[Mirrored from: http://www.u-net.com/~sgml/xml.htm], November 07, 1996 12:14:02 CST

The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) -- A report on the work to date of the SGML on the Web ERB

Martin Bryan, The SGML Centre

At the end of August a new ERB was set up by [W3C] to discuss the role of SGML on the Web. A series of discussion questions were posted and observations were requested. The subject of internationalization was one of the first ones to be brought up in the discussions, and it was soon resolved that the UCS-2 code set should be the basis of both the data and the markup for the new language.

The initial discussion period came to a close on October 8th 1996, and the SGML ERB held an editorial meeting on October 9th and voted that:

On October 16th the following decisions were made:

The following points were agreed on October 19th:

The following points were agreed on October 23rd:

The following points were agreed on October 26th:

The following points were agreed on October 30th:

The following points were agreed by November 7th:

There are still a number of outstanding questions that need to be resolved prior to the issue of a draft specification of XML, which is scheduled to be completed prior to a meeting scheduled to be held in Boston on Sunday 17th November, immediately prior to SGML '96. The first formal announcements regarding the new standard will be made at SGML '96, followed immediately by a statement of what has been achieved to date at the i18n conference in Seville.

Martin Bryan
10th November 1996