Sun offers Liberty Alliance development tool
Sun Microsystems has released an open-source tool for developers that will allow them to begin testing network identity...
Aimed at large companies and independent software vendors, the tool is designed to help developers learn how to make use of the Liberty specification, and also to let them test applications in an emulated Liberty environment, said John Fanelli, Sun director for network identity and portal products.
Launched in July, version 1.0 of the Liberty specification should allow users to sign on once to a Web site or network application, and then visit other sites without having to re-enter their password.
Later versions will also store a credit card number, address and other information, making it more convenient to shop and use other services on the Web.
The Liberty Alliance Project, a group that includes United Airlines, American Express and General Motors as well as Sun, developed the specification. It was developed as an alternative to Microsoft's Passport, which provides single sign-on access to Web sites that support that technology.
"[The tool] will allow for migration to the productised version of Liberty, which we will deliver with Sun ONE Identity Server 6.0," Fanelli said.
The tool is available for download at
http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/codesamples/liberty.html.
