The meeting was opened by Ed Harrington, the chair of the DIF. It started in the
session before lunch on Wednesday (October 22) with a round of introductions. There were
then reports on progress with the LDAP and DSML test suites, from the certification,
marketing, and standardization work areas, and on progress in the main directory standards
bodies: the IETF, X.500, and OASIS.
The session after lunch on Wednesday was devoted to XML directory standards. There were
presentations on XML-Enabled Directories (XED), the Directory Services Markup Language
(DSML), and the Security Assertions Markup Language (SAML), and the customer perspective,
followed by a group discussion.
The first session on Thursday (October 23) addressed directory certification. Building
on the successful launch of the LDAP Certified program in July, the meeting agreed that
the companion program for LDAP-enabled applications, LDAP Ready, should be declared open
for certification. Progress on the next level of certification, STANDARD, was reviewed.
DSML certification was discussed, but it was agreed that it would be premature to launch a
DSML certification program at this point. A proposal to develop an LDAP analyzer that
could be an adjunct to the LDAP Ready program was discussed and agreed.
The final session of the DIF meeting (before lunch on Thursday) took a radical look at
the emphasis and direction of the DIF. This resulted in a revised and streamlined charter,
which will be circulated for review before adoption.
