Interfederation

["Basney, Jim" <>]

Following on to our phone discussion today, some thoughts on the value
proposition for InCommon joining eduGAIN.

Benefits:
* Multilateral exchange of metadata across established federations.
* Directory of federation contacts and links to policy docs at
  http://www.edugain.org/technical/status.php.

Costs:
* Legal effort to sign eduGAIN declaration.
* Effort to add RegistrationInfo elements to InCommon metadata.
* Effort to publish interfed metadata aggregate to InCommon members.
* Ongoing participation in eduGAIN steering group.
* Handling interfederation technical support, complaints, and incidents.

Non-benefits:
* No consistent standard for entity registration.
  Need to check each federation's registration practice statement.
* No consistent level of assurance of identities.
* SPs need to negotiate attribute release directly with IdPs.

Comments?

-Jim