OpenSAML user discussion

["Rathod, Ashish (A.K.)" <>]

Thanks Scott. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Cantor 
[mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2004 1:07 PM
To: Rathod, Ashish (A.K.); 

Subject: RE: SAML Implementation


> I would like to know how much time it took to implement SAML.

It's still not fully implemented by me (thus it's not 1.0). When I started,
I didn't know XML, Java (to the extent that I know it at all now), or
anything about signing, so I don't think my estimate is too applicable. Not
to mention I've never spent more than a few weeks on it at a time, part
time.

I suspect if all you need is a quick data-binding generated from schema, the
basic stuff is pretty trivial.

I wanted API portability between languages, so I took my time and have made
a lot of revisions until I was happy with the result. As I needed more
abilities, I had to add those back in, so it's evolved for the 2-3 years
it's been used by Shibboleth.

Realistically, though, it took a few man-months, especially the signing. And
Shibboleth took a couple years to develop enough PKI support to be usable
for anything but trivial bilateral trust, because I knew so little and was
working in C++ and not Java.

-- Scott