The latest addition to our growing line of OpenSSO Extensions is an authentication module for Information Cards - it enables OpenSSO as an Information Card Relying Party, allowing end users to authenticate via Windows CardSpace or other identity selectors such as DigitalMe or xmldap. This initial version of the authentication module was written and kindly contributed to OpenSSO by Patrick Petit (pictured) formerly of Sun, now an independent consultant; it also uses the xmldap relying party code, originally written by Chuck Mortimore, another Sun alumni - make of that what you will

The README has details of how to build and deploy the authentication module on OpenSSO build 2 or build 3. I tried it out this afternoon - I enabled OpenSSO for information cards in under an hour. Great work, Patrick!

More OpenSSO/Access Manager goodness at Sun Developer Network this week - regular Identity Management technical author Marina Sum and Sun ISV Engineer Michelle Cope just published an article on integrating Sun Java System Access Manager with ActivIdentity 4TRESS Authentication Server.

Complete source code is available as an OpenSSO Extension - the first time we've done this for an authentication module. OpenSSO Extensions are sub-projects that integrate with OpenSSO in some way - there are SAML implementations in PHP and Ruby, an OpenID Provider and more. If you have an idea for an OpenSSO Extension, then signup to OpenSSO and drop us a line on one of the mailing lists.

You can find more information on the 4TRESS integration in my blog entry at Superpatterns, and in the article itself.

Much like EJB interceptors, JAX-WS handlers (both SOAP and Logical) provide an elegant extension point to the developer. But that flexibility does come at a performance price since DOM is used to apply this handler logic.

In his latest entry, Rama explains how Metro takes advantage of the extensible Handler framework provided by the JAX-WS specification to provide Message-based handlers using a lightweight Tube.

This is all part of the upcoming Metro 1.1 release recently mentioned.

Following on from last week's entry on OpenID on OpenSSO, we rolled the new OpenID code into OpenSSO over the weekend and are today announcing OpenSSO Extensions (more detail in my blog entry at Superpatterns) - an incubator for OpenSSO. The OpenID code is there, as is the existing 'Lightbulb' SAML 2.0 PHP and a new Client SDK for OpenSSO implemented in PHP.

The idea is that, if you have an idea for a cool extension to OpenSSO, maybe a new authentication module or identity repository plugin, you can work on it in the OpenSSO community, with the code hosted in a 'sandbox' under the opensso/extensions tree. As extensions mature we'll look at migrating them into the OpenSSO core.

Check out the first installment of the improved support for the Spring Framework in GlassFish that enables the use of Spring for wiring implementation and handler classes for JAX-WS Web Services. Kohsuke is soliciting feedback from people with Spring experience. The Spring support is an extension to the JAX-WS implementation and, like HTTP Session State it is described at the JAX-WS-Commons project, similar in spirit to JAXB2-Commons project.