SAML attribute naming

[Eric Goodman]

On 10/17/2014 09:08 AM, Peter Schober wrote:
>> The page name even matches the subject from your post :) 
>> https://wiki.shibboleth.net/confluence/display/SHIB2/AttributeNaming
>> 
>>> * Eric Goodman <Eric.Goodman at ucop.edu> [2014-10-17 18:00]:
>>> I'm currently working with a vendor that is asking for attributes 
?>> with names (not friendly names) such as "firstname", "lastname",
...
>> URI (not URN specifically) naming avoids that by using globally unique 
>> names, which also reference the source of the definition uniquely.
>> So both parties can be sure of the syntax and semantics via reference 
>> to an existing, external standard.
>> -peter

>Right. That didn't stop e.g. Salesforce from doing things their own way, 
>making more work for all of us, instead of leveraging standards or
>convention:

Both points are understood. It's easier for US if there are URNs. Hard sell to a vendor that (a) already has a contract and (b) says "'firstname' is clearly defined to mean the name value that matches the provisioned entry". For them there's no ambiguity and the value is "globally unique" in their world. 

I know this isn't news, but I was going to argue that they weren't being SAML compliant, only to see that in fact they are. So now I need to get into more nuanced (and less likely to sway the result) arguments.

Thanks,

--- Eric