(Adding Abfab to the distribution, on the assumption that Sam accidentally
dropped it in his response)
> >> Sorry if this seems trivial! The term 'federation' is quite
>overloaded and
> >> means different things to different people. I suggest explicitly
>calling
> >> out what I think you mean, which is a 'multihop AAA fabric'. It's
>an ugly
> >> circumlocution, but at least it can't be misunderstood or (worse)
> >> misinterpreted.
>
> Nico> "Federation" is a difficult word. Would it be fair to say here
>that
> Nico> "federation" means "set of trust cross-domain/realm paths"?
The draft seems to use that meaning and also one of the defined SAML
meanings (from the SAML Glossary):
This term is used in two senses in SAML:
a) The act of establishing a relationship between two entities.
b) An association comprising any number of service providers and
identity providers.
BGP has an unambiguous taxonomy (autonomous systems, confederations and so
forth) to describe these kinds of actors and associations in the routing
world, and I suspect we need to develop something similar or we'll have
terrible confusion. It's possible (and I hope) that we may be able to
borrow isomorphic terms from established taxonomies, but this will require
some thought.
>I think we should be consistent with the proposed abfab architecture
>draft.
>
>That document uses the term federation. I think we should too and refer
>back to that document for its meaning.
Having said all that, I do agree with Sam that consistency trumps
accuracy, at least for now.
Josh.
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