[school-discuss] ZIS and THAT

[Felipe Bergo <bergo@seul.org>]

Hmm,

I've just done a run thru the ZIS thread, and browsed some of the links,
particularly the siaa.net one.

I have some questions.

1. it presents data models for curricula, gradebook and some other 
   services. Ok, they're an instance of XML, and that's good.
   So the job would be mostly adapt existing applications - or write
   new ones - that understand the data model there.

   the ZIS server will store everything and the kitchen sink, and HTTPS
   will be used to move data from the ZIS server to the non-ZIS-server
   nodes.

   so what we need are Free Software implementations of:
    * ZIS server (implementing as apache module sounds about right)
    * A library for programming ZIS clients.
    * the clients (gradebook editors, curricula editors, etc.), which
      will operate on XML data and use the ZIS client lib to
      sync with the server. This item includes writing new clients and
      adapting old ones to work with the new framework.

   Please correct me if the above assumptions are wrong.

2. Who is backing this specification ? Schools, corporations,
   standards organizations (ISO, IETF) or a mix of them ?
   If this is backed by corporations only (er.. MS), how screwed
   are we if we finish our implementation and the specification-holder
   launches, say, SIF 2.0 which is completely incompatible with the
   previous one ?
   (this is a regular MS practice. MS offers the specification of the
    .DOC format. When you happily finishes implementing it you
    notice that several files generated by word don't fit the spec,
    they tried something similar with kerberos not too long ago too)

3. Can it be RFC-ized ? For safety.

4. There aren't any patents on this whole thing, riiight ?

Regards,

.........................................................................
Felipe Paulo Guazzi Bergo - Free Software Developer (bergo@seul.org)
GPG/PGP mail welcome - GPG/PGP Key: EF8EE808 (keyserver pgp.mit.edu)
http://www.advogato.org/person/khazad - Brasilia - DF - Brazil - Earth

* Vegetarians eat vegetables - Beware of humanitarians.