax Alliance Development Process requires that the initiating Member identify its Proposal Lead:

  • Initiating Member: IBM
  • Proposal Lead: Jon Ferraiolo (jferrai(at)us.ibm.com)

Mission and scope

The Interoperability Working Group has responsibility for technical activities in the general area of Ajax interoperability covering the following areas:

  • Interoperability within the same Web application - ability to combine JavaScript components from multiple Ajax toolkits within the same Web application and have those components interact with each other
  • Registry - development and management of an industry-wide registry of Ajax libraries and JavaScript globals that OpenAjax Alliance reserves for use by particular libraries
  • Best practices - development of detailed technical documents, testbeds and sample applications (e.g., acid tests) that support the Marketing/Architecture Working Group's efforts around "OpenAjax Conformance" and provide detailed definition of "OpenAjax Best Practices" for the following:
    • Browsers
    • Ajax toolkits
    • Ajax applications
    • IDEs
    • Ajax server frameworks

The WG will produce Materials that are consistent with its mission and scope, including Specifications, other relevant technical documents, tests, and sample applications.

The WG will manage the Alliance's open source project at SourceForge that develops reference implementations of the Specifications produced by this WG, test suites and related utility software (such as automated build and test scripts).

The WG will be responsible for addressing interoperability issues associated with all Ajax-enabled devices. As such, its responsibilities goes beyond desktop computers into mobile devices and other computing platforms.

Work plan

Deliverables

OpenAjax Hub version 1.0

The initial deliverable for this WG are the detailed Specification, open source reference implementation, tests, and other associated relevant materials around the "OpenAjax Hub". The first feature areas for the Hub are as follows:

  1. Ajax library loading and unloading control - The Hub will have APIs that Ajax libraries invoke when those libraries are initialized.
  2. Event Hub - The event hub allows libraries to publish and subscribe to events in a reliable manner in order to coordinate actions across components from different Ajax libraries.
  3. Load and unload event management - The Hub will broadcast events related to the document's load event and unload event using the Event Hub and will identify best practices around load and unload event handling.

Future versions of the OpenAjax Hub

It is expected that the OpenAjax Hub will add additional features beyond the above original feature areas.

Two feature areas for the Hub have already been implemented within the alliance's open source project:

  • Features around managing JavaScript globals and preventing collisions
  • A centralized markup scanner that JavaScript libraries can use to search through the DOM and dispatch particular elements to particular libraries.

These features are not currently targeted for OpenAjax Hub 1.0, but the Interoperability Working Group may choose to add these features, or similar replacement features, to the Hub as part of Hub 1.0 or a future version of the Hub.

The Communications Hub TF is investigating a Communications Hub that manages communications across multiple Ajax toolkits within the same Web application, including but not limited to XMLHttpRequest and server push techniques such as Comet. This Communications Hub is likely to become a set of additional interoperability features to be included in future versions of OpenAjax Hub Specification produced by this WG.

Other feature areas where future technical work might occur within the OpenAjax Hub Specification are in the areas of a Security Hub or a Data Hub which perform a similar interoperability dispatching role to the Event hub and Markup scanner, except addressing a different technical area.

This charter allows for the Working Group to add new features to the Hub relating to a Communications Hub, a Security Hub, a Data Hub, or other similar mediation logic, without rechartering the Working Group, so long as those features are focused on interoperability and integration of multiple Ajax toolkits where the Hub performs a dispatching role. On the other hand, if new features are proposed that go beyond this interoperability scope, a new or revised charter will be necessary.

OpenAjax Registry

This WG will produce Specifications, other related Material, open source reference implementations, test suites, and related utility source code in order to deliver to the industry an OpenAjax Registry, which is a central registry controlled by OpenAjax Alliance that holds the official OpenAjax Alliance list of Ajax runtime libraries and the JavaScript global objects that are allocated to the various Ajax runtime libraries.

OpenAjax Best Practices

This WG will produce Material, possibly in the form of Specifications, that define the technical details around the official definition of OpenAjax Alliance's Best Practices.

Standardization of common event names and payloads for those events

The WG might produce Material, possibly in the form of Specifications, that define the technical details around standardization of certain commonly used event topics (potentially both the event name and payload) and relevant best practices (e.g, recommended approaches for how to name events) to promote interoperability in mashup scenarios.

If standard events are defined by this WG, those events will be relevant to the technologies developed within this WG and appropriate to the mission and scope of this WG. One example of a standarized event that might be developed within this WG would be events relating to drag-and-drop within mashup scenarios.

It is expected that other OpenAjax Alliance working groups and other organizations, including other industry groups, will define event names and event payload standards building on the foundation work produced by this WG.

Coordination with Task Forces

The WG will coordinate with topic-specific task forces that will perform analysis and early work on new technical efforts that are consistent with the mission and scope of OpenAjax Alliance, and which may or not be within scope of the existing charter of the Interoperability WG. These Task Forces will make recommendations of what work should be pursued by OpenAjax Alliance and might recommend that some of that work be done within the Inteoperability WG. Note that if the Task Forces recommend new work within the Inteoperability WG and this new work represents a broadening of scope, then the new work will require a revised charter.

The following are the Task Forces that have been identified to date:

IDE Integration Task Force

This TF is investigating Ajax toolkit integration with IDEs. Its initial role is to produce proposals for future activities (or propose that there is not a need for activity in this area).

Communications Hub Task Force

As mentioned earlier, this TF is investigating a Communications Hub that manages communications across multiple Ajax toolkits within the same Web application that might result in additional features in the OpenAjax Hub.

Security Hub Task Force

This TF is investigating Ajax security issues. One possible outcome would be Specifications of new features addressing security requirements as they relate to the interoperability features of OpenAjax Hub.

Mobile Ajax Task Force

This TF is investigating what OpenAjax Alliance should do in order to promote industry success with Ajax on mobile devices. One possible outcome would be identifications of best practices relating to mobile devices that might be included in specifications published by this working group.

Schedule

Duration

This WG will be chartered to run until Dec. 31, 2008.

Revisions to this charter might shorten or extend the duration of this WG.

Milestones

The following milestones represent expected delivery dates, but the WG can use judgment to update delivery dates using its own discretion.

  • It is expected that a feature-complete "alpha" of the specifications and open source reference implementation for the OpenAjax Hub version 1.0 will be available close to the time this WG is formed.
  • It is expected that a stable version of OpenAjax Hub version 1.0 that is integrated with multiple Ajax toolkits (open source and commercial products) by mid 2007.
  • It is expected that there will be additional incremental releases of the OpenAjax Hub throughout in 2007.
  • It is expected that early versions of the OpenAjax Registry will be available in the first half of 2007 and that a stable version will be available by the end of 2007 (or sooner).
  • It is expected that early versions of the various OpenAjax Best Practices documents will be available in the first half of 2007 and that stable versions will be available by the end of 2007 (or sooner).

Success and completion criteria

This WG can consider its efforts around the OpenAjax Hub to be successful if the OpenAjax Hub ships with multiple Ajax toolkits by the end of 2007 and many Ajax toolkits by the end of 2008. Further success is measured by the degree to which the OpenAjax Hub takes care of the highest priority Ajax toolkit integration issues (i.e., does the Hub address most of the requirement or just a small part of the requirement).

This WG can consider its efforts around the OpenAjax Registry to be successful if the industry supports the Registry on a widespread basis by the end of 2008.

This WG can consider its efforts around Best Practices to be successful if a significant number of Ajax products conform to many of the best practices by the end of 2008.

Relationship to other forums

  • Whenever possible, Specifications should reference industry-accepted relevant Ajax industry standards (de jure and de facto) rather than develop conflicting new features or authoring redundant feature definitions
  • Any mobile efforts should take into account coordination with the W3C's Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) and OMA.

Communications mechanisms

Email

Email will occur on interop@openajax.org. This email list will be read-only to people who are not representatives of Members of OpenAjax Alliance. Public discussion will occur on public@openajax.org.

Phone

Normally, there will be bi-weekly phone calls, but phone calls may be added or cancelled at the discretion of the chair.

IRC

The IRC channel for this WG is: irc.freenode.net, #oaa-interop

Chair, expected membership, and operational rules

Jon Ferraiolo is the chair for this WG. It is expected that the people who are currently involved in the existing Interoperability Committee will participate in this WG. There will be a consensus decision process managed by the chair that aligns with common practice in Web standards (e.g., W3C consensus process) and open source activities (e.g., Apache voting process), where a particular decision process used to resolve a particular issue is chosen by the chair based on appropriateness to the given circumstance. This WG produces recommendations to the Membership and Steering Committee about activities and material to be published, in accordance with process defined by the OpenAjax Alliance Members Agreement and OpenAjax Alliance Development Process.

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