This whole labe is about developing a way for our 'partners' to
interact with the ApacheCon database.  The original concept was
limited to maintaining attendee registration information, but since so
much of the site content is being variously handled by the producer or
subcontracted, the need has spread to other aspects.

For example, in 2005 a one-way interface was developed to allow
Santiago Gala access the conference schedule so he could build an iCal
version.  The interface was simply a rendition of the schedule in XML
format:

http://apachecon.com/html/sessions.xml/e=MjAwNy9FVQ

Similar read-only interfaces for speaker information could/should be
developed, and even the iCal format could be autogenerated like the
above (which draws its information in real time from the live
database).  Interfaces that access attendee information or that modify
the database need to be protected somehow, obviously.

Stefano Mazzocchi suggested doing it all through a set of Web forms,
so the same mechanism could be used for testing.  Fill out the form
and submit it, or send the data via POST -- all one.

I *don't* envision any direct access to the database from outside the
ApacheCon system itself.