Interfederation

[John Krienke <>]

All,

As a way to kick start our distillation of the discussions we've had about 
the eduGAIN policy framework, I thought I'd start off with my notes from our 
observations below. As I think about audience, I'm thinking of fodder for the 
InCommon Steering Committee as well as fodder for a web page about what 
interfederation means for InCommon participants in the near future. I'll 
leave it to Warren to decide how best to use the following:


DECLARATION
-----------
- eduGAIN relies on each published metadata entity to be in compliance with 
its parent federation's policies and operational standards

- There are no explicit rules about whether a federation invokes opt-in or 
opt-out policies with regard to exporting its own members' metadata entities 
to eduGAIN

- Change Policies. eduGAIN relies on a general "promptness" level of 
communication responsiveness for change of any federation's 
policies/operations

- Communication of change is between a participating Federation and eduGAIN 
Operations. It is assumed that eG Ops will communicate relevant changes to 
participating Federations

- Support & Complaints. There is an expectation for a "reasonable" level of 
support between Participating Federations; any federations' members must only 
direct support to its parent Federation and not expect support directly from 
eduGAIN participating Federations. For any given member organization, only 
its parent Federation rules apply in support and complaint cases. The load 
has reportedly been light to negligible. 

- Signing the declaration creates no new legal obligations or rights (section 
9), nor is there any financial consideration (section 12). Each federation is 
signing a one-sided declaration, which is neither a contract nor an 
agreement. 


CONSTITUTION
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- eduGAIN is governed by an Executive Committee, which today is the GÉANT 
Executive Committee:
http://www.geant.net/About/Governance_and_Management/Pages/Executive_Board.aspx

- eduGAIN governance includes a "Steering Group" comprising Participating 
Federations. Each Federation appoints a Delegate and Deputy.

- Each federation must publish a MD Registration Practice Statement prior to 
exchanging metadata

- Federations must give 1 month notice prior to leaving eduGAIN; however, 
there are no constraints on a federation for dropping any given IdP or SP 
metadata entity from its metadata export. Likewise, there are no constraints 
on a federation for dropping any given IdP or SP from its import pipeline 
prior to republishing for its own members. 

- There is currently no published document mentioned in the Constitution 
entitled, eduGAIN Technical Overview


GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
--------------------
- On the continuum between Stability, Assurance, & Centralized Control down 
the spectrum to Flexibility, complete Freedom, and Decentralized Governance, 
the eduGAIN model is weighted toward the latter. In order to achieve maximal 
adoption among international federations, there are very few obligations 
placed on Participating Federations. As a consequence, there are also very 
few assurances for interoperability and stability. This is not a value 
judgment but simply today's balance point to get to a working model.