An open discussion list for topics related to the eduGAIN interfederation service.

[Peter Schober <peter.schober AT univie.ac.at>]

* Jozef Misutka <misutka AT ufal.mff.cuni.cz> [2014-11-27 20:14]:
> We do not have a precise definition of "academic" but we know that
> private companies are not academic. 

That doesn't really work, not even for the example above, e.g. in .at
some research institutions (or Universities of Applied Science)
legally are corporations (speficifally: Limited companies or LLCs) and
would likely fit your definition of "private companies". But we -- and
likely you -- would definitively want those institutions (and
affiliated subjects) to be able to access your resources.
So not even intuitive ad hoc judgements will get you those you want.

The other major issue with that (which Nicole has already pointed out,
though not on eduGAIN-discuss, AFAICT) is that you're conflating the
status of an institution with that of a person logging in somewhere.
Which of the defined eduPersonAffiliation values are "academic" users
to you? And to someone else, somewhere else? What about subjects
without an affiliation from an "doubtlessly academic" IDP? What about
faculty AT research.example.com where example.com is a commercial
("private") company? Are those even allowed to have such affiliations?

While I agree with your sentiment (also seconded by Tomasz) that
entities (or federations on their behalf) needing to do lots of manual
whitelisting is not desirable and will not help uptake of our services
and our technology within the academic community, forcing a specific
interpretation of who (institution or person, doesn't matter) should
be allowed into eduGAIN /after the fact/ is not an option either, I
think.

But don't let Nicole's or mine or anyone else's opinion what eduGAIN
is or should be deter you from trying to shape eduGAIN to your needs:
All eduGAIN members have 2 representatives in the eduGAIN steering
group (delegate and deputy), and that is the place for proposing
changes to what eduGAIN is and how it should work.
Also there are activities within the GEANT project specifically
trying to look at the needs of large e-research communities.
E.g. the REFEDS and eduGAIN meetings next week in Vienna would be
great opportunity to talk about practical solutions to the issues
you're seeing. https://eventr.terena.org/events/2078
-peter