[mdx] MDX & expressing communites-of-interest

[Scott Cantor]

Thomas Lenggenhager wrote on 2009-05-19:
> What is unclear to me is
> - What entityID would be used for this EntityDescriptor?

The affiliation's entityID is just the identifier for the grouping, it's the
thing you would create policy around.

> The same value as for affiliationOwnerID or does it not matter at all

That value is sort of a way to point an affiliation at some separate entity
as the "owner". It's not really used for anything.

  - Why
>   does the metadata spec refer to these entities as 'typically service
>   providers' [page 22, line 941] Wouldn't it make as much sense for the
>   IdPs?

SAML only has affiliation processing rules related to identifier federation
to allow correlation of identity across SPs. There's no reason it can't
include IdPs, there just aren't any profiles that reference that use case.

-- Scott