Cover Pages: SGML and XML News. April

[June 26, 2002] BPMI.org Releases Business Process Modeling Language Working Draft Specification. The Business Process Management Initiative has anounced the publication of the Business Process Modeling Language specification (BPML 1.0) as a first public working draft. The BPML specification "provides an abstract model and XML syntax for expressing business processes and supporting entities. It governs transactions and their compensation, data management, concurrency, exception handling, and operational semantics. BPML itself does not define any application semantics such as particular processes or application of processes in a specific domain; rather it defines an abstract model and grammar for expressing generic processes. This allows BPML to be used for a variety of purposes that include, but are not limited to, the definition of enterprise business processes, the definition of complex Web services, and the definition of multi-party collaborations. By leveraging the Web Service Choreography Interface (WSCI) specification developed by BEA Systems, Intalio, SAP AG, and Sun Microsystems, BPML 1.0 enables the modeling of end-to-end processes that can be translated into collections of private implementations executed as BPML processes and public interfaces defined using WSCI. Together, they provide an end-to-end view that depicts the role of each individual business process in the overall choreography, and the business activities performed by each role. BPML 1.0 and WSCI 1.0 appropriately share the same underlying process execution model, as well as similar syntaxes." [Full context]
[June 26, 2002] OpenTravel Alliance XML Specification Supports Multiple Travel Verticals. An announcement from the OpenTravel Alliance (OTA) describes a public review release of the enhanced Version 2002A XML Message Specification. This version of the OTA specification "addresses multiple levels of interoperability across the travel verticals, enabling organizations of all sizes to implement complex online transactions. It incorporates cross-industry components such as customer, payment and flight arrival information in many of the OTA messages so that travel trading partners will more easily be able to communicate essential traveler information." New release materials include an overview document and a collection of some 103 OTA XML Schema Definition files. "With over 150 members representing influential names in all sectors of the travel industry, OTA is comprised of representatives from the airlines, car rental firms, hotels, leisure suppliers, service providers, tour operators, travel agencies, and trade associations. OTA working groups, together with an OTA interoperability committee to coordinate their efforts, develop open Internet-compatible messages using XML." The review period ends July 19, 2002 and final publication of this OTA specification is scheduled for July 31, 2002. [Full context]
[June 24, 2002] IBM Clio Tool Supports Mapping Between Relational Data and XML Schemas. Clio is a Computer Science Research project at IBM's Almaden Research Lab. Its developers are designing methods to specify the transformation of legacy data to make it fit for new uses. Clio addresses the challenge of "merging and coalescing data from multiple and diverse sources into different data formats. In particular, it addresses schema matching (the process of matching elements of a source schema with elements of a target schema) and schema mapping (the process of creating a query that maps between two disparate schemas), which lie at the heart of data integration systems. Clio is a tool for generating mappings (queries) between relational and XML Schemas. The user is presented with the structure and constraints of two schemas and is asked to draw correspondences between the parts of the schemas that represent the same real world entity. Correspondences can also be inferred by Clio and verified by the user. Given the two schemas and the set of correspondences between them, clio can generates the (SQL, XSLT, or XQueries) queries that drive the translation of data conforming to the first (source) schema to data conforming to the the second (target) schema." [Full context]
[June 22, 2002] Project XMILE: XML in Mobile Incremental Logical Environment. The XMILE project organized by the Software Systems Engineering Group (University College London) is developing XML-based middleware for fine grained code mobility. XMILE (XML in Mobile Incremental Logical Environment) is a language that "exploits the tree structure of XML documents and then uses XML related technologies such as XML Schema, XPath, and the Document Object Model (DOM) to modify programs and even their programming languages dynamically. The availability of these XML technologies considerably simplifies the construction of application-specific languages and their interpreters. XML is used in XMILE to achieve more fine-grained mobility than in the approaches based on Java; the unit of mobility can be decomposed from an agent or class level, if necessary, to individual statements. XMILE supports incremental insertion or substitution of, possibly small, code fragments and open new application areas for code mobility such as management of applications on mobile thin clients, for example wireless connected personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones, and active networking." [Full context]
[June 20, 2002] RIXML Version 2.0 Released for Public Comment. The RIXML.org consortium has announced a version 2.0 release of the RIXML investment research specification, including a User's Guide, Data Dictionary Report, and XML schema. RIXML version 2.0 "broadens the standard by incorporating taxonomies that address fixed income, globalization, financial data, events and distribution information into the specification. The primary objective of the RIXML specification is to provide extensive capabilities for tagging any piece of financial research content, in any form or media, with sufficient metadata information to allow research users to search, sort, and filter the published research and to provide highly relevant information to decision-makers. A solution for 'componentizing' research content has been proposed for a future release of the specification. RIXML.org is a consortium of buy- and sell-side financial services firms that are committed to improving the process of electronic research distribution by creating an open industry standard. Its goal is to define an open protocol that will improve the process of categorizing, aggregating, comparing, sorting, searching, and distributing global financial research." [Full context]
[June 18, 2002] OASIS Discussion List for a Proposed edXML Technical Committee. Affiliates of OpenVES, Sun Microsystems, Computer Associates, and Fujitsu Software Corporation have organized a discussion list for a proposed OASIS edXML Technical Committee. According to the proposal's statement of scope, the edXML group would "embark on a number of initiatives to fast-track the documentation of PK12 educational requirements for XML based markup, controlled vocabularies, ontologies, web services and protocols. It will pursue areas not currently being addressed in other standards communities, and will coordinate with IMS and other groups where important foundation specifications relevant to PK12 are being developed. The edXML community will explore the relationships between other important emerging XML specifications, like ebXML, DSML, SAML, WSRP, WSXL, and PK12 requirements, and create liaisons between them." The group would coordinate and collaborate with other important PK12 initiatives such as OpenVES, EdNA, EUN SchoolNet, CanCore, APEC, Prometeus, CETIS, USoeC, and Achieve.org. It would also "create implementation strategies for web services deployment of PK12 education applications, tools, resources, services, and content, publishing and documenting XML based pattern languages for Collaborative Patterns, Pedagogical Patterns, Learning Patterns and Assessment Patterns for PK12." [Full context]
[June 18, 2002] Early Access Availability of VordelSecure XML Security Product. Vordel has announced an Early Access program for its forthcoming release of the VordelSecure 1.1 XML Security product, allowing participating organizations to "integrate a wide variety of technologies for passing authentication and authorization data in SOAP messages -- including SAML, digital certificates, and WS-Security. VordelSecure is deployed at the perimeter of an organization, intercepting incoming SOAP requests at the Web server and validating them against security rules configured for the requested SOAP service. Depending on the outcome of the rules, the XML messages are either routed to the service or blocked. In this way it ensures that requests, containing unwanted data or received from unauthorized users, do not reach the business logic on an application server or interfere with internal systems. VordelSecure can examine the integrity, structure, and content of XML requests using industry standards such as XML Signature, XML Schema, and XPath; VordelSecure ensures the authenticity of X.509 certificates used, by integrating with PKI directories and local and global trust services, including XKMS based services." [Full context]
[June 15, 2002] Interactive Financial Exchange Releases IFX Specification Version 1.3. The Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) Forum has published a new version 1.3 IFX specification. IFX is an XML-based communication protocol that "enables the exchange of information between financial institutions and their customers, their service providers, and other financial institutions." The Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) Forum represents a group of business and technology professionals working to "develop a robust XML framework for the electronic business-to-business exchange of data among financial service institutions around the world." IFX version 1.3 includes the Direct Debit Payment process, used by business banking to draw funds from payers; typically, a direct debit payment case is a recurring transaction, where it is expected to occur periodically. Direct Debit Payment process is utilized by many businesses to ensure payment is made on time, achieve better and more accurate float, and eliminate the payment issuance process. Other enhancements to the IFX Business Message Specification for version 1.3 include multiple addresses in contact information, composite remittance or lockbox data, payment credit status, improvements to check ordering, deposit account application, status Code to the additional status aggregate, and effective date which now conforms to DateTime." [Full context]
[June 14, 2002] W3C and NIST Release XML 1.0 (Second Edition) Conformance Test Suite. W3C has announced the release of a new XML Conformance Test Suite that any developer can download free of cost and use to test an XML processor's conformance to the XML Recommendation. Built in cooperation with NIST and formerly hosted by OASIS, the XML 1.0 (Second Edition) errata 20020320, W3C Conformance Test Suite 20020606 contains over 2000 test files and an associated test report. The test report supplies background information on conformance testing for XML as well as test descriptions for each of the test files included in this release. This new XML test suite provides a set of metrics for determining conformance to the W3C XML 1.0 Second Edition Recommendation, and is intended to complement the W3C XML 1.0 (Second Edition) Recommendation dated 6-October-2000. All interpretations of this Recommendation are subject to confirmation by the W3C XML Core Working Group. Implementors are encouraged to write a harness around these tests to test their implementation for XML conformance." [Full context]
[June 14, 2002] CNet Sweden Publishes Multilingual Term Catalogues With 'Termado' XML Technology. CNet Sweden has announced the availability of its Termado software for "management and publishing of term catalogues, lexicons and dictionaries. Using the latest XML and Web Services technology, Termado publishes term catalogues to different media but can also export term data to different applications helping businesses establishing common concepts throughout the organization. Termado consists of a termbase management system and a termbase publishing engine. The termbase management system has an easy-to-use interface for creating and managing a catalogue with terms. The termbase has been designed using linguistic and terminological models. It can represent anything from simple glossaries and dictionaries to very complex terminologies for different subject domains... The web interface supports concept searches as well as free text searching in the term catalogue. Termado automatically creates links between related concepts in the database, which can be used to navigate and explore the termbase." The product supports exchange formats such as OLIF, MARTIF, Geneter, and XTL. [Full context]
[June 13, 2002] Microsoft Announces DSML Services for Windows (DSfW). A posting from Andy Harjanto on behalf of the Microsoft Active Directory Team announces 'DSML Services for Windows (DSfW)' as Microsoft's implementation of the DSML version 2 specification. Completed in November 2001, the OASIS Directory Services Markup Language (DSML) version 2 was recently voted as an OASIS Standard. According to the market bulletin, DSML "provides a means of representing directory structural information and directory operations as an XML document. The intent of DSML is to allow XML-based enterprise applications to leverage profile and resource information from a directory in their native environment; it allows XML and directories to work together and provides a common ground for all XML-based applications to make better use of directories. For example, in addition to the already standard Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), many devices and other platforms have other alternatives to communicate with Active Directory." The MS DSML Services for Windows Beta 1 extends the power of the Active Directory service. Its features include a SOAP listener, support for equivalent LDAP operations, session support, IIS security support, connection pooling, and multiple configuration options. [Full context]
[June 13, 2002] Chemical, Petroleum, and Agricultural Industries to Develop eBusiness Standards. A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed by The Chemical Industry Data Exchange (CIDX), Petroleum Industry Data Exchange (PIDX) and RAPID, Inc. signifying their commitment to collaborative development and support of "common platform-independent electronic business data communications standards." These standards-setting bodies serving the chemicals, petroleum and agricultural industries will coordinate to share information, technology and process standardization within and between their respective industries. Together, CIDX, PIDX and RAPID will leverage resources and technical expertise to: "(1) define a set of voluntary vertical industry standards for trade within and between their respective industries; (2) represent the 'voice of the combined industries' to cross-industry XML standards initiatives; (3) work with solution providers to accelerate development and implementation of improved technologies and methodologies to support the common standards; (4) share implementation 'know-how,' case studies, and support materials." [Full context]
[June 13, 2002] Web Service Choreography Interface Released by BEA Systems, Intalio, SAP AG, and Sun Microsystems. A new review draft Web Service Choreography Interface 1.0 specification "proposes a language standard that can be used in conjunction with existing Web-service protocols to provide a description of the observable behavior of Web services. The Web Service Choreography Interface (WSCI) is an XML-based interface description language that describes the flow of messages exchanged by a Web Service participating in choreographed interactions with other services. WSCI describes the dynamic interface of the Web Service participating in a given message exchange by means of reusing the operations defined for a static interface. WSCI works in conjunction with the Web Service Description Language (WSDL), the basis for the W3C Web Services Description Working Group; it can, also, work with another service definition language that exhibits the same characteristics as WSDL. WSCI describes the observable behavior of a Web Service. This is expressed in terms of temporal and logical dependencies among the exchanged messages, featuring sequencing rules, correlation, exception handling, and transactions. WSCI also describes the collective message exchange among interacting Web Services, thus providing a global, message-oriented view of the interactions." [Full context]
[June 10, 2002] NISO and AIIM International Release Digital Still Images Metadata Standard for Review. An XML Schema and accompanying Data Dictionary -- Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images has been published by the [US] National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and AIIM International for 18-month review as a Draft Standard for Trial Use. A NISO 'Draft Standard for Trial Use (DSFTU)' is typically released when there is a need for field experience before proceeding with balloting; the extended time period "allows implementers to test the standard; at the end of the trial period the standard may be balloted, revised or withdrawn." The data dictionary "defines a standard set of metadata elements for digital images. Standardizing the information allows users to develop, exchange, and interpret digital image files. The dictionary has been designed to facilitate interoperability between systems, services, and software as well as to support the long-term management of and continuing access to digital image collections." An (informative) Annex A presents the MIX Z39.87 XML schema under the name 'NISO Metadata for Images in XML (NISO MIX).' This XML schema "supplies a set of technical data elements required to manage digital image collections; the schema provides a format for interchange and/or storage of the data specified in the dictionary." [Full context]
[June 07, 2002] Rogue Wave Software Releases 'Persian' C++ Web Services Platform. A posting from David Noor announces the availability of Persian 'early access technology' from Rogue Wave Software. Persian is a development and deployment platform "which allows for the creation and consumption of SOAP-based Web services in C++. Persian makes it easy to use existing Web services in C++, or to write new Web services in C++, without writing any SOAP or networking code. Persian takes WSDL describing Web service as input, and generates: (1) An easy-to-use client proxy class, so you can use the Web service from any C++ program; (2) An easy-to-implement C++ servlet, so you can create a Web service from scratch in a matter of minutes; (3) Full HTML documentation for the Web service and generated classes; (4) A sample client and server; (5) A client and server makefile to ease build and deployment steps." The Persian technology preview download "contains the Persian client and server generators, Persian examples, and a User's Guide; Persian generators also make the generated classes easy to use by providing class reference documentation." [Full context]
[June 07, 2002] HKU's E-Commerce Center Supports ebXML Pilot Projects with Government and Industry Partners. An announcement from the University of Hong Kong Center for E-commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID) describes three ebXML pilot projects designed to "demonstrate the feasibility and added value of ebXML applications. CECID was recently awarded funding of USD $1.2 million from the Innovation and Technology Commission for an R&D project on the Establishment of an ebXML Software Infrastructure in Hong Kong. The new Project Phoenix aims to facilitate the adoption of e-commerce in Hong Kong to enhance the region's competitiveness; the R&D team has started intense development work on a local e-commerce software infrastructure and is carrying out pilot projects with industry and government partners in Hong Kong, based on the international ebXML standard. (1) MTR Corporation and Saggio Company are piloting the use of ebXML for the exchange of purchasing documents in automating transaction processing in office supplies procurement. (2) CECID is developing an ebMail prototype for pharmaceutical companies to apply to the Department of Health for import and export licenses of pharmaceutical products. (3) CECID is also developing an ebXML solution for the Marine Department to receive Dangerous Goods Manifests in XML form from shipping agents." [Full context]
[June 05, 2002] Library of Congress Publishes MARC 21 XML Schema and Transformation Tools. A posting from Corey Keith of the US Library of Congress announces the publication of an XML Schema for use in communicating MARC 21 records. Prepared by the Library of Congress Network Development and MARC Standards Office, the XML Schema "was developed in collaboration with OCLC and RLG and reviewed by the National Library of Canada and the National Library of Medicine (NLM), after a survey of schemas in use in various projects. The schema will be maintained by the Library of Congress, along with software that enables lossless conversion to and from MARC 21 records in the ISO 2709 structure. The schema supports tags with alphabetics and subfield codes that are symbols, neither of which are as yet used in the MARC 21 communications formats, but are allowed by MARC 21 for local data; it accommodates all types of MARC 21 records: bibliographic, holdings, bibliographic with embedded holdings, authority, classification, and community information." The software tools maintained by LOC will support transformations to and from other metadata approaches, including Dublin Core and MODS. The Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS) "is a new schema for a bibliographic element set that is a subset of MARC expressed in XML with language-based rather than numeric tags." [Full context]
[June 04, 2002] Consortium Advances Project Management Extensible Markup Language (PMXML). Pacific Edge Software has announced the expansion of the Project Management Extensible Markup Language (PMXML) standards organization with the addition of several new Consortium members, an updated XML specification, and a new discussion forum. The industry group has chartered collaborative work to develop and refine PMXML as "the standard XML definition for project data." The goal of the XML schema design is to enable project management tools 'talk' and thus 'understand' each other; as a result [is it maintained] they can exchange information regarding task and project status, resource assignments, additional project attributes, and the work involved to complete these projects." Development of the PMXML standard is driven by the conviction that companies "should not be forced to adopt a single standard for data storage, particularly across diverse applications; organizations need immediate access to data pertinent to their project portfolios and the only way to provide flexibility and control is to create an industry standard that enables data interchange between whatever applications a company chooses to use." NASA, Oracle, PM Boulevard LLC, and PM Solutions have recently joined the PMXML initiative, originally created in March 2000. [Full context]
[June 04, 2002] Exchangable Faceted Metadata Language (XFML) as Fuzzy-Lightweight XTM and RDF. A communiqué from David Steinberg reports on the version 0.1 release of a specification for the Exchangable Faceted Metadata Language (XFML). The draft specification defines an XML format which "allows for easy creation of advanced, automatically generated navigation for your website; you can even automatically generate links to related topics on other websites. It also allows for merging of metadata between different websites. XFML is an open, free format, like SOAP or RSS, designed to be easy to understand, and easy to code for, yet powerful and flexible... XFML borrows many of the ideas of [XML] topic maps: it works with faceted metadata, although you could easily use it with a classical hierarchical taxonomy by using only one facet. Conceptually, in XFML metadata is separated (as topics) from content: you create a map that exists on its own, regardless of whether you have any content that relates to the map. This provides a lot of power in that it allows you to work with your map as an entity of its own, you can import facets of other maps, merge topics and so on." XFML is based upon the notion of "imperfect and ever changing taxonomies: with its strict separation of metadata and content, the metadata in an XFML map can evolve more easily than in most current CMS systems where metadata is intertwined with content definition, and where adjusting the structure of the metadata typically involves a lot of work." [Full context]
[May 29, 2002] Oracle XQuery Prototype and Oracle9i Database Release 2 with SQLX and XMLType Support. A communiqué from Steve Muench reports on two XML-related announcements from Oracle. (1) In March 2002, Oracle released a Java XQuery prototype which includes a Java API to XQuery (JXQI) and a command-line interface. This technical preview implementation of the W3C XQuery language with Oracle specific extensions features support "focusing on the 'R' (Relational Data) and the 'XMP' (Experiences and Exemplars) XQuery use cases; it also features an experimental JDBC-style Java API for XQuery as well as a sql() function for using XQuery over SQL query results." Oracle's goal ultimately is to "provide both a SQL-flavored and an XQuery-based query syntax for XML content in Oracle leveraging the same underlying database engine via appropriate query rewriting." (2) Oracle has also announced Oracle9i Release 2, offering significant new "native database support for XML. The new Oracle9i Database Release 2 provides a high-performance, native XML storage and retrieval technology available within Oracle9i Release 2; it fully absorbs the W3C XML data model into the Oracle9i Database, and provides new standard access methods for navigating and querying XML." Enhanced support includes XMLType and related native XML data-management features as well as XML Repository and XML-based content-management features. [Full context]
[May 29, 2002] ContentGuard Releases Extensible Rights Markup Language (XrML) Version 2.1. Version 2.1 of ContentGuard's Extensible Rights Markup Language has been submitted to the OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee, and will serve as "the basis in defining the industry standard rights language" outlined in the TC's charter. The Rights Markup Language TC has been established by ContentGuard, Microsoft, and other OASIS members to "define the industry standard for a rights language that supports a wide variety of business models and has an architecture that provides the flexibility to address the needs of the diverse communities that have recognized the need for a rights language." The XrML 2.1 release contains two main parts, in addition to four XML schemas: (1) Extensible Rights Markup Language (XrML) Core 2.1 Specification defines the core of XrML, "a general-purpose language in XML used to describe the rights and conditions for using resources. It explains the basic concepts for issuing rights in a machine-readable language and describes the language syntax and semantics; the goal is a language that can be used throughout industry to stipulate rights to use resources and the conditions under which those rights may be exercised and by whom." (2) Extensible Rights Markup Language (XrML) Standard Extension 2.1 Specification builds upon XrML Core 2.1 by defining "a set of concepts that are generally and broadly useful and applicable to XrML2 usage scenarios, but which are not necessarily at the heart of XrML2 semantics; these concepts are broadly classified, according to the purpose that they serve, into conditions, payment notions, properties, and revocation extensions." [Full context]
[May 28, 2002] W3C Receives Proposal for an Extensible User Interface Protocol (XUP). The W3C has acknowledged receipt of a submission from MartSoft Corporation for a proposed Extensible User Interface Protocol (XUP). XUP is "a SOAP-based protocol for communicating user interface events and updates on the web. Once a session has been established between a client and server, user interface events can be passed to server-side handlers; these in turn, pass back updates to the user interface. XUP provides a foundation for developing and consuming highly interactive web applications and services. XUP is independent of the actual UI or event model: it places no restriction on the UI component set, or the attributes or events associated with each component. Furthermore, it supports both delegation and capturing/bubbling event models. XUP can work with any UI models with XML-based representations. A UI model is described by a tree of XML elements, with UI components (e.g., panels, buttons) mapping to elements and the properties (e.g., color, size) of the components mapping to attributes. Examples of XML-based UI models include XUL, Proto, XHTML, and WML." According to the W3C comment, the XUP submission "has a direct relationship to the goals of the W3C Multimodal Interaction Activity to develop markup specifications for synchronization across multiple modalities and devices with a wide range of capabilities." [Full context]
[May 24, 2002] RELAX NG Published as ISO/IEC DIS 19757-2 (DSDL Part 2). A posting from James Clark to the RELAX NG mailing list announces that ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 [Document Description and Processing Languages] has voted to send out the edited text of RELAX NG as an ISO Draft International Standard (DIS). The text prepared by James Clark and Murata-san contains "no technical changes" vis-à-vis the OASIS specification, but has been changed editorially to meet ISO publication requirements. James indicates that the next stage is for the ISO national member bodies to vote on the DIS; if the draft is approved without comment, it may then be sent out for approval as a full-fledged International Standard; otherwise, there may be another round involving a Final DIS (FDIS). ISO/IEC 19757 (Document Schema Definition Languages - DSDL) is planned as a ten-part specification, of which RELAX NG is Part 2. DSDL is "a modular set of specifications for describing the document structures, data types, and data relationships in structured information resources. Two kinds of integrated specifications are included: (1) specifications for describing aspects of validity of a document, and (2) rules for combining and packaging a collection of processes applicable to the task of validating a document. This integration makes DSDL applicable to both business and publishing applications of structured information resources." [Full context]
[May 24, 2002] XML Schemas for the NCBI Molecular Biology Data Model. A posting from H. Kaiser Yang reports on the release of thirty-one (31 ) draft XML Schema files and six corresponding sample XML bio-sequence files from the NCBI's data modeling research. The US National Center for Biotechnology Information supports a "multi-disciplinary research group comprised of computer scientists, molecular biologists, mathematicians, biochemists, research physicians, and structural biologists concentrating on basic and applied research in computational molecular biology." NCBI has used ASN.1 [Abstract Syntax Notation One] "for the storage and retrieval of data such as nucleotide and protein sequences, structures, genomes, and MEDLINE records; it permits computers and software systems of all types to reliably exchange both the data structure and content." The draft XML schemas are orthogonal to the DTDs in current use, and will replace the DTDs in the next version of the database toolkit. NCBI earlier "added support for XML output to its ASN.1 toolkit such that an ASN.1 specification could be automatically rendered into an XML DTD; data encoded in ASN.1 can then be output automatically in XML which will validate against the DTD using standard XML tools." [Full context]
[May 24, 2002] IBM Publishes XML Schema Infoset API Requirements and Development Code. A posting from Bob Schloss describes the public availability of a requirements document for an XML Schema Infoset API and code being written to produce a reference implementation for the schema components API. The requirements document outlines "the design principles, scope, and requirements for a XML Schema Infoset and API; it includes requirements as they relate to development time and runtime software which: (1) constructs, examines or modifies schema components; (2) examines the Post Schema Validation Infoset; (3) makes use of schema components in conjunction with components that represent the infoset of other namespaces (such as WSDL or XForms). It includes requirements concerning the data model, external requirements, and coordination. The API could be used by programs such as: editors of XML instance documents which provide guidance based on a schema; tools that examine pairs of schemas; mapping tools that support non-XML data sources at one end and schema-described XML at the other; tools to visualize, create, modify and extend XML Schemas." The IBM development team is building a reference implementation for the API which is expected to be "very complete -- not simply read-only, but able to handle any XML Schema, no matter how complex." This work, including source code, UML, example usage code, and documentation is available online. [Full context]
[May 23, 2002] SNIA Announces Bluefin SAN Management Specification Using WBEM/MOF/CIM. The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has acknowledged receipt of a draft specification for a "proposed common interface for SAN [Storage Area Network] management that can reliably identify, classify, monitor and control physical and logical resources across the enterprise using a common transport for communication. The specification, code-named 'Bluefin,' employs technology from the Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) initiative that uses the Managed Object Format (MOF) to describe system resources based on a Common Information Model (CIM). Bluefin introduces new technology for security, locking, and discovery for SAN management. The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) and SNIA have been in close collaboration for several years in anticipation of driving improved storage management interoperability. DMTF has developed WBEM, a standard set of web-based enterprise management tools that unify management of enterprise computing environments. WBEM includes a data model, the Common Information Model (CIM), an encoding specification based on Extensible Markup Language (XML), and a transport mechanism based on Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP). CIM is an object-oriented information model that provides a conceptual view of physical and logical system components. Taken together, these technologies provide the tools to build reliable, scalable, multi-vendor SAN management solutions." [Full context]
[May 20, 2002] New OASIS Technical Committee for Controlled Trade Markup Language (CTML). OASIS has received a proposal from several members for a technical committee to develop standards for controlled trade. Chaired by Todd Harbour of FGM, the group will address new "challenges in managing transfers of sensitive and strategic goods in order to help governments share information and protect the transport of sensitive goods." The purpose of the proposed Controlled Trade Markup Language (CTML) Technical Committee is "to develop a unified trade control vocabulary that supports an international collection of business documents (e.g., trade applications, cases, licenses, delivery verification certificates, etc.) through the extension and expansion of an existing XML vocabulary. The TC will concentrate on building standards in the areas of controlled trade, import, export, and transit licensing, sanctions, commodity classification, internal control programs and export management systems." The standards will also "allow industry, nongovernmental organizations, and governments to unambiguously identify the essential business and legal documents to be exchanged in particular business contexts and geographic locales." [Full context]
[May 20, 2002] New XML-Based Inktomi Search Toolkit Combines Keyword and Parametric Search. The Inktomi Search Toolkit has been announced as an innovative OEM solution that delivers "advanced XML-based retrieval capabilities for finding structured, unstructured, and semi-structured content within enterprise applications to improve application usability and increase end-user productivity. By indexing documents in native XML format and preserving the hierarchy of the data, the Search Toolkit allows you to return the reference to the documents, the actual XML documents or any fragments of the documents." The toolkit "has been built from the ground up to utilize XML as the content mark up language to provide a standards-based query language (W3C XQuery) for retrieval of structured information. In addition, it provides a comprehensive suite of keyword search capabilities. It is available as a multi-threaded server product. For easy integration with the parent application, a Java API is provided for the product, as well as an open, socket-based interface using an XML-based and HTTP-based protocol. The internals of the Search Toolkit were designed to support retrieval across both unstructured content, as well as structured content marked up with XML." [Full context]
[May 17, 2002] IBM Releases SDK for Web Services Experience Language (WSXL). IBM alphaWorks has released a WSXL SDK which enables presentation-level application integration using Web Services. The WSXL SDK "supports a subset of IBM's Web Services Experience Language (WSXL), which has been submitted to the OASIS Web Services for Interactive Applications (WSIA) Technical Committee. The SDK is a set of run times (producer-side and consumer-side) built on IBM's Web Services Tool Kit, intended for: (1) Web application developers who want to convert their Servlet/JSP application to a presentation-level WSXL Web Service; (2) Web application developers who want to integrate third-party, presentation-level WSXL Web Services into their application; (3) Web service developers who want to develop presentation-level WSXL Web Services." Web Services Experience Language is "a Web services-centric component model for interactive Web applications, that is, for applications that provide a user experience across the Internet. WSXL is designed to achieve two main goals: (1) to enable businesses to deliver interactive Web applications through multiple distribution channels (2) to enable new services or applications to be created by taking advantage of other interactive applications across the Web. To accomplish these goals, all WSXL component services implement a set of base operations for life cycle management, acceptance of user input, and production of presentation mark-up." [Full context]
[May 17, 2002] Second Interoperability Summit Focuses on E-business Core Vocabularies. A second Interoperability Summit Series event hosted by HR-XML, OASIS, OMG, and XBRL will "bring industry groups, consortia and their members together in an ongoing initiative to coordinate development of electronic business specifications." The Interoperability Summit will be held June 27-28, 2002 in Orlando, Florida. On the first day, reports will be presented on interoperability concerns within several industry sectors. The second day's program will explore the several initiatives developing core vocabularies and related best practices to enable electronic business: (1) UN/CEFACT's eBusiness Transition Working Group [eBTWG]; (2) ASC X12's E-Business Cross-Industry XML architecture; (3) OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) Technical Committee; (4) Open Applications Group Integration Specification [OAGIS]; (5) OMG's Model Driven Architecture Initiative [MDA]. Based upon agreements reached at the first Summit in December 2001, the four organizers "have created an Interoperability Pledge which recognizes the need to identify intersections between major horizontal and vertical standards and promote acceptance of common models and approach." [Full context]
[May 15, 2002] IBM's Darwin Architecture Supports Enhancements for Domain Specialization, Content Reuse, and Linking Logic. Communiqués from Don Day and Michael Priestley of IBM describe new features in the 2002-05 update of IBM's XML-Based Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA). The DITA XML-based architecture "provides a way for documentation authors and architects to create collections of typed topics that can be easily assembled into various delivery contexts. Topic specialization is the process by which authors and architects can define topic types, while maintaining compatibility with existing style sheets, transforms, and processes. The new topic types are defined as an extension, or delta, relative to an existing topic type, thereby reducing the work necessary to define and maintain the new type." Improving upon the original release of March 2001, DITA v1.0 features "a logical extension of specialization that has now been incorporated into DITA: the ability to extend existing content markup to represent domains of specialized markup that are common across particular sets of typed topics (hardware vs. software, for example)." The DITA design has a unified content reuse mechanism which enables one to combine several topics into a single document: "an element can replace itself with the content of a like element elsewhere, either in the current topic or in a separate topic that shares the same content models. The distinction between reusable content and reusing content, which is enshrined in the file entity scheme, disappears: any element with an ID, in any DITA topic, is reusable by 'conref' transclusion. The linking logic is also now supports type checking and takes advantage of the short description element to provide progressive disclosure." [Full context]
[May 15, 2002] Sun Microsystems Delivers StarOffice 6.0 Office Productivity Suite. Sun Microsystems announced that its StarOffice 6.0 office productivity suite will be generally available worldwide on May 21, 2002. The software runs on multiple platforms, including Linux, Solaris and Windows and is expected to provide customers "with an economical alternative to proprietary office productivity suites that are expensive and have restrictive licensing policies." The v6.0 office suite "has a simple, easy-to-use interface and contains full-featured applications including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, graphics and database capabilities. It uses an open and published Extensible Markup Language (XML) based file format as its default, enabling anyone the ability to use widely available tools to open, modify, and share StarOffice content. Users will also enjoy more robust Microsoft Office import and export filters, including support for Office XP, redesigned dialog boxes, additional templates, graphics, clipart and enhanced, revamped help. The Asian language versions of StarOffice 6.0 software, known as StarSuite 6.0 software, add support for Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese and Korean languages. Additionally, the integrated desktop has been removed to support native desktop environments such as Common Desktop Environment (CDE), GNOME and Windows. Through Software AG's database engine Adabas D, StarOffice software also delivers integrated database functionality on all platforms. StarOffice 6.0 software also works transparently with a variety of file formats, enabling users familiar with other office suites, such as Microsoft Office, to open, modify, and share files." [Full context]
[May 14, 2002] European Service Providers Develop Securities Financing Extensible Markup Language (SFXL). Several service providers in the securities finance industry have announced support for development of an XML-based Securities Financing Extensible Markup Language (SFXL), currently in draft from SecFinex. SFXL is being developed as an industry standard for "information transfer in the highly fragmented securities finance market." The ten companies represent reconciliation service providers, risk management service providers, electronic marketplace providers, and transaction processing service providers. The initial draft specification governs the transfer of information on securities finance transactions; planned enhancements "will encompass securities inventories and the post-trade servicing of securities finance actions such as trade matching, billing, and marking to market." The SFXL format is being designed as an "open standard, freely available to all service providers and participants in the securities financing arena" and will be offered in its initial draft to Financial Products Markup Language (FpML) working groups. The ten initial company sponsors of the Securities Financing Extensible Markup Language have agreed to incorporate SFXL and FpML into their software systems. Securities financing is said to be a trillion-dollar industry, "with the size of the market estimated at between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion worldwide." [Full context]
[May 13, 2002] DISA Registry Initiative Announces ebXML Registry Prototype for IFX and OTA Specifications. DISA (the Data Interchange Standards Association) has announced a "working prototype of a registry for electronic business specifications from two of its vertical industry organizations: the Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) Forum and the OpenTravel Alliance (OTA)." The registry software contributed by XML Global Technologies implements the ebXML Registry specifications. The DRIve prototype "classifies the objects according to two standard industrial classifications, shows the relationship among the various specifications (called associations by the ebXML standards), and links the objects to external registries, in this case the XML.Org registry operated by OASIS. The registry offers a hands-on, real-time experience for visitors to learn more about IFX Forum and OTA specifications. Both the IFX Forum and OTA, industry affiliates of DISA, have written electronic business specifications based on the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and make their documents freely available." [Full context]
[May 09, 2002] Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium Publishes CDISC Operational Data Model (ODM). An announcement from the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC) describes the release of a final version 1.1 Specification for the Operational Data Model (ODM). The XML-based Operational Data Model "provides a format for representing the study metadata, study data, and administrative data associated with a clinical trial. It represents only the data that would be transferred among different software systems during a trial, or archived after a trial. It need not represent any information internal to a single system, for example, information about how the data would be stored in a particular database." The version 1.1 release includes the text of the specification, with XML DTDs and supporting documentation. ODM v1.1 Final "represents the culmination of more than three years of effort by a multi-disciplinary team of pharmaceutical and biotechnology sponsors and technology vendors; the development team believes the CDISC 1.1 DTD is now ready for widespread adoption among sponsors, vendors and CROs to facilitate the interchange of clinical trial data." [Full context]
[May 07, 2002] Sun Announces Netbeans Metadata Repository Modules for an Open Source Implementation of OMG's MDA. Sun Microsystems has announced its contribution of Metadata Repository modules to the NetBeans open source project, supporting Object Management Group's (OMG's) Model Driven Architecture (MDA). "The Model Driven Architecture represents an advanced approach to software design based on models created using languages such as the Unified Modeling Language (UML); it helps protect organizations' software investments by capturing business logic (business processes and their appropriate interactions) in re-usable models. Sun has contributed the Metadata Repository (MDR) modules to NetBeans to make it easier for developers to support another programming languages without extensive extra programming, and to write NetBeans-based tools that interoperate with standards-based modeling tools. MDR implements the OMG's MOF (Meta Object Facility) standard based metadata repository, including a persistent storage mechanism for storing the metadata. The interface of the MOF repository is based on JMI (Java Metadata Interface) as specified in JSR-40. In addition to the provisional JMI implementation, MDR also defines an event notification mechanism and additional features that help to incorporate it into the IDE." [Full context]
[May 03, 2002] W3C Publishes Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 and Mobile SVG as Candidate Recommendations. The publication of two new W3C Candidate Recommendation specifications for SVG represents an important milestone for the W3C Scalable Vector Graphics format. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 Specification "defines the features and syntax for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Version 1.1, a modularized language for describing two-dimensional vector and mixed vector/raster graphics in XML. The graphical capabilities of SVG 1.1 are the same as those of the widely implemented SVG 1.0, which has been a W3C Recommendation since 4-September-2001. What has changed is the way the language is defined. For SVG 1.0, the Document Type Definition (DTD) was a single, monolithic unit. In SVG 1.1, the DTD is divided up into smaller, more flexible functional building blocks that can be reassembled in different ways for different purposes." Mobile SVG Profiles: SVG Tiny and SVG Basic "defines two mobile profiles of SVG 1.1: SVG Tiny, aimed at multimedia capable cellphones such as the recently announced 3G units, and SVG Basic for handheld and palmtop computers. Instead of sending text messages or canned, bitmap logos, SVG Tiny makes it possible to send a colorful animated multimedia message. Instead of juggling a laptop or taking a static printout to the factory floor, construction site, hospital ward, or trading room, SVG Basic enables the mobile professional to consult up to date, interactive, informative graphics on a convenient pocket computer which is dynamically updated over a wireless network connected to the XML information hub of the enterprise." The Candidate Recommendation phase for both specifications ends 23-June-2002. [Full context]
[May 03, 2002] College Students Receive Awards for New XML Web Services Applications. Awards were announced for three innovative Web Services applications developed by students in a Microsoft '.NET Best Student Awards 2001 Contest'. (1) RenderFarm.NET (University of Minnesota Twin Cities) "is a Web service designed to process and render high-resolution 3-D scenes and animation sequences to a variety of image file formats and movies. It accepts 3-D data in the form of XML and returns a URL where the finished product will be available. RenderFarm.NET allows anyone to create and render beautiful 3-D scenes and animation sequences regardless of the hardware configuration or software solution." (2) SkyQuery (Johns Hopkins University) "provides a distributed query execution system for the world's astronomy community, which will enable them to run combined queries on the existing heterogeneous astronomy archives. SkyQuery will provide a simple, user-friendly interface to run distributed queries over the federation of registered astronomical archives. SkyQuery will not only provide location transparency, but also will take care of vertical fragmentation of the data and will run the query efficiently to minimize query execution costs." (3) BrainWebber QA (University of Bridgeport) is "a subscription-based defect tracking system that allows users to manage defects (bugs) using a wide range of applications and devices. These applications and devices access data about defects using BrainWebber QA Web Services and then render the data to provide a customized interface to end users. The students used a variety of technologies, tools and open industry standards to create innovative Web services, including XML, SOAP, UDDI, WSDL, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, DirectX application programming interface, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET." [Full context]
[May 03, 2002] ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC34 Publishes Standard Application Model for Topic Maps Review Draft. An Editor's draft version of The Standard Application Model for Topic Maps has been published for review. It has been produced under ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC34: Information Technology - Document Description and Processing Languages. The document "defines the structure and interpretation of topic map information by defining the semantics of topic map constructs using prose, and their structure using a formal data model. This specification supersedes ISO13250 and XTM (XML Topic Maps); it is intended to become part of the new ISO 13250 standard. Topic maps are abstract structures which encode information about a domain and connect this information to information resources that are considered relevant to the domain. Topic maps are organized around topics, which are symbols representing real-world things, associations representing relationships between the things, and occurrences, which connect the topic map to information resources pertinent to the topics... It is expected that topic map implementations will have internal representations of topic map information that have a well-defined correspondence to the model defined in this document. This specification also defines a number of structural constraints and operations on the model, which implementations are expected to conform to." [Full context]
[May 02, 2002] Open Forum 2003 on Metadata Registries Highlights Data Semantics and Registry Interoperability. A call for participation has been issued in connection with the Sixth International Open Forum on Metadata Registries. Open Forum 2003 on Metadata Registries will be held January 20-24, 2003 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. It is sponsored by the US Federal CIO Council's XML Working Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Metadata Working Group (WG2) from the ISO/IEC JTC1 Subcommittee 32 on Data Management and Interchange (ISO/IEC JTC1/SC32/WG2). Forum participants will explore the capabilities, uses, content, development, and operation of registries and related technologies, with special emphasis on management of data semantics. The forum "brings together standards developers, software developers and practitioners with a goal of introducing various registries, showing how they are used, and describing the related standards; a major topic will be cooperation between the registries to manage semantics. Topics include (1) ISO/IEC 11179 Metadata Registries; (2) Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration [UDDI]; (3) XML Registries/Repositories; (4) Database Catalogs; (5) CASE Tool Repositories; (6) Software Component Registries; (7) Ontological Registries. Special attention will be given to XML aspects of these registries." A 'Concept Presentation' document on the forum website surveys existing registry standards. ISO/IEC 11179 is "primarily aimed at semantics management and will be the focus of demonstrations in some of the practitioner tracks; special emphasis will be given to interoperation between 11179 registries, UDDI registries, XML registries/repositories, and database catalogs." [Full context]
[May 02, 2002] UK e-Envoy Publishes e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) Version 4. The UK Office of the e-Envoy has released the e-GIF framework specification version 4. This UK e-Government Interoperability Framework "prescribes the policies and technical specifications that will act as the foundation of the e-Government strategy and help get the UK online. e-GIF version 4 utilises market driven open standards to enable the seamless flow of information from back end systems to citizen and business, and between government organisations." Through the UK GovTalk website, the XML Schemas project is defining common data definitions as XML schemas for use throughout the public sector; the website contains a number of draft and approved XML schemas. The v4 specification is published in two parts: Part 1 (Framework) "contains the high level policy statements, management, implementation and compliance regimes; Part 2 contains the technical policies and tables of specifications, and a glossary and abbreviations list. The main thrust of the framework is to adopt the Internet and World Wide Web specifications for all government systems. Throughout this section use of the term 'system' is taken to include its interfaces. There is a strategic decision to adopt XML and XSL as the core standards for data integration and management of presentational data. This includes the definition and central provision of XML schemas for use throughout the public sector. The e-GIF also adopts specifications that are well supported in the market place." [Full context]
[May 01, 2002] HR-XML Publishes Staffing Industry Data Exchange Standards 1.0 (SIDES) with Industry Support. Version 1.0 of HR-XML's Staffing Industry Data Exchange Standards (SIDES) was approved by the HR-XML Consortium on April 29, 2002 and has been endorsed by six leading staffing firms (Adecco, Kelly, Manpower, Randstad, Spherion, and Vedior). The new specification describes the eight major SIDES XML schemas and several reusable modules, their expected usage, and the business processes intended to be supported. SIDES is a "comprehensive suite of data exchange standards designed to offer new efficiencies and cost savings for staffing customers, staffing suppliers, and other stakeholders in the staffing supply chain. Major modules include: StaffingOrder; HumanResource; Assignment; StaffingSupplier; StaffingCustomer; StaffingAction; Extended TimeCard; and Invoice (an extended version of OAGIS 8.0 Invoice). This suite of open standards is designed to increase the efficiency of staffing processes and to reduce integration costs usually incurred by the need to implement custom interfaces to link to trading partner systems." [Full context]
[May 01, 2002] W3C I18N Working Group Publishes Last Call Working Draft for the WWW Character Model. The W3C Internationalization Working Group has issued a second Last Call Working Draft specification defining a Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0. The document is an Architectural Specification designed to provide "a common reference for interoperable text manipulation on the World Wide Web. Topics addressed include encoding identification, early uniform normalization, string identity matching, string indexing, and URI conventions, building on the Universal Character Set, defined jointly by Unicode and ISO/IEC 10646. Some introductory material on characters and character encodings is also provided." The goal of the specification is to "facilitate use of the Web by all people, regardless of their language, script, writing system, and cultural conventions, in accordance with the W3C goal of universal access; one basic prerequisite to achieve this goal is to be able to transmit and process the characters used around the world in a well-defined and well-understood way." The W3C I18N Working Group invites comments on the specification through the end of the review period, May 31, 2002. "Due to the architectural nature of this document, it affects a large number of W3C Working Groups, but also software developers, content developers, and writers and users of specifications outside the W3C that have to interface with W3C specifications. Because review comments play an important role in ensuring a high quality specification, the WG encourages readers to review this Last Call Working Draft carefully." [Full context]
[May 01, 2002] OASIS Election and Voter Services TC Releases e-Voting Process and Data Requirements Specification. A Committee Specification for TC approval has been released for public review by the OASIS Election and Voter Services Technical Committee. Under the title Election Markup Language (EML): e-Voting Process and Data Requirements, this document constitutes one of several early TC deliverables being used in pilot studies designed to test the effectiveness of the prototype EML standard across a number of different international jurisdictions. It represents a "general and global study of the electoral process, introducing the transition from a complete human process by defining the data structure to be exchanged and where needed; an EML schema is introduced and clearly marked." The supporting schemas package also under vote as part of the TC release includes thirty-nine (39) XML schemas and a reference document Election Markup Language (EML): XML Schemas. The TC has been chartered to "develop a standard for the structured interchange of data among hardware, software, and service providers who engage in any aspect of providing election or voter services to public or private organizations. The services performed for such elections include but are not limited to voter role/membership maintenance (new voter registration, membership and dues collection, change of address tracking, etc.), citizen/membership credentialing, redistricting, requests for absentee/expatriate ballots, election calendaring, logistics management (polling place management), election notification, ballot delivery and tabulation, election results reporting and demographics." [Full context]
[April 29, 2002] W3C Publishes Requirements Documents for Web Services Architecture and Description. Two web services requirements documents have been released by Working Groups within the W3C Web Services Activity. The Web Services Architecture Working Group has published a set of requirements for a standard reference architecture for Web Services in the working draft Web Services Architecture Requirements. These requirements "are intended to guide the development of the reference architecture and provide a set of measurable constraints on Web Services implementations by which conformance can be determined." Background to this design is identified as a recognition that the "use of Web Services on the World Wide Web is expanding rapidly as the need for application-to-application communication and interoperability grows. These services provide a standard means of communication among different software applications involved in presenting dynamic context-driven information to the user. In order to promote interoperability and extensibility among these applications, as well as to allow them to be combined in order to perform more complex operations, a standard reference architecture is needed. The Web Services Architecture Working Group at W3C is tasked with producing this reference architecture." A deliverable from the W3C Web Services Description Working Group presents "the first W3C Working Draft of the Web Services Description Requirements document" with definitions and requirements for WS messages, message exchange patterns, and protocol bindings"; certain rejected requirements are retained in the XML source. [Full context]
[April 27, 2002] W3C's Daniel Weitzner Testifies on Patents and IP Licensing Terms in Open Standards Activity. Daniel Weitzner, W3C Technology and Society Domain Leader and Chair of the W3C Patent Policy Working Group recently provided testimony on patents and IP licensing at a United States DOJ/FTC hearing. The meeting was held on 18-April-2002, before the "United States Department of Justice and United States Federal Trade Commission Joint Hearings on Competition and Intellectual Property Law and Policy in the Knowledge-Based Economy: Standards and Intellectual Property." The presentation contributed to an ongoing US government investigation into 'Standard-Setting Practices: Competition, Innovation and Consumer Welfare'. Weitzner's stated goal in the testimony was to "contribute to the factual basis of [government] inquiry into antitrust, intellectual property and technical standards by providing an overview of the experience that the World Wide Web community has had with patents over the last four years. This testimony highlighted three main points: (1) First, the Web itself has been possible only in the context of open, royalty-free (RF) standards. (2) Second, the 'reasonable, non-discriminatory terms' (RAND) licensing model common in many traditional standards bodies is unlikely to be accepted in the Web environment. (3) Third, W3C is working hard to develop a Royalty-Free patent policy that encourages the continued evolution of the Web as a universal information space, while respecting our Member's legitimate intellectual property rights." Also declared by Weitzner: "Of critical importance to the rise of electronic commerce as a new marketplace, Web technology allows a wide variety of new systems and technologies to be built on top of the basic architecture of the Web, thus enabling continual innovation in the design of Web-based applications and services... Whether patents and claims related to W3C technologies are in fact valid or not, the risk of costly, time-consuming litigation and possible limitations on use by the right holders, is sufficient to suffocate much of the dynamic development activity that has been driving the Web industry." [Full context]
[April 26, 2002] IETF/W3C XML Signature Working Group Issues XML-Signature XPath Filter 2.0. The IETF/W3C XML Signature Working Group has released an initial public working draft for XML-Signature XPath Filter 2.0. The specification "defines a means to digitally sign a document subset using XPath" in support of the W3C XML Signature Recommendation. The goal is to: "(1) more easily specify XPath transforms, and (2) more efficiently process those transforms... [the document] describes a new signature filter transform that, like the XPath transform, provides a method for computing a portion of a document to be signed. In the interest of simplifying the creation of efficient implementations, the architecture of this transform is not based on evaluating an XPath expression for every node of the XML parse tree (as defined by the XPath data model). Instead, the XPath expression in this transform is used to identify a set of nodes that, along with all nodes having an ancestor in the identified set, is used to transform the input node set by set intersection, subtraction, or union." Since the specification has already received a large amount of discussion and implementation within the Working Group, the WG members hope to move the specification "to and through Last Call and then Candidate Recommendation very quickly." [Full context]
[April 26, 2002] DISA to Establish a US DoD XML Registry and Clearinghouse. A central XML registry for the US Department of Defense is being set up to promote interoperability, efficiency, and reuse of XML components. According to a "Memorandum for the Secretaries of the [US] Military Departments" (2002-04-22), the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has been designated as the Executive Agent (EA) for establishing the DoD XML Registry and Clearinghouse. In order to "support interoperability and minimize overhead, the Department is establishing a single clearinghouse and registry for creating, finding, reusing, and unambiguously identifying XML components. This will be accomplished by identifying best practices, establishing partnerships with industry, public-interest groups and other governmental activities, and coordinating XML education and outreach. Storage and retrieval of XML components will be performed in a way that takes full advantage of distributed network capabilities for reliable access and reference. This will facilitate the harmonization of XML registries and components among industry and government organizations... The DOD XML Registry and Clearinghouse is the authoritative source for XML components. All program managers that use XML as an interchange format must register XML components in accordance with procedures established by DISA." DISA currently supports a version 2 implementation of an XML Registry which "enables the consistent use of XML, both vertically within projects and horizontally across organizations." [Full context]
[April 26, 2002] W3C Publishes XML Version 1.1 Last Call Working Draft. The W3C XML Core Working Group has released a Last Call Working Draft for XML 1.1, previously called 'XML Blueberry.' XML 1.1 is written as "a series of alterations to the XML 1.0 Recommendation, such that its numbered sections correspond to those of the XML 1.0 Recommendation; sections of the V1.0 Recommendation that do not appear in the new document remain unchanged in XML 1.1." As outlined in the XML Blueberry Requirements, XML version 1.1 resolves problems related to Unicode and line ending. "The overall philosophy of names has changed since XML 1.0. Whereas XML 1.0 provided a rigid definition of names, wherein everything that was not permitted was forbidden, XML 1.1 names are designed so that everything that is not forbidden (for a specific reason) is permitted. Since Unicode will continue to grow past version 3.1, further changes to XML can be avoided by allowing almost any character, including those not yet assigned, in names. In addition, XML 1.0 attempts to adapt to the line-end conventions of various modern operating systems, but discriminates against the conventions used on IBM and IBM-compatible mainframes. As a result, XML documents on mainframes are not plain text files according to the local conventions. XML 1.0 documents generated on mainframes must either violate the local line-end conventions, or employ otherwise unnecessary translation phases before parsing and after generation." The working group invites comments on the draft through the end of the Last Call review period, 28-June-2002. [Full context]
[April 25, 2002] W3C Voice Browser Working Group Issues VoiceXML Last Call Working Draft. W3C has released a Last Call Working Draft for Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) Version 2.0. Pending receipt of positive feedback on this draft, the W3C Voice Browser Working Group plans to submit the specification for approval as a W3C Candidate Recommendation; comments may be sent for consideration until May 24, 2002. VoiceXML "is designed for creating audio dialogs that feature synthesized speech, digitized audio, recognition of spoken and DTMF key input, recording of spoken input, telephony, and mixed-initiative conversations. Its major goal is to bring the advantages of web-based development and content delivery to interactive voice response applications. The top-level element is <vxml>, which is mainly a container for dialogs. There are two types of dialogs: forms and menus. Forms present information and gather input; menus offer choices of what to do next... The dialog constructs of form, menu and link, and the mechanism (Form Interpretation Algorithm) by which they are interpreted are then introduced in Section 2. User input using DTMF and speech grammars is covered in Section 3, while Section 4 covers system output using speech synthesis and recorded audio. Mechanisms for manipulating dialog control flow, including variables, events, and executable elements, are explained in Section 5. Environment features such as parameters and properties as well as resource handling are specified in Section 6. The appendices provide additional information including the VoiceXML Schema, a detailed specification of the Form Interpretation Algorithm and timing, audio file formats, and statements relating to conformance, internationalization, accessibility and privacy." [Full context]
[April 24, 2002] ETSI Releases Draft Technical Report on XML Format for Signature Policies. ETSI's Electronic Signatures and Infrastructures Technical Committee has released a draft technical report XML Format for Signature Policies as a Final Phase 3 deliverable. ETSI SEC is responsible for Electronic Signatures and Infrastructures standardization within ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute); the ESI Working Group of ETSI SEC and Task Forces are acting in co-operation with CEN/ISSS within the ITCSB/EESSI work programme. The technical report "tries to accommodate the information for Signature Policies defined in ETSI TS 101 733 'Electronic Signature Formats' to XML syntax; the document is presented as the starting point of much more extensive work that should be done in a near future on this topic." Clause 8 of the report ('Syntax Overview for Signature Policy') "presents the XML schema definitions for Signature Policies; these definitions are based on the information specified in TS 101 733. Each clause contains a rationale introducing the schema definition, the definition itself, and additional textual explanations." ETSI is also in the process of producing a technical specification (ETSI TS 101 903: XML Advanced Electronic Signatures (XAdES)) that defines a XML format for electronic signatures compliant with the European Directive, as TS 101 733 does for ASN.1 syntax. [Full context]
[April 22, 2002] NewsML Toolkit Version 2.0 Includes New Read/Write Interface and User Manual. A communiqué from David Megginson announces the release of a version 2.0 NewsML Toolkit which provides a read/write interface to NewsML. Developed under the International Press Telecommunications Council, NewsML is an XML-based "news-industry packaging and metadata standard for exchanging multi-part news and information in multiple media; it helps content providers represent and manage news throughout the news lifecycle, including production, interchange, and consumer use." The NewsML Toolkit is an open-source Java library for reading and processing NewsML documents. Version 2.0 of the NewsML Toolkit has been developed through sponsorship provided by Reuters PLC; it is released under the Gnu Lesser General Public License (LGPL), so this free NewsML source code library may be redistributed and modified. While version 1.1 of the NewsML Toolkit was mostly a read-only interface, version 2.0 provides "the ability to create and modify NewsML documents programatically; it includes support for creating new nodes and modifying existing ones. Client applications can now use the toolkit to perform simple or complex modifications on a NewsML package before saving it back to XML, or even to create a new NewsML package entirely from scratch. Version 2.0 is backwards-compatible with v1.1, so it won't break existing applications. The new release also provides a detailed manual designed for programmers using the NewsML Toolkit in their own programs." [Full context]
[April 20, 2002] Committee Specification Level Documents for the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML). On April 19, 2002 the OASIS XML-Based Security Services Technical Committee (SSTC) released several SAML specifications which have reached 'Committee Specification' maturity level. The TC plans to submit the SAML specification for approval as an OASIS Standard in the July-September 2002 timeframe. The OASIS TC has been chartered to "define an XML framework for exchanging authentication and authorization information" and previously published working drafts for the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML). Using industry-standard protocols and messaging frameworks, SAML "is an important element in the security technology stack; it makes use of XML digital signatures and XML encryption." In SAML, "security information is expressed in the form of assertions about subjects, where a subject is an entity (either human or computer) that has an identity in some security domain. A typical example of a subject is a person, identified by his or her email address in a particular Internet DNS domain. Assertions can convey information about authentication acts performed by subjects, attributes of subjects, and authorization decisions about whether subjects are allowed to access certain resources. Assertions are represented as XML constructs and have a nested structure, whereby a single assertion might contain several different internal statements about authentication, authorization, and attributes." The new Committee Specification deliverables include: (1) SAML Assertions and Protocol, with separate XML Assertion Schema and XML Protocol Schema; (2) SAML Bindings and Profiles; (3) SAML Security and Privacy Considerations [non-normative]; (4) SAML Conformance Program Specification; (5) SAML Glossary. [Full context]
[April 19, 2002] ISDA Releases FpML 3.0 Working Draft with Support for Equity Derivatives and Portfolios. The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) has announced the publication of Financial Products Markup Language (FpML) version 3.0, including a working draft specification, data dictionary, scheme definition document, DTD, and related resources. FpML is an XML-based protocol "enabling e-commerce activities in the field of financial derivatives. The development of the standard, controlled by FpML, will ultimately allow the electronic integration of a range of services, from electronic trading and confirmations to portfolio specification for risk analysis. All types of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives will, over time, be incorporated into the standard. FpML 3.0 has been expanded to include equity derivatives and provide Portfolio support. In addition to equity derivatives, Version 3.0 covers all previously defined IRD products in FpML Version 2.0, as well as FX products such as FX Spot, Forwards, Non-deliverable forwards, FX Swaps and FX OTC Options, making it the first FpML version to cover different asset classes." A new 'Tools' section of the FpML website references twelve current tools (Storage Tools, Development Tools, Application Components, Service Components) and list of vendors; this resource is used to "promote the development and support of FpML tools or utilities, which will facilitate the widespread use and adoption of the FpML standard across the OTC financial industry." [Full context]
[April 19, 2002] EPA's Central Data Exchange (CDX) Supports XML-Based Reporting. The US Environmental Protection Agency has established a Central Data Exchange (CDX) to serve as "a central point which supplements EPA reporting systems by performing new and existing functions for receiving legally acceptable data in various formats, including consolidated and integrated data." XML is identified as the preferred format for data submission, though flat-file and EDI formats are accepted. With the cooperation of several states, information is sent to the legacy systems and made available for wider access. Several provisional XML DTDs, XML schemas, and data dictionaries have been developed. Critical environmental data on EPA facilities, air, water, waste, and toxic substances are submitted via XML and posted to the central CDX database. Specifically, CDX "provides production data flows for the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), National Air Emissions Inventory (NEI), and Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR). Several others including Interim Data Exchange Format (IDEF) for the Permit Compliance System (PCS), submissions under the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), [and Safe Drinking Water Accession and Review System (SDWARS)] are in development." The EPA is also developing an XML-based Environmental Data Registry (EDR) for defining data elements mapped to XML element types. The EDR is "a comprehensive, authoritative reference for information about the definition, source, and uses of environmental data supporting the creation and implementation of data standards designed to promote the efficient sharing of environmental information." [Full context]
[April 18, 2002] webMethods and HP Release Open Management Interface Specification (OMI) Version 1.0. webMethods, Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Company have announced the public availability of the Open Management Interface (OMI) Specification Version 1.0 which defines a standards-based (XML/SOAP/HTTP) management interface. The intent of OMI is "to provide an easy, open way for systems management vendors and other interested parties to access and manage the resources associated with an integration platform, together with associated business processes. Using the OMI specification in conjunction with the webMethods integration platform and HP OpenView software, companies can include business processes and web services into Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) with customers, vendors and suppliers. If a process fails to work -- for example, the processing of a purchase order is delayed or cancelled -- a company can determine if it is due to a system being down or if it is a breakdown in the business process itself. In addition, the combination of a business process management and integration platform with systems management technology allows companies to know which business processes will be affected if any given system or application fails and take actions to correct it." OMI was announced in September 2001 as a joint development project; it has now been released as an open specification. webMethods and HP plan to deliver OMI-based versions of their products in the early summer of 2002, and invite feedback on the specification, as well broader adoption and use. [Full context]
[April 17, 2002] IPTC Develops RadioTV-NewsML Standard for Radio/TV Program Information. The IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council) has launched the RadioTV-NewsML project "as part of a larger effort to track and create specialized vocabularies for data of interest to the news industry." Draft XML DTDs are available from the project website. RadioTV-NewsML "consists of five NewsML types: (1) ProgramTable-NewsML gives groups of programs (program table) for each station in newspaper; (2) ProgramCommentary-NewsML gives commentary for programs; (3) ProgramPicture-NewsML supports pictures used in commentary; (4) BroadcastNews-NewsML gives news related to broadcasting programs; (5) Program-NewsML gives information per program for the Internet. RadioTV-NewsML aims to be the global XML standard for the interchange of Radio/TV Program Information by NewsML. Designed to be as easy to understand and implement as possible, RadioTV-NewsML allows all for the exchange of Radio/TV information for news publishers and broadcast stations." The project includes a RadioTV-NewsML Users Forum which connects publishers who use RadioTV-NewsML and vendors who create tools that process RadioTV-NewsML documents. NewsML is an XML-based standard to represent and manage news throughout its lifecycle, including production, interchange, and consumer use." [Full context]
[April 17, 2002] W3C Releases Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P 1.0) as a Recommendation. W3C has published The Platform for Privacy Preferences 1.0 (P3P1.0) Specification as a Recommendation, signifying that it "is a stable document and may be used as reference material or cited as a normative reference from another document." The P3P specification document has been produced by the W3C P3P Specification Working Group as part of the Privacy Activity in the W3C Technology and Society Domain; contributors included "privacy advocates, Web technology leaders, data protection commissioners, and global ecommerce companies." P3P provides "a standard, simple, automated way for users to gain more control over the use of personal information on Web sites they visit. At its most basic level, P3P is a standardized set of multiple-choice questions, covering all the major aspects of a Web site's privacy policies. Taken together, the answers present a machine readable version of the site's privacy policy, a clear snapshot of how a site handles personal information about its users. P3P-enabled Web sites make this information available in a standard, machine-readable format. P3P enabled browsers can 'read' this snapshot automatically and compare it to the consumer's own set of privacy preferences. P3P enhances user control by putting privacy policies where users can find them, in a form users can understand, and, most importantly, enables users to act on what they see." W3C also published a companion working draft of A P3P Preference Exchange Language 1.0 (APPEL1.0) which "complements the P3P1.0 specification by specifying a language for describing collections of preferences regarding P3P policies between P3P agents. Using this language, a user can express her preferences in a set of preference-rules (called a ruleset), which can then be used by her user agent to make automated or semi-automated decisions regarding the acceptability of machine-readable privacy policies from P3P enabled Web sites." [Full context]
[April 15, 2002] 2002 ACM Workshop on XML Security. A call for papers has been issued in connection with the 2002 ACM Workshop on XML Security, to be held November 22, 2002 at George Mason University, Fairfax VA, USA. Chaired by Michiharu Kudo (IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory) and Phillip Hallam-Baker (Verisign), the XML Security Workshop will be held in conjunction with the Ninth ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS-9). The organizers request paper submissions from academia and industry "covering novel research on theoretical and practical aspects of the security required for XML-based systems." The ACM Workshop on XML Security "will address security problems faced by users who try to develop XML-based applications, Web services, and security middleware for XML. It ranges from specific security features, such as digital signatures and element-wise encryption and access control of XML documents, to XML-based infrastructure, such as Web services and XML databases. Since many security features for XML have already been standardized, experimental evaluations of these standards is one of the important topics covered by this workshop." [Full context]
[April 12, 2002] IBM Web Services Toolkit Supports the WS-Security Specification. IBM alphaWorks Labs has released a new version of its Web Services Toolkit with support for the Web Services Security Specification (WS-Security) announced on 2002-04-11. Specifically, the v3.1 IBM WSTK additions "provide an implementation of SOAP Security Token and Digital Signature components of the WS-Security specification. The SOAP Security Token which indicates the message sender's properties (name, identity, credentials, and capabilities ) is passed with SOAP messages; this helps identify the message sender to the Web service provider. This modular technology is useful to Web service providers when they need to support users with different authentication mechanisms. It also enables Web services providers to incorporate additional security features to their Web services applications over time. Version 3.1 also features a Buyer-Seller demo, Business Explorer for Web Services, Web Services Management, WSDL Explorer, new utility services, WSIL4J, and support for the use of UDDI v2 registries. The Buyer-Seller demo uses various aspects of Web Services components such as WSDL, WS-Inspection, UDDI, AXIS, etc. in a standards-based J2EE runtime environment." [Full context]
[April 11, 2002] Microsoft, IBM, and VeriSign Promote WS-Security Specifications for Web Services. A joint announcement from Microsoft, IBM, and VeriSign describes the (re-) publication of a Web services security specification "to help organizations build secure, broadly interoperable Web services applications. The three companies jointly developed the new specification, known as WS-Security, and plan to submit it to a standards body. WS-Security defines a standard set of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) extensions, or message headers, that can be used to implement integrity and confidentiality in Web services applications." The WS-Security specification is positioned as "the foundation for a broader road map and additional set of proposed Web services security capabilities outlined by IBM and Microsoft to tackle the growing need for consistent support of more secure Web services. The proposed road map is documented in Security in a Web Services World, which outlines additional Web services security specifications the companies plan to develop along with key customers, industry partners, and standards organizations." The other specifications include WS-Policy, WS-Trust, WS-Privacy, WS-Secure Conversation, WS-Federation, and WS-Authorization. The modular approach outlined in the proposal is said to be "necessary for Web services security because of the variety of systems that make up today's IT environments; as the use of Web services increases among collaborating organizations using different security approaches, the proposed security and trust model provides a flexible framework in which organizations can interconnect in a trusted way." [Full context]
[April 11, 2002] W3C XML Core Working Group Publishes New Working Drafts for Namespaces in XML. The XML Core Working Group has produced two new working draft specifications on namespaces as part of the W3C XML Activity. Namespaces in XML 1.1 is the "first draft of a new 1.1 revision of the Namespaces in XML specification which will incorporate several errata to the 1.0 specification, and will make one substantive change: the provision of a mechanism to undeclare prefixes." Namespaces in XML 1.1 Requirements presents the requirements for the development of Namespaces in XML version 1.1. XML namespaces "provide a simple method for qualifying element and attribute names used in Extensible Markup Language documents by associating them with namespaces identified by URI references." The Requirements document clarifies that the Namespaces in XML 1.1 specification will apply only to XML version 1.1 documents; note that some examples in the WD mistakenly use version 1.0 identifier (<?xml version="1.0"?>) where "1.1" is intended. According to the WG's explanation, the Namespaces in XML 1.0 "has the ability to undeclare the default namespace, but doesn't provide a facility to undeclare namespaces with prefixes; an obvious syntax for such functionality would be an empty namespace attribute value (xmlns:prefix=""); this omission has had adverse consequences on infoset manipulations and serializers." Other specifications negatively affected by the V1.0 limitation include XML-Signature Syntax and Processing, SOAP Version 1.2 part 1: Messaging Framework, XML Inclusions (XInclude) 1.0, XQuery 1.0, and XPath 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Data Model. [Full context]
[April 10, 2002] University of Hong Kong E-Commerce Center Opens Test Site for OASIS ebXML V2 Registry Implementation. Researchers at the University of Hong Kong's Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID) and Department of Computer Science Information Systems have released a publicly-accessible (beta version) test site which implements the OASIS ebXML Version 2 Registry. The version 2 registry specifications (ebXML Registry Information Model [RIM]; ebXML Registry Services [RS]) were finalized by the OASIS TC in December 2001, and are now in final approval phase. The CECID development was done as part of the University's Project Phoenix, which uses the ebXML Registry as one of four ebXML architectural components; the registry "provides the services for the participating e-commerce community to register, access, and share document schemas, business process specifications, and company data. CECID will operate the registry on a trial basis under the auspices of its Project Phoenix, which is sponsored by the Innovation and Technology Commission of the Hong Kong Government, to establish an ebXML software infrastructure in Hong Kong." ebXML v2 Registry implementations were reported earlier by XML Global Technologies, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Sterling Commerce, and KTNET (Korea); IONA and ebXMLsoft have also announced ebXML Registry implementations nearing completion. [Full context]
[April 10, 2002] Siebel Systems Announces XML-Based Universal Application Network. Siebel Systems recently announced a 'Universal Application Network' as a standards-based architecture for end-to-end business process management; the company characterized the network as "the industry's first standards-based vendor-independent application integration solution." The Universal Application Network is comprised of three major components: a comprehensive business process library, a state-of-the-art business process design tool, and a market-leading integration server. Supported by several leading integration technology vendors (e.g., IBM, SeeBeyond, TIBCO Software, Vitria, and webMethods), the Universal Application Network "is based on emerging Web Services and XML standards." The business process library component is "a collection of prepackaged, end-to-end, industry specific business processes such as Customer Creation or Quote to Order. The business processes are based on XML and Web Services standards and are independent of both the underlying applications and integration server. The business processes include pre-built business process flows, common objects (compliant with industry-specific standards such as RosettaNet and OAG), and XSLT-based transformation maps for mapping between the application data models and common objects. The Business Process Design Tool provides an intuitive graphical tool for developing and configuring business process solutions. The Business Process Flow modeler enables the definition of business processes at various levels of abstraction, and emits Web services-based XML representations of the defined processes; the Transformation Modeler accepts and emits W3C XML [XSD] schemas and XSLT-based transformations." [Full context]
[April 10, 2002] Microsoft Announces MapPoint .NET XML Web Service With SOAP API. Microsoft MapPoint .NET is "a hosted, programmable XML Web Service with a SOAP API that allows developers to integrate high-quality maps, driving directions, distance calculations, proximity searches, and other location intelligence into their applications, business processes, and Web sites." The MapPoint application promises to reduce the cost and complexity of mapping and spatial analysis, since "historically, the tools needed to perform geographic tasks were difficult to use, expensive to purchase, and even more expensive to maintain; typical server installations required specialized Geographic Information Systems (GIS) staff to manage proprietary datasets for map rendering and geocoding, dedicated servers to house the terabytes of geographic data, and large investments in learning new and difficult APIs." The MapPoint .NET XML Web service application is said to: "(1) provide developers the key building blocks they need to create geographically savvy applications; (2) support a standard SOAP Web service and can be accessed from a variety of platforms and development tools; (3) offer a short learning curve; (4) shield developers from the complexity of the management of spatial data and complicated GIS plumbing; (5) use a scalable transaction-based model that lets developers get started without incurring prohibitive upfront charges and lets applications grow with business need." [Full context]
[April 10, 2002] iTV Production Standards Initiative Creates XML Standards for Interactive Television. A new Interactive Television Production Standards Initiative has been launched by television and interactive production companies, programmers, and technology providers. The open standards initiative will address the current industry situation in which "there are several disparate middleware platforms, operating systems, and hardware devices for distributing iTV and no common means of producing interactive programming. XML has been chosen for the standard because of its general acceptance as an open method for transferring data and its compatibility with all of the major iTV platforms. Of the three principal components of iTV programming (content, presentation, behavior), the initiative will seek to standardize only content and presentation. The content production portion of the standard specifies the timing and content of interactive assets such as trivia games, polls, interactive advertising, leaderboards, etc.; presentation description portion of the standard specifies the visual elements of the program, the location of these elements, and a method for mapping content to these locations. The iTV production standards initiative will be compatible with the other major iTV standards, such as SMPTE DDE-1 (ATVEF), SMPTE DDE-2, DVB-MHP, and ATSC-DASE. An XML schema developed by GoldPocket Interactive for enhanced TV programming has been used to create draft specifications, now under review by the WG; the expanded and refined XML spec documents will be published on May 5, 2002. [Full context]
[April 09, 2002] Personalized Print Markup Language (PPML) Version 2.0 Supports Digital Print Job Ticketing. A communiqué from Tracy Burkovich announces the release of the Personalized Print Markup Language specification version 2.0. This version of the specification includes support for digital print job ticketing, and has been endorsed by several key industry partners. PPML is designed for "XML-based, efficient printing of documents with reusable and variable content. It was developed through a special program of PODi (The Digital Printing Initiative), a consortium of leading companies in digital printing. The main purpose of the PPML language is to provide object-level addressability and reusability; it provides an open, XML-based architecture for digital print projects. PPML was first introduced to the market at the worldwide 'drupa' exhibition in Dusseldorf in May, 2000, and has become the first widely-adopted print stream based entirely on an open standard. The PPML version 2.0 architecture includes generic printer control. This means PPML 2.0 jobs, including advanced printer features such as duplexing, finishing, and paper selection, can be created without knowing what machine will print them. Any PPML-compliant printer with the appropriate features will accept the same print file, no matter what software created it and what printer does the output. The PPML job ticketing architecture is designed to support ticket data in any format." [Full context]
[April 08, 2002] Adobe Announces Enhanced XML Authoring Support in FrameMaker Version 7.0. Adobe Systems has released FrameMaker Version 7.0 with enhanced collaboration and XML authoring features. Version 7.0 now provides the "ability to import, validate, and export XML files and DTDs for 'XML roundtripping'. It supports XML namespaces as a prefix to XML element names when combining content from multiple sources. FrameMaker Version 7.0 supports import and export of XML files containing Unicode (UTF-8/UTF-16) characters, with automatic character mapping for Asian-language printing. V7.0 provides for automatic generation of CSS style definitions for XML files. DocBook 4.1, xDocBook 4.1.2, and XHTML sample applications are now included for structured authoring. Documentation includes a new 'XML Cookbook' manual for learning to work in structured authoring environments. Enhanced collaboration features include support for Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP), WebDAV, and workgroup facilities (shared documents, servers, and folders)." [Full context]
[April 08, 2002] ISO Common Logic Standard Proposed for Use With RDF, UML, DAML, and Topic Maps. A posting from John Sowa summarizes the results of a recent Common Logic Standardization Meeting held at Stanford University which proposes an ISO Common Logic (CL) Standard related to Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF) and Conceptual Graphs (CGs). CL is to be "defined by an abstract syntax, which specifies the major categories, such as Quantifier, Negation, and Conjunction, without specifying any concrete symbols for writing them. The CL standard will also contain grammars for three concrete syntaxes: KIF, CGIF (the CG interchange format), and traditional predicate calculus (TPC) with a Unicode encoding of the commonly used symbols. Besides the three concrete syntaxes that are currently planned for the standard, [the group] discussed plans for an XML-based syntax [XML-CL] that could be mapped directly to the abstract syntax. For example, the abstract category Conjunction would be expressed differently in each of the three concrete syntaxes. Instead of giving a separate mapping to XML from each of the concrete syntaxes, it would be simpler to map the abstract category directly to the XML form <conjunction>... </conjunction> without specifying which of the three concrete syntaxes was the original source or the intended target of the information." The development team "hopes that the CL standard can be used for many other languages that have a declarative semantics, such as RDF, UML, DAML, or Topic Maps. There will be an XML representation of the abstract categories, which will conform to all accepted W3C standards. There may also be XML representations of the concrete syntaxes as well; TPC notation will require Unicode for the special logical symbols, but they could also be represented, as in HTML and XML, by symbols like ∀ or ∃." [Full context]
[April 06, 2002] Open Applications Group Releases OAGIS Version 8.0 Using Core XML Technologies. A posting from Michael Rowell (Chief Architect, Open Applications Group) announces the release of the OAGIS version 8.0 specification. The Open Applications Group is a "non-profit consortium focusing on best practices and processes based on XML content for eBusiness and Application Integration." The principal notion in OAGIS is the BOD (Business Object Document), supporting a common horizontal message architecture. BODs are "the business messages or business documents that are exchanged between software applications or components; between companies; across supply chains; and between supply chains. The BOD Message Architecture is independent of the communication mechanism: it can be used with simple transport protocols such as HTTP and SMTP, but it also can be used in more complex transport protocols such as SOAP, ebXML Transport and Routing, or any other Enterprise Application integration system." The version 8.0 release contains some 200 XML BODs, with over 300 XML schemas and over 400 example XML instances. It includes a set of example scenarios, each of which describe the chorography or business process that OAGIS maybe used. Complete with hyperlinked HTML documentation, OAGIS v8.0 "adds support for long tag names, XML Schemas, XSL, and XPath. XSL (specifically XPath) is used to capture the required fields and other constraints that can be applied to the BODs; XPath is also used to apply the action of the Verb on particular Components of the Noun with in the BOD. OAGIS takes advantage of many capabilities of these 'core' XML technologies in order to provide a true horizontal specification for integration. Along with the UserArea, it provides support for Vertical Overlays, which can be used to by industry verticals and implementations to layer additional requirements over OAGIS allowing companies in different verticals to communicate with the same messages by simply applying the constraints that are appropriate for the given context." [Full context]
[April 06, 2002] XML Schemas for Historical Event Markup and Linking Project (HEML). A posting from Bruce G. Robertson describes updated XML resources developed within the Historical Event Markup and Linking Project (HEML). Centered at Mount Allison University and the University of Virginia, the HEML project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; it is also affiliated with the Stoa Consortium for electronic publication in the humanities. Using the Apache Cocoon2 web publishing engine, the HEML project "provides a means of coordinating and navigating disparate historical materials on the internet. It includes: (1) an XML schema for historical events which describes the events' participants, dates, location and keywords; the schema associates these with source materials in print or on the web; (2) XSLT stylesheets that combine conforming documents and generate lists, SVG maps, and graphical timelines out of them." One may imagine HEML as "a reasonably light language that can associate the concepts 'William the Conqueror', '1066 AD in the Gregorian Calendar' and 'Hastings' with, among other things, an image of the Bayeux tapestry and with other pertinent information on the web, in many different languages and calendrical systems." [Full context]
[April 05, 2002] US General Accounting Office Releases XML Interoperability Report. A report on Electronic Government: Challenges to Effective Adoption of the Extensible Markup Language has been prepared by the United States General Accounting Office (GAO). The 73-page document GAO-02-327 is issued as a 'Report to the Chairman, Committee on Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate (submitted to The Honorable Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman, Committee on Governmental Affairs by David L. McClure, Director, Information Technology Management Issues). The report was written in response to a request which asked GAO to assess (1) the overall development status of XML standards to determine whether they are ready for governmentwide use, and (2) challenges faced by the federal government in optimizing its adoption of XML technology to promote broad information sharing and systems interoperability. A principal finding was that important XML business standards are still being created for identifying potential business partners, exchanging precise transaction protocol information, and executing legally binding transactions. Current challenges and pitfalls threatening interoperability are reported to include: (1) proliferation of redundant data definitions, vocabularies, and structures; (2) the potential for proprietary extensions to XML; (3) inadequate security mechanisms; (4) an inadequate governmentwide XML adoption strategy; (5) incomplete identification of federal agencies' requirements; (6) lack of a central XML registry; (7) immature enterprise architectures for XML implementation. Recommendations include creation of a new government-unique requirements specification, a project plan for transitioning the CIO Council's pilot XML registry effort into an operational governmentwide resource, and policies for effective use of the governmentwide XML registry. [Full context]
[April 05, 2002] W3C Publishes New Speech Synthesis Markup Language Specification. The W3C Voice Browser Working Group has released an updated working draft for the Speech Synthesis Markup Language Specification. The document has been produced as part of the W3C Voice Browser Activity, which seeks to develop standards enabling access to the web using spoken interaction. The document "describes markup for generating synthetic speech via a speech synthesizer, and forms part of the proposals for the W3C Speech Interface Framework." The Speech Synthesis Markup Language Specification "is part of a set of new markup specifications for voice browsers, and is designed to provide a rich, XML-based markup language for assisting the generation of synthetic speech in web and other applications. The essential role of the markup language is to provide authors of synthesizable content a standard way to control aspects of speech such as pronunciation, volume, pitch, rate and etc. across different synthesis-capable platforms." This SSML document has been revised in minor ways to assist in the further development of the W3C Speech Recognition Grammar Format and the W3C VoiceXML 2.0 specification which "are related to the SSML specification, and in some areas depend on this specification." [Full context]
[April 05, 2002] Topologi Collaborative Markup Editor Supports RELAX NG. A posting from Rick Jelliffe announces support for RELAX NG in the Topologi Collaborative Markup Editor. The Topologi application is "a high-productivity XML and SGML editor for professional publishing teams; it is written in 100% pure Java and uses the Jing native interface. The editor also supports XML DTDs, XML Schemas, Schematron (including phases), and the Topologi NII (NamedInformationItem) schema formats. All these schemas can be put in an XAR file (a ZIP format for distributing document types and application code), and the editor will upload them over a network or between peers, so deploying schemas to systems should be pretty easy. The editor will be shipping with RELAX NG as one of the supplied applications; however it is not an IDE but targeted at data capture for the same kinds of publishing uses that SGML has succeeded in. This beta version is not considered feature-complete, but is being released with the goal of soliciting early feedback from users. Subsequent development is expected to provide undo, spell-checking, red-lining, context-sensitive sidebars, better collaborative authoring features, better support for ODRL (Open Digital Rights Language), etc. Interested parties may register for the beta program. [Full context]
[April 04, 2002] TIGERS Workgroup Reviews Draft XML Schemas for Form 1120 Corporation Income Tax Returns. Xan Ostro of the US Internal Revenue Service Electronic Tax Administration (ETA) has posted a collection of eighteen (18) draft XML schemas relating to forms and schedules for IRS 1120. Preliminary docmentation is provided by sample XML instances and a companion document 'Introduction to IRS e-file XML Schemas', representing the most recent thinking of the development team on IRS XML 1120 schemas. This document discusses the schema design, "including treatment of namespaces, naming conventions, element and type reuse, etc., as well as transmission and acknowledgment files and envelopes, and overall e-file schema structures." U.S. Corporation Income Tax Return Form 1120 is used to report income, gains, losses, deductions, credits, and to calculate the income tax liability of a corporation. The draft materials were prepared to facilitate education and preparation for an upcoming TIGERS meetings addressing Tax XML Development. The principal Schema is for IRS Form 1120, excluding embedded schedules and supporting information. The team has also issued a Candidate Release of the IRS 940/941 XML Schema from March 31, 2002. These XML schemas have been created by the Tax Information Group for EC Requirements Standardization (TIGERS), part of the National Standards Institute's ASC X12-Government Subcommittee. This WG "has been chartered to discuss matters relating to business standards and practices surrounding national tax data formatting and transfer, and develops and maintains tax electronic technical format standards for a variety of tax filing and other related government electronic reporting or data exchange applications. The recent focus of the group has addressed the use of XML as a data transformation tool, and efforts to develop a standard taxonomy and schema as guidance for tax agencies. The aim is to create guidance useful to state and federal (IRS) tax authorities to assist them in XML application development." [Full context]
[April 04, 2002] W3C Math Working Group Publishes Cross-Browser Universal MathML Stylesheet. On behalf of the W3C Math Working Group, David Carlisle (Numerical Algorithms Group) recently announced the availability of an XSL stylesheet for cross browser MathML viewing. The stylesheet "allows conforming XHTML+MathML documents to be rendered, without changing the document, in a range of browsers. This 'Universal MathML stylesheet' makes it possible to author a single form of HTML+MathML that will be viewable in many browsers, including IE5.5, IE6, and Mozilla. Basically the stylesheet detects the environment in which it is running and inserts any <object>, <embed> or other browser-specific markup required. If only presentation MathML rendering is available, it performs a 'Content to Presentation' transformation before passing the document to the rendering engine. This allows the document to be authored in a browser-independent style." The online documentation provides examples using the MathPlayer or Techexplorer plug-ins and standard Web browsers running on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux/UNIX platforms. [Full context]
[April 04, 2002] Unicode Consortium Publishes Unicode Standard Version 3.2. A Proposed Draft Unicode Technical Report published by the Unicode Consortium earlier in 2002 has been advanced to an approved version 3.2 of the Unicode Standard. This edition of the Standard "includes the most extensive set of characters for mathematical and technical publishing yet defined. The Unicode Technical Committee and the Scientific and Technical Information eXchange (STIX) Project of the Scientific and Technical Publishers (STIPub) Consortium worked together over the past 5 years to identify over 1,600 new mathematical symbols and alphanumeric characters, more than doubling the number of characters with mathematical usage previously available. W3C's MathML integrates with developing Web technologies, and makes essential use of the Unicode character set. With the addition of four indigenous scripts of the Philippines, the Unicode Standard moves further towards full coverage of all living writing systems; version 3.2 is now fully synchronized with International Standard ISO/IEC 10646-1:2000, with its Amendment 1, and with ISO/IEC 10646-2:2001. The Unicode Standard is a major component in the globalization of e-business, as the marketplace continues to demand technologies that enhance seamless data interchange throughout companies' extended -- and often international -- network of suppliers, customers and partners. Unicode is the default text representation in XML, an important open standard being rapidly adopted throughout e-business technology." [Full context]
[April 03, 2002] Web Services Transactions Project (WSTx). The IBM Web Services Transactions (WSTx) project "addresses the reliability concerns of business processes utilizing the emerging Web services platform to execute business transactions. The principals believe that a general-purpose coordination framework similar to the J2EE Activity Service would be highly desirable so as to support the variety of transaction models likely to emerge as businesses deploy solutions on the Web. Such a framework should offer the flexibility to coordinate participants with varying transactional capabilities, using standard protocols (such as SOAP), without compromising the autonomy of those participants. The WSTx project team is: (1) exploring the J2EE Activity Service (the state-of-the-art in distributed object transactions) as to how it can be employed to support existing extended transaction models; (2) exploring extensions the J2EE Activity Service, to include Web services as participants in distributed transactions; (3) defining Web service based transactional requirements, models to support those requirements, and quality of service issues; (4) designing and implementing Web service transaction models using a general-purpose coordination framework." [Full context]
[April 02, 2002] PLAN-X Workshop on Programming Language Technologies for XML. A call for papers has been issued in connection with a 'PLAN-X' Workshop on Programming Language Technologies for XML. PLAN-X will be held October 3, 2002 in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. It is co-located with PLI 2002 (Principles, Logics, and Implementations of High-Level Programming Languages. October 3-8, 2002) and also with ICFP 2002 (International Conference on Functional Programming. October 4-6, 2002.) Chaired by Vivek Sarkar (IBM) and designed especially for the PLI community, the PLAN-X workshop "aims to bring together researchers from the programming languages and XML communities, to foster novel research to address unique challenges being posed by XML on current and future programming technologies, and to to exchange information on early research experiences with XML-related programming systems, tools, and languages." Rationale for the workshop: "... the robustness of current and future programming standards and tools for XML will depend on the strength of their foundations in core programming technologies e.g., XML parsing (parsing theory and incremental parsing), XML schemas (type systems), XPath expressions and XSLT programs (pattern-matching languages and their optimization), XSLT debuggers (dynamic program analysis and slicing). Since XML is a new domain, core programming technologies developed in past research cannot be used unchanged; instead, novel research is required to address the unique challenges posed by XML and its use in web applications and standalone applications." [Full context]
[April 02, 2002] AP MegaSports in XML Uses Sports Markup Language. A joint announcement from ScreamingMedia Inc. and AP Digital describes a plan for adoption and implementation of the XML-based SportsML format for Internet and wireless distribution of AP MegaSports news feeds using ScreamingMedia's conversion technology. AP MegaSports in XML "will be delivered to Web environments, wireless applications and other interactive platforms, to provide customers with significantly faster implementation, better customization capabilities, and enhanced functionality. SportsML uses the Extensible Markup Language (XML), to create flexible packaging of sports content. Features of AP MegaSports that SportsML will facilitate integration of include sport-specific scrolling headlines, linked content, in-progress updates, play-by-play, and more. The service will be rolled out over the next three months and will include headlines, stories, scores, stats, sounds and photos from all major U.S. and many world professional sports leagues, as well as top amateur and collegiate competitions. The AP MegaSports package provides sites and services with stories, scores, stats, sounds and photos 24 hours a day." Developed by the International Press Telecommunications Council, SportsML is "an emerging open global standard for the interchange of sports data; markup languages applied to news feeds allow for easy packaging of text stories, audio, video, photos and other multimedia content." [Full context]
[April 01, 2002] EEXTT2002: Workshop on Efficiency and Effectiveness of XML Tools and Techniques. The First VLDB Workshop on Efficiency and Effectiveness of XML Tools and Techniques (EEXTT2002) will be held August 19, 2002 in conjunction with VLDB 2002. Venue for the 28th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB 2002) is the Kowloon Shangri-La Hotel, Hong Kong, China, on August 20-23, 2002. The workshop will focus on the evaluation of the performance, effectiveness, and efficiency of XML management systems (XMLMS) together with study of the tools and techniques. Topics referenced in the call for papers include storage of XML data, compression of XML data, security for XML data, generation of XML data from legacy applications, indexing and retrieval of XML data, XML query languages, query processing over XML data, interchange and integration of XML data, and benchmarks for the management of XML data. The paper submission deadline is April 12, 2002. [Full context]


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What Was New in 1995 - 2002