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• [December 31, 2002]   Connexions Markup Language (CNXML) Used for Modular Instructional Materials.    An interdisciplinary project at Rice University is developing the Connexions Markup Language (CNXML) as part of the Connexions Project. CNXML is "a lightweight XML markup language designed primarily for marking up educational content. The language is concerned with the structure and semantic content of the information and encourages separation of content and presentation. Connexions is an open-source educational technology project that enhances teaching and learning by (1) facilitating collaborative development of educational content in a broad range of disciplinary communities, (2) providing free access to distributed repositories of educational content and curricula, and (3) empowering diverse cultural communities to join in the development of knowledge. Two primary components of the Connexions system are a Content Commons repository of collaboratively developed material, and an open-source software toolset that allows users to exploit the materials in the repository for their needs. Connexions features a synergistic mix of both software and content, and our solutions involving community development, modularization, XML markup, editorial lenses, and intellectual property cater directly to the needs of the academic community. The Connexions Project is being developed in collaboation with MIT's Open Knowledge Initiative and with the Creative Commons Project. All Connexions software and tools will be open-source, available free-of-charge." [Full context]

• [December 28, 2002]   GEDCOM XML Specification Supports XML Encoding of Genealogical Data.    A beta version of the GEDCOM XML Specification Release 6.0 has been published, including a chapter dedicated to the GEDCOM XML Document Type Definition. GEDCOM (Genealogical Data Communication) is widely considered the de facto standard for structured genealogical information, being designed "to provide a flexible, uniform format for exchanging computerized genealogical data." Having evolved over fifteen years, GEDCOM XML uses Unicode instead of the 8-bit ANSEL character set. It makes use of unidirectional (ID - IDREF) links that can be specified in only one way instead of the GEDCOM bidirectional linking mechanism. [Full context]

• [December 26, 2002]   NYSE Market Data Group and FISD Release VRXML Schema for Billing and Reporting.    The version 1.0 specification for Vendor Reporting Extensible Markup Language (VRXML) has been published on the VRXML website. The release includes an XML Schema, sample document, and UML diagrams for the VRML conceptual model. VRXML 'XML for Market Data Billing' is "an XML-based interchange format and common data dictionary on the fields needed for market data billing, reporting and inventory management. The initial draft was developed by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to improve the quality, timeliness, and efficiency of reporting information from vendors. The objective of VRXML is to define and normalize all of the data elements required throughout the billing and reporting information chain with the objective of enabling all segments to produce, transmit, receive, and process invoices and reports in a common XML format. FISD (Financial Information Services Division of the Software and Information Industry Association - SIIA) has now assumed ownership and maintenance of the specification and is actively exploring its extension to support the full range of industry requirements associated with billing and reporting. FISD members support the migration to an industry-wide XML reporting format and have confirmed their interest in using VRXML as a component of the overall billing and reporting initiative." [Full context]

• [December 24, 2002]   Open GIS Consortium Issues RFC for Web Coverage Service Implementation Specification.    The Open GIS Consortium OGC) has published a Request for Comment on a proposal for technologies and needed interfaces required for OpenGIS Web Coverage Service (WCS) Implementation Specification. The specification document "explains how WCS serves to describe, request, and deliver multi-dimensional coverage data over the World Wide Web. WCS emphasizes 'simple' coverages (defined on some regular, rectangular grid or tesselation of space) and anticipates other coverage types defined in the OpenGIS Abstract Specification. This includes pixel and point grids, including aerial and satellite images and digital terrain models. Web Coverage Service provides access to intact (unrendered) geospatial information, as needed for client-side rendering, multi-valued coverages, and input into scientific models for advanced rendering and visualization clients." [Full context]

• [December 20, 2002]   US Library of Congress Releases Encoded Archival Description DTD Version 2002.    A posting from Randall K. Barry (U.S. Library of Congress) announces the release of the EAD DTD Version 2002. The Encoded Archival Description (EAD) standard is used by digital libraries to create machine-readable finding aids. Archival finding aids are "descriptive bibliography or metadata tools which take the form of inventories, registers, indexes, guides, and similar resources created by museums, libraries, repositories, and other kinds of archives." The Version 2002 EAD DTD "is designed to function as both an SGML and XML DTD. It conforms to SGML/XML specifications and has been thoroughly tested using a wide variety of existing SGML/XML software. To be used as an XML DTD, 'switches' have been included in the DTD for turning off features used only in SGML applications, and turning on features used in XML applications." Complete documentation for use of the EAD DTD is provided in the form of a Tag Library. The EAD DTD Version 2002 has been prepared by the Encoded Archival Description Working Group of the Society of American Archivists and the Network Development and MARC Standards Office of the Library of Congress. The MARC Standards Office (NDMSO) acts as the maintenance agency for the EAD standard. At least 75 institutions are registered as users of the EAD DTD. [Full context]

• [December 19, 2002]   UN/CEFACT ebXML Core Components Technical Specification Approved for Implementation Verification.    The UN/CEFACT Techniques and Methodology Group (TMG) recently approved the version 1.90 UN/CEFACT ebXML Core Components Technical Specification for Step 6 'Implementation Verification' as defined in the UN/CEFACT/TRADE/22 Open Development Process for Technical Specifications. The Step 6 verification review period "is the most critical part of the development process as problems and issues are identified; the editing group collects the problems and issues identified from the implementors in order to further refine and improve the specification." According to a posting from Mark Crawford, Editor of the UN/CEFACT Core Components specification, "the OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL), OAG, EAN-UCC, SWIFT, UN/CEFACT, ANSI ASC X12, and a host of other standards organizations are already using this new [Core Components] approach as the basis for building interoperable XML business standards; the Department of the Navy has included aspects of this specification in its XML Developers Guide, and it is referenced in the Federal XML Developers Guide as well." CCTS addresses the "lack of information interoperability between applications in the e-business arena. Traditionally, standards for the exchange of business data have been focused on static message definitions that have not enabled a sufficient degree of interoperability or flexibility. CCTS seeks to define a flexible and interoperable way of standardizing Business Semantics. The UN/CEFACT ebXML Core Component solution described in the CCTS specification presents a methodology for developing a common set of semantic building blocks that represent the general types of business data in use today and provides for the creation of new business vocabularies and restructuring of existing business vocabularies." [Full context]

• [December 18, 2002]   Microsoft and IBM Publish Six New Web Services Security and Policy Specifications.    Six new Web services specifications "aimed at advancing security capabilities and streamlining business policy for organizations implementing Web services" have been published by Microsoft and IBM, together with authorship contributions from BEA, RSA, and SAP. This second wave of security and policy specifications includes WS-SecurityPolicy, WS-Trust, WS-SecureConversation, WS-Policy, WS-PolicyAttachment, and WS-PolicyAssertions. "Using broadly accepted standards and specifications around Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), security, transactions and discovery, the new specifications represent the next step in delivering a comprehensive model of advanced Web services capabilities that integrate currently available technologies with the evolving requirements of emerging applications. IBM, Microsoft and industry partners are now delivering against a previously announced road map with six new specifications. Providing a framework that is extensible and flexible and maximizes existing investments in a Web services infrastructure, these new specifications make it easier to apply business policy and implement security for a wider range of applications." [Full context]

• [December 17, 2002]   W3C Publishes User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 as a Recommendation.    W3C has announced the release of the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 specification as a Recommendation, together with a companion document Techniques for User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. Written mainly for software developers, UAAG 1.0 "addresses requirements such as accessibility of the user interface, rendering of accessibility information, and user choice in configuring browsers and media players. These guidelines also address interoperability of mainstream browsers and multimedia players with assistive technologies used by people with disabilities. UAAG 1.0 is third in a complementary set of Web accessibility guidelines which already include the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0) and the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (ATAG 1.0). All three guidelines (UAAG, WCAG, ATAG) have been developed by W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Over the past five years WAI has become recognized as the leading international authority on Web accessibility, addressing accessibility issues for users with visual, auditory, physical, cognitive, and neurological disabilities through device-independent, multimodal design. Together these three WAI guidelines help Web developers deliver on the promise of a universal Web that is accessible to all. UAAG 1.0 addresses a variety of user agent types including HTML and XHTML browsers, multimedia players, graphics viewers, and assistive technologies. Software that conforms to UAAG 1.0 is expected to be more flexible, manageable, extensible, and beneficial to all users." [Full context]

• [December 17, 2002]   US National Coffee Association Creates XML Schemas for Global Trade.    In the interest of paperwork reduction, support of innovative trading relationships, and expeditious delivery of fresh coffee, the National Coffee Association of America has created XML Traffic Documents for the global coffee industry. In cooperation with ExImWare, Inc., NCA has developed "a set of XML formatted e-commerce documents for the Association's four coffee industry Standard Traffic Documents (Shipping Advice, Sample Order, Delivery Order and Invoice). In December 2001, NCA conducted a market survey that explored coffee industry's perception of where greater adoption of Internet technologies may benefit the trade; subsequently, supported by industry sponsorship, NCA has developed the draft coffee industry standard XML documents." NCA will present the XML Schemas to the trade in a January 2003 seminar. NCA anticipates that the use of coffee industry standard XML documents will promote more productive ways of generating and exchanging contract and traffic documents with suppliers and customers. [Full context]

• [December 16, 2002]   Creative Commons Project Offers RDF-Based Licenses for Rights Expression.    The Creative Commons Project has announced its first official product in the form of machine-readable copyright licenses which support a distributable, royalty-free, legally clear, XML-based mechanism for digital rights expression. Creative Commons licenses "allow copyright holders to easily inform others that their works are free for copying and other uses under specific conditions. The licenses cover several kinds of creative works, including websites, published scholarship, music, film, photography, literature, and courseware. Fundamental legal concepts that inspire Creative Commons are documented on the project website: the public domain, the commons, open content, and intellectual property conservancies. Creative Commons is working to provide simple RDF descriptions of its licenses. These descriptions will put the important points of the license in a way that makes it easy for machines to process and work from. Unlike Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology, which tries to restrict use of digital works, Creative Commons is providing ways to encourage permitted sharing and reuse of works." Users of the system select from a list of licenses or public domain dedications and receive support to express these declarations in three formats: "(1) a Commons Deed is a simple, plain-language summary of the license, with corresponding icons; (2) the Legal Code incorporates the fine print needed to fine-tune the copyright statements; (3) the Digital Code consists of a machine-readable translation of the license that helps search engines and other applications identify the work by its terms of use." [Full context]

• [December 11, 2002]   Sun Microsystems Contributes OpenOffice.org XML File Format Specification to TC.    A posting from Michael Brauer to the OASIS Open Office XML Format Technical Committee mailing list contains the OpenOffice.org XML file format specification and DTD files that Sun Microsystems, Inc. will contribute to the OASIS TC. The contribution will be discussed at the TC's first meeting on December 16, 2002. The XML specification consists of a 571-page OpenOffice.org XML File Format - Technical Reference Manual and 22 modularized XML DTD files. The design goal in the OpenOffice.org XML file format was to have a complete specification encompassing all OpenOffice.org components and to provide an open standard for office documents. The single XML format applies to a wide range of document types created by office tools. The specification is being made available to OASIS under a reciprocal Royalty-Free License, as explained in the communiqué. [Full context]

• [December 10, 2002]   Workflow Management Coalition Publishes XML Process Definition Language (XPDL) Version 1.0.    The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) has announced the release of its Workflow Standard XML Process Definition Language - XPDL 1.0. "Together with other WfMC standards, XPDL provides a framework for implementing business process management and workflow engines, and for designing, analyzing, and exchanging business processes. XPDL is the culmination of a fifteen-month effort by multiple vendors and users to provide a standard that satisfies the needs of diverse organizations. One of the key elements of the XPDL is its extensibility to handle information used by a variety of different tools. Based upon a limited number of entities that describe a workflow process definition ('Minimum Meta Model'), XPDL thus supports a number of differing approaches. The specification is intended for use by software vendors, system integrators, consultants and any other individual or organization concerned with the design, implementation, and analysis of business process management systems as well as with interoperability among workflow systems." [Full context]

• [December 10, 2002]   XML Encryption and Decryption Specifications Published as W3C Recommendations.    The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced the publication of XML Encryption Syntax and Processing and Decryption Transform for XML Signature as W3C Recommendations, signifying a "cross-industry agreement on an XML-based approach for securing XML data in a document. A W3C Recommendation indicates that a specification is stable, contributes to Web interoperability, and has been reviewed by the W3C Membership, who favor its widespread adoption." The Encryption document "specifies a process for encrypting data and representing the result in XML. The data may be arbitrary data (including an XML document), an XML element, or XML element content. The result of encrypting data is an XML Encryption element which contains or references the cipher data." The Decryption Recommendation "specifies an XML Signature 'decryption transform' that enables XML Signature applications to distinguish between those XML Encryption structures that were encrypted before signing (and must not be decrypted) and those that were encrypted after signing (and must be decrypted) for the signature to validate." [Full context]

• [December 09, 2002]   COSCA/NACM Joint Technology Committee Adopts LegalXML Electronic Court Filing Specifications.    A posting of 2002-12-08 from John M. Greacen to the OASIS LegalXML Electronic Court Filing TC announces that the COSCA/NACM Joint Technology Committee on 2002-12-05 adopted the TC's Electronic Court Filing Query and Response Standard and Electronic Court Filing 1.1 Proposed Standard XML specifications as Proposed Standards for public comment and experimental use. The LegalXML TC's proposed specifications are vetted through the US National Consortium for State Court Automation Standards, a subcommittee of the Joint Technology Committee of the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) and National Association for Court Management (NACM). The National Consortium further vets the Technical Committee's recommendations through a 'Joint Standards Development (JSD) Team' comprised of representatives of state and local courts and private sector service providers interested in and knowledgeable about electronic court filing." The draft Electronic Court Filing 1.1 Proposed Standard provides an XML DTD required for Court Filing, updated in light of agreements specified in 'Principles of XML Development for Justice and Public Safety.' The Electronic Court Filing Query and Response Standard "describes the metadata that would be required for electronic retrieval of information available from a court that complies with this standard and to detail the structure that information would have. It also supplies a set of standard queries that it highly recommends courts support to facilitate electronic filing." [Full context]

• [December 04, 2002]   OASIS Announces Formation of e-Gov Technical Committee.    OASIS announced that an e-Gov Technical Committee has been created, "providing an international forum for governments to voice their needs and requirements with respect to XML-based standards." The TC Chair will be John Borras (Assistant Director Interoperability and Infrastructure, Office of the e-Envoy, Cabinet Office, UK). "Bringing together government representatives from around the world, the OASIS e-Gov Technical Committee will support the modernization of government and assist in the electronic delivery of services to citizens and businesses through the coordination and adoption of XML standards. The OASIS e-Gov Technical Committee will identify and organize plans for the development of new standards. Their recommendations and requirements will be formally submitted to appropriate working groups within OASIS. New technical committees may be formed for needs that are not currently being addressed. Resources created through the TC will serve as a clearinghouse of information related to applicable specs/standards as well as activities and projects being conducted by Governments in the adoption of XML-based systems and standards." [Full context]

• [December 03, 2002]   IBM WebSphere Voice Application Access Supports VoiceXML.    IBM has announced the WebSphere Voice Application Access middleware product designed to simplify "building and managing voice portals and to more easily extend web-based portals to voice. Leveraging the scalability, personalization, and authentication features of IBM's WebSphere Portal, it enables mobile workers to more easily access information from multiple voice applications -- using a single telephone number. This new offering includes IBM's WebSphere Voice Server as well as ready-to-use email, personal information management (PIM) functions, and sample portlets. It also supports VoiceXML and Java -- including development tools based on Eclipse, the open-source, vendor-neutral platform for writing software -- and uses open-standard programming languages to create voice-enabled applications that will interoperate with a range of web servers and databases. Building on the VoiceXML standards allows IBM WebSphere Voice Application Access to work with third party browsers and their associated underlying speech recognition and text-to-speech technologies. As the VoiceXML 2.0 specification nears final approval, IBM WebSphere Voice Application Access will move quickly to support it." [Full context]

• [December 03, 2002]   ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement 2.0 Approved as OASIS Open Standard.    OASIS announced that its members have voted to approve the ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement (CPPA) Version 2.0 as an OASIS Open Standard. TC Chair Dale Moberg (Cyclone Commerce) said: "ebXML CPPA ensures interoperability between two parties, even organizations that use software from different sources. The CPP defines a party's message-exchange capabilities and the business collaborations that it supports. The CPA defines the way two business parties will interact in performing the chosen business collaborations." According to Brian Gibb (Sterling Commerce) the specification "addresses a major issue with the rapid deployment of Internet B2B e-commerce -- the absence of a standard definition of technical parameters for communication and security that business partners need to agree upon. Representing these configuration parameters in the standard format of the ebXML CPPA specification will greatly accelerate users' integration processes. In addition to this immediate value, version 2.0 of the specification sets the stage for the standardized CPA negotiation process to come." The OASIS technical commmittee was chartered to continue the work of ebXML on Collaboration Protocol Profiles (CPPs) and Collaboration Protocol Agreements (CPAs). [Full context]

• [December 03, 2002]   Last Call Working Draft for W3C Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML).    The W3C Voice Browser Working Group has released a Last Call Working Draft of the "Speech Synthesis Markup Language Version 1.0." This specification describes markup for generating synthetic speech via a speech synthesizer, and forms part of the proposals for the W3C Speech Interface Framework. The Voice Browser Working Group has sought to develop standards to enable access to the Web using spoken interaction. The Speech Synthesis Markup Language Specification is part of this 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 SSML markup language is to provide authors of synthesizable content a standard way to control aspects of speech such as pronunciation, volume, pitch, rate, etc. across different synthesis-capable platforms. SSML is based upon the JSGF and/or JSML specifications, which are owned by Sun Microsystems, Inc.; a related initiative to estabilish a standard system for marking up text input is SABLE." An informative Appendix B provides the XML DTD for SSML; the normative Appendix C defines the SSML XML Schema. [Full context]

• [November 27, 2002]   Aries Systems Proposes Submission and Manuscript Exchange Format (SMXF) for STM Publishing.    Aries Systems Corporation has announced a new initiative that would "formulate a publishing industry standard to support the exchange of scientific manuscripts between differing online manuscript tracking systems." The proposal calls for the creation of an XML-based, system-neutral standard for the exchange of manuscript metadata and content. The Submission and Manuscript Exchange Format (SMXF) would support the needs of Scientific, Technical and Medical (STM) journals publishers who "have identified that the Internet provides an excellent medium for the submission and tracking of scientific manuscripts. The broad adoption of such a standard would provide key benefits to STM publishers; for example, a journal would be able to download SMXF data from one conforming system, and upload it into another, thereby ensuring continuity of service and data security. The SMXF standard could also be used to build functionality, enabling cooperating journals to share in-process manuscripts even if they use systems from different vendors." The developers envision that SMXF standard would "build on top of existing XML initiatives such as PRISM and the Dublin Core by making additional provisions for in-process manuscript data such as reviewer commentary, status terms, and editor decision letters." [Full context]

• [November 26, 2002]   New OASIS Translation Web Services Technical Committee.    OASIS has issued a Call for Participation in a new Translation Web Services Technical Committee. The purpose of the Translation Web Services TC is "to define industry standard business process terminology which will then drive the development of an industry standard WSDL file and UDDI business service entries. The TC will define the service types that are relevent to the software/content localisation and translation industry. These will be defined and published within a specification with a public call for comment. A key objective of the Translation Web Services TC will be to establish a set of business process terminology that the software/content localisation and translation industries shall find to be comprehensive and complete. For example it is possible that a publisher would like a document translated and wants to use Web Services to achieve this. One vendor could use the text 'translation' for the translation task, another might use 'trans' another 'trns'. The TWS business process terminology specification will ensure that when a publisher submits a document to be translated they use one set of terminology that is universally understood by all vendors providing the service." The TC Chair is Peter Reynolds (Bowne Global Solutions). The first meeting of the TC is January 16, 2003. [Full context]

• [November 26, 2002]   W3C Announces New Generation of Markup Validator Tool.    A new version of the W3C Markup Validator tool has been released, available as source code and through an online forms-based interface. Maintained by members of the W3C QA Activity Team and external collaborators, the Markup Validator is a free service that checks documents like HTML and XHTML for conformance to W3C Recommendations and other standards. The forms allow one to enter a URI or to upload files from a local computer and have the documents validated. When using the simple form, the validator attempts to detect the document type and encoding automatically; the advanced interface allows one to specify the document type and encoding. The enhanced Markup Validator tool has improved and more accessible interfaces, support for more document types, better internationalization support, restructured code and design, and other features. Noteworthy changes and additions include: (1) Support for MathML is back in good shape; (2) Support for application/xhtml+xml; (3) Support for XHTML+MathML and XHTML+MathML+SVG; (4) Support for SVG and image/svg+xml; (5) Support for XHTML 1.0 Second Edition and XHTML 1.1. [Full context]

• [November 26, 2002]   Entrust Contributes Digital Signature Protocol Specifications to OASIS DSS TC.    A posting from Robert Zuccherato (Entrust) to the OASIS DSS TC list announces the contribution of three technical specifications from Entrust germane to the work of the OASIS Digital Signature Services Technical Committee. An X-KISS Extension for Digital Signature Verification defines an extension to the XKMS X-KISS protocol that supports the verification of digital signatures. The document Digital Signature Web Service Interface "describes an RPC interface for a centralized digital signature web service that enforces policy controls on who can request signatures for specific transactions. The signature is calculated using a private key owned by the web service for the purpose of producing an 'organization' signature. Thus, anyone within the organization authorized to obtain an 'organization' signature can obtain it simply by request to the web service." A third document Tokens and Protocol for the Temporal Integrity Markup Language (TIML) "defines an XML schema for a timestamping protocol. Its schema is based upon the RFC 3161 ASN.1 timestamping protocol, but uses the XML Signature standard for signature formatting." These three protocols developed at Entrust are believed to meet the requirements for three particular deliverables sketched in the TC's provisional Statement of Purpose. [Full context]

• [November 26, 2002]   ZING Initiative Publishes Search/Retrieve Web Service (SRW) Version 1.0.    A posting distributed on behalf of the Z39.50 Maintenance Agency announces the release of SRW and CQL Version 1.0 specifications. SRW (Search/Retrieve Web Service) protocol "aims to integrate access to various networked resources, and to promote interoperability between distributed databases, by providing a common utilization framework. SRW features both SOAP and URL-based access mechanisms to provide for a wide variety of possible clients ranging from Microsoft's .Net initiative to simple Javascript and XSLT transformations. It leverages the CQL query language which provides a powerful yet intuitive means to formulate searches. XCQL is the CQL query language expressed in an XML form, designed to be part of a SOAP structure; it encodes the structure of the CQL within 'searchClause' and 'triple' elements. The SRW protocol mandates the use of open and industry-supported standards XML and XML Schema, and where appropriate, XPath and SOAP. SRW has been developed by an international team, minimizing cross-language pitfalls and other potential internationalization problems. SRW defines a web service combining several Z39.50 features, most notably, the Search, Present, and Sort Services. Additional features/services may be added later or defined later as new web services. The SRW and CQL version 1.0 specifications will remain stable for a six- to nine-month implementation-experience period." [Full context]

• [November 21, 2002]   XMLA Advisory Council Announces XML for Analysis Specification Version 1.1.    Hyperion, Microsoft Corp., and SAS have announced "a new release of the XML for Analysis (XMLA) specification. XML for Analysis Specification Version 1.1 provides an updated specification and API standard for vendors to access multidimensional databases as a Web service. XML for Analysis provides a set of XML Message Interfaces that use the industry standard Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) to define the data access interaction between a client application and an analytical data provider (OLAP and data mining) working over the Internet. Version 1.1 is the first version of the XMLA specification to be created in conjunction with members of the XMLA Advisory Council, a standards group that was formed after Hyperion and Microsoft released XML for Analysis Specification Version 1.0 in 2001. The XMLA Advisory Council also announced that it has added seven new members. The new council members -- Crystal Decisions, INEA, MIS AG, MJM Consultant Corp., Panorama Software Systems, SAP AG and Silvon Software, Inc.-- bring additional analytics expertise to the group. Several member companies recently hosted an interoperability workshop in Vancouver, British Columbia (November 6-8, 2002) to demonstrate the new XMLA standard working on an open, integrating platform for the analytics and business intelligence marketplace. On May 13, 2003, some 20 member companies of the XML for Analysis (XMLA) Council will participate in the worlds first public XMLA interoperability demonstration at The Data Warehouse Institute World Conference in San Francisco, CA." [Full context]

• [November 21, 2002]   RELAX NG Compact Syntax Published as an OASIS Committee Specification.    The OASIS RELAX NG Technical Committee has released a committee specification for RELAX NG Compact Syntax. Edited by James Clark, the committee specification describes a compact, non-XML syntax for the RELAX NG Specification (OASIS Committee Specification 3-December-2001). The compact syntax is specified by a grammar in BNF; the translation into the XML syntax is specified by annotations in the grammar. "The goals of this compact syntax are to: (1) maximize readability; (2) support all features of RELAX NG -- it must be possible to translate a schema from the XML syntax to the compact syntax and back without losing significant information; (3) support separate translation -- a RELAX NG schema may be spread amongst multiple files, it must be possible to represent each of the files separately in the compact syntax, and the representation of each file must not depend on the other files. The compact syntax has similarities to W3C XQuery 1.0 Formal Semantics, to Regular Expression Types for XML (XDuce), and to the DTD syntax of XML 1.0. The body of the document contains an informal description of the syntax and how it maps onto the XML syntax. Developers should consult Appendix A for a complete, rigorous description. The non-normative Appendix B presents an example compact syntax RELAX NG schema for RELAX NG." [Full context]

• [November 20, 2002]   OpenTravel Alliance (OTA) Publishes XML Specification Version 2002B.    The OpenTravel Alliance (OTA) has announced a Version 2002B release of its Extensible Markup Language (XML) specification for public review and comment. OTA develops XML-based communications specifications to support the efficient and effective exchange of travel industry information via the Internet. This Version 2002B specification "expands on the messages previously published, offering additional opportunities for trading partners within the travel industry to communicate with one another." Messages have been re-defined according to OTA's published Best Practices Guidelines for all of its XML data assets. The general OTA guideline approach is "to maximize component (elements/attributes) reuse for the highly diverse and yet closely related travel industry data; this is accomplished by building messages via context-driven component assembly. The application of best practices design and the re-definition of the XML component constructs to the specification supports a path of seamless integration and enhanced interoperability within all disciplines of the travel sector. 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. Together with an OTA interoperability committee to coordinate WG efforts, the OTA working groups develop open Internet-compatible messages using XML." [Full context]

• [November 20, 2002]   W3C Releases New Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Specifications.    A communiqué from Chris Lilley (INRIA/Sophia-Antipolis, W3C Graphics Activity Lead) reports on the release of three W3C specifications for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). Both Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 Specification and Mobile SVG Profiles: SVG Tiny and SVG Basic have been been advanced to W3C Proposed Recommendations, and are open for comment through December 20, 2002. The specifications have been produced by members of the W3C SVG Working Group as part of the W3C Graphics Activity within the Document Formats Domain. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is "a language for describing two-dimensional graphics in XML. SVG allows for three types of graphic objects: vector graphic shapes (e.g., paths consisting of straight lines and curves), images and text. Graphical objects can be grouped, styled, transformed and composited into previously rendered objects. The feature set includes nested transformations, clipping paths, alpha masks, filter effects and template objects. SVG 1.1 separates the SVG language into reusable building blocks, while Mobile SVG re-combines them into two profiles optimized for cellphones and pocket computers." The W3C SVG Working Group has also released an initial public Working Draft of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.2. "Potential areas of new work identified in SVG 1.2 include integration with other XML formats, and text wrapping, printing, streaming, painting, rendering model, and DOM enhancements." [Full context]

• [November 19, 2002]   Liberty Alliance Releases Draft Version 1.1 Specifications for Public Review.    The Liberty Alliance Project has released a public review draft of its version 1.1 specifications. This maintenance update incorporates feedback received from members and non-members during the last three months. The version 1.1 document suite is the first to be issued by the Liberty Alliance for public input. The Liberty Alliance Project represents "an alliance of more than 130 technology and consumer organizations formed to develop and deploy open, federated network identification specifications that support all current and emerging network devices in the digital economy. Its specifications focus on enabling interoperability between technology systems to make it easy for businesses to provide opt-in account linking and simplified sign-on functionality to partners, customers and employees." The version 1.1 draft specification suite includes two XML Schema files corresponding to the Protocols and Schema Specification and the Authentication Context Specification. The Liberty Bindings and Profiles Specification defines concrete transport bindings and usage profiles for the abstract Liberty protocols. Supporting documents include an Overview, Glossary, and Implementation Guidelines. In addition to the editorial changes, the v1.1 specification fixes a vulnerability in a Liberty-enabled Client/Proxy Profile and includes minor enhancements to provide additional flexibility in the specifications for identity and service providers. The public review period extends through December 16, 2002. [Full context]

• [November 18, 2002]   IBM alphaWorks Releases Web Services Toolkit for Mobile Devices.    The IBM alphaWorks Web Services Tool Kit for Mobile Devices "provides tools and run-time environments that allow development of applications that use Web Services on small mobile devices. Its Java Web service run-time environment is supported on PoctketPC, Palm, and BlackBerry; the C Web service run-time environment is supported on the Palm." The Java toolkit version uses the kSOAP SOAP API built upon kXML, and implements a subset of the SOAP 1.2 specification. kXML provides "an XML pull parser and writer suitable for all Java platforms including the Java 2 Micro Edition (CLDC/MIDP/CDC); because of its small footprint size, it is especially suited for Applets or Java appications running on mobile devices like Palm Pilots or MIDP enabled cell phones." The C implementation uses gSOAP compiler tools which "provide a unique SOAP/XML-to-C/C++ language binding to ease the development of SOAP/XML Web services and clients in C and/or C++; gSOAP is an application-centric low-memory-overhead toolset suitable for Web service and client executables." [Full context]

• [November 16, 2002]   ISO SC34 Publishes Draft Reference Model for Topic Maps (RM4TM).    A posting from Steven R. Newcomb announces the availability of a first public draft of The Reference Model for Topic Maps (RM4TM), produced by members of the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC34 Topic Map Models Project. The Reference Model defines "an abstract graph structure for the representation of relationships between subjects, rules for defining Applications of the Topic Maps paradigm, and rules for processing the information contained in topic maps. The primary objective of the Topic Maps paradigm is to make everything known about every subject accessible from a single location." In Newcomb's summary, the draft document "shows how to regard any data content notation, database schema, etc., as a topic map notation, so that its knowledge content can be automatically and losslessly amalgamated with all other kinds of knowledge content into a comprehensive topic map that honors the Subject Location Uniqueness Objective. The Subject Location Uniqueness Objective is to have one single subject per node, and for every participating subject to have one single node, even after any number of diverse topic maps have been merged together." ISO SC34 is also creating two new topic map standards: ISO 18048 "Topic Maps Query Language (TMQL)" provides a kind of SQL (or XML Query) for topic maps; ISO 19756 "Topic Maps Constraint Language (TMCL)" provides a schema or constraint language for use in constraining what is allowable to say in the topic map. [Full context]

• [November 15, 2002]   W3C Patent Policy Working Group Issues Last Call Royalty-Free Patent Policy Working Draft.    The W3C has released a last call working draft for the Patent Policy Working Group Royalty-Free Patent Policy. The draft policy "governs the handling of patents in the process of producing and implementing W3C Recommendations." Comments from W3C members and the public are invited during the Last Call review period, which ends on 31-December-2002. From the announcement: "The primary goal of the W3C Patent Policy Working Draft is to enable W3C Recommendations to be implemented on a royalty-free basis, and to encourage disclosure by both W3C Members and others when they are aware of patents -- their own or others -- that may be essential to the implementation of W3C Recommendations. In simple terms, all who participate in the development of a W3C Recommendation must agree to license essential claims (patents that block interoperability) on a royalty-free (RF) basis. Patent disclosures are required for W3C Working Group participants and anyone else who sees the technical drafts and is aware of patents that may be essential. The Working Group has developed a process for resolving disputes in the event patent claims are identified that are not available royalty-free. Options including designing around the patents, investigating the validity of the patents, or transitioning the work to another organization that is willing to produce RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory terms) standards. The Policy does not require giving up one's entire patent portfolio; it concerns only those patent claims that are essential to implement a standard that one participates in developing at W3C. W3C is clear in aiming to solve a specific problem -- to remove the threat of blocking patents on key components of Web infrastructure." [Full context]

• [November 13, 2002]   BPMI.org Publishes BPML 1.0 and Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) Working Draft.    The Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org) has announced the release of the final draft for the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML 1.0) and the first public working draft for the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). The two business process management (BPM) specifications are made publicly available under royalty-free terms, and are represented as offering "the first business process modeling language to provide a graphical notation that can be used by business analysts for the modeling of executable and manageable business processes." The Business Process Modeling Language (BPML) specification "provides an abstract model for expressing business processes and supporting entities. BPML defines a formal model for expressing abstract and executable processes that address all aspects of enterprise business processes, including activities of varying complexity, transactions and their compensation, data management, concurrency, exception handling and operational semantics." The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) specification "provides a graphical notation for expressing business processes in a Business Process Diagram (BPD). The objective of BPMN is to support process management by both technical users and business users by providing a notation that is intuitive to business users yet able to represent complex process semantics. The BPMN specification also provides a mapping between the graphics of the notation to underlying the constructs of execution languages, such as BPEL4WS and BPML." [Full context]

• [November 12, 2002]   W3C XForms 1.0 Advances to Candidate Recommendation Status.    The W3C XForms Working Group published a Candidate Recommendation version of the XForms 1.0 specification. XForms 1.0 "provides a new platform-independent markup language for online interaction between a person (through an XForms Processor) and another, usually remote, agent. XForms is an XML application that represents the next generation of forms for the Web. By splitting traditional XHTML forms into three parts -- XForms model, instance data, and user interface -- it separates presentation from content, allows reuse, gives strong typing -- reducing the number of round-trips to the server, as well as offering device independence and a reduced need for scripting. XForms is not a free-standing document type, but is intended to be integrated into other markup languages, such as XHTML or SVG. The Candidate Recommendation provides an opportunity for these changes to be reflected in implementations, and for the XForms Working Group to collect test cases and information about implementations. The WG expects that sufficient feedback to determine its future will have been received by 05-March-2003." [Full context]

• [November 12, 2002]   Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) Version 1.0 an OASIS Open Standard.    The OASIS membership recently voted to approve version 1.0 of the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) as an OASIS standard. SAML is "an XML-based framework for Web services that allows the exchange of authentication and authorization information among business partners. SAML enables Web-based security interoperability functions, such as single sign-on, across sites hosted by multiple companies. SAML incorporates industry-standard protocols and messaging frameworks, such as XML Signature, XML Encryption, and SOAP. The specification can be easily integrated in standard environments such as HTTP and standard Web browsers. Likewise, other security environments can use SAML as an authentication and authorization layer. SAML complements Web services standards, such as SOAP, which lack inherent security features. The OASIS Web Services Security Technical Committee, for example, is profiling SAML as one of its set of security tokens." [Full context]

• [November 12, 2002]   Processing XML with Java: A Guide to SAX, DOM, JDOM, JAXP, and TrAX.    Addison-Wesley has published Elliotte Rusty Harold's substantial volume Processing XML with Java: A Guide to SAX, DOM, JDOM, JAXP, and TrAX, also provided online by the author. "Written for Java programmers who want to integrate XML into their systems, this practical, comprehensive guide and reference shows how to process XML documents with the Java programming language. It leads experienced Java developers beyond the basics of XML, allowing them to design sophisticated XML applications and parse complicated documents. Processing XML with Java provides a brief review of XML fundamentals, including XML syntax: DTDs, schemas, and validity; stylesheets; and the XML protocols XML-RPC, SOAP, and RSS. The core of the book comprises in-depth discussions on the key XML APIs Java programmers must use to create and manipulate XML files with Java. These include the Simple API for XML (SAX), the Document Object Model (DOM), and JDOM (a Java native API). In addition, the book covers many useful supplements to these core APIs, including XPath, XSLT, TrAX, and JAXP. The book supplies over two hundred examples that demonstrate how to accomplish various important tasks related to file formats, data exchange, document transformation, and database integration. The reader will learn how to read and write XML documents with Java code, convert legacy flat files into XML documents, communicate with network servers that send and receive XML data, and much more." [Full context]

• [November 11, 2002]   OASIS Members Form Tax XML Technical Committee.    A new OASIS 'Tax XML' Technical Committee is being formed to "focus on developing a common vocabulary that will allow participants to unambiguously identify the tax related information exchanged within a particular business context. The Tax XML TC will begin by creating a framework for ongoing development of a robust Tax vocabulary, the XML artifacts and a repository for managing these definitions, and documentation. It is expected that a subset of the overall tax information arena will be selected for the greatest return on investment and will be expanded as appropriate. Eventually, it is expected that working groups and possibly additional TCs will be formed to address an expanded scope of tax information... Tax XML will rely heavily on incorporating the XML standards that are defined for the common business vocabulary. Since tax related information spans many business interests and is mostly either an extension of common business documents or a repackaging of business information for tax compliance documents, any existing or in progress standards for business information will be examined and incorporated as appropriate. It is expected that this coordination and collaboration will be conducted with XBRL (The Extensible Business Reporting Language), and other leading initiatives as needed." [Full context]

• [November 11, 2002]   W3C Publishes XML-Signature XPath Filter 2.0 as W3C Recommendation.    The XML-Signature XPath Filter 2.0 specification produced by the IETF/W3C XML Signature Working Group has been released in its final publication stage as a W3C Recommendation. The Working Group "believes the specification is sufficient for the creation of independent interoperable implementations as demonstrated in the Interoperability Report. The XML Signature Recommendation (XML-Signature Syntax and Processing) defines standard means for specifying information content to be digitally signed, including the ability to select a portion of an XML document to be signed using an XPath transform. The XML-Signature XPath Filter 2.0 specification 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, a sequence of XPath expressions is used to select the roots of document subtrees -- location sets, in the language of XPointer -- which are combined using set intersection, subtraction and union, and then used to filter the input node-set." [Full context]

• [November 09, 2002]   OpenI18N Announces Common XML Locale Specification.    An announcement from the OpenI18N (Free Standards Group Open Internationalization Initiative) describes the release of an XML specification for common XML locale data, available from the Common XML Locale Repository project. The goal of the Common XML Locale Repository project "is to devise a general XML format for the exchange of culturally sensitive (locale) information for use in application and system development, and to gather, store, and make available data generated in that format." The XML specification has been produced by members of the LADE (Linux Application Development Environment) Workgroup. A Locale Data Markup Language specification describes an XML vocabulary for the exchange of structured locale data. Source files containing locale/culture information are converted to be compliant to the Common Locale XML specification, validated by the accompanying Common Locale XML DTD. The LADE Workgroup "has finalized the XML specification of the culture information data to be shared by the application developers creating globalized software. It is also in the process of creating a set of modular standards such that the culture information repertoire can be used based on one or more components or as a whole, depending on the end users' needs." [Full context]

• [November 08, 2002]   W3C Publishes Guide to the Web Ontology Language (OWL).    The W3C Web Ontology Working Group has produced a Version 1.0 working draft document Web Ontology Language (OWL) Guide documenting key concepts and uses of the OWL language. Building upon the foundations of the DAML+OIL specification, the W3C Web Ontology Language (OWL) "is intended to provide a language that can be used to describe the classes and relations between them that are inherent in Web documents and applications. The new Guide demonstrates the use of the OWL language (1) to formalize a domain by defining classes and properties of those classes, (2) to define individuals and assert properties about them, and (3) to reason about these classes and individuals to the degree permitted by the formal semantics of the OWL language. Document sections are organized to present an incremental definition of a set of classes, properties and individuals, beginning with the fundamentals and proceeding to more complex language components." The development of the Web Ontology Language is motivated by a recognition that the World Wide Web "as it is currently constituted resembles a poorly mapped geography. Our insight into the documents and capabilities available are based on keyword searches, abetted by clever use of document connectivity and usage patterns. The sheer mass of this data is unmanageable without powerful tool support. In order to map this terrain more precisely, computational agents require machine-readable descriptions of the content and capabilities of web accessible resources. These descriptions must be in addition to the human-readable versions of that information." [Full context]

• [November 08, 2002]   Public Review for OASIS Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) Specification.    Members of the OASIS Extensible Access Control Markup Language Technical Committee recently approved a version 1.0 Committee Specification for the XACML specification and voted to move the document forward for standardization. The motivation behind XACML is to express well-established ideas in the field of access-control policy using an extension language of XML. The XACML specification defines an XML schema consistent with this goal. The XACML 1.0 Committee Specification is now "undergoing a public review period in preparation for submission to OASIS for consideration as an OASIS Standard; the public review period will extend from Friday, November 8, 2002 until Sunday, December 8, 2002 (inclusive)." [Full context]

• [November 07, 2002]   IEEE Computer Special Issue on Web Services Computing.    The IEEE Computer Society has issued a call for papers in connection with a special issue of Computer dedicated to Web Services Computing. IEEE "invites articles relating to integration architectures for Web Services and/or application case studies that use Web Services technology." This issue will be guest edited by co-chairs of the IEEE Computer Society Task Force on Electronic Commerce (TFEC). The special issue will be published August 2003. Papers should be submitted by January 15, 2003 and may address any of these topics: (1) Web Services architecture and security; Frameworks for building Web Service applications; Composite Web Service creation and enabling infrastructures; (2) Web Services discovery; Resource management for web services; Solution Management for Web Services; (3) Dynamic invocation mechanisms for Web Services; Quality of service for Web Services; Web Services modeling; UDDI enhancements; SOAP enhancements; (4) Case studies for Web Services; E-Commerce applications using Web Services; Grid based Web Services applications." [Full context]

• [November 05, 2002]   PKI Forum Continues Security Advocacy as an OASIS PKI Member Section.    OASIS has announced the expansion of its Member Section Program to include the PKI Forum. The newest OASIS Member Section, PKI Forum "will continue to advance the use of the Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI) as a foundation for secure transactions in e-business and Web services applications. As a security advocacy group, the PKI Forum brings technology and service providers, integrators and end-users together to accelerate the adoption and use of PKI applications, digital certificates and other real world solutions, as well as to facilitate interoperability through multi-vendor testing of industry standards and educational outreach. Established in 1999, PKI Forum serves as a global information resource for PKI and advocates cooperation and market awareness enabling organizations to understand and exploit the value of PKI in applications relevant to their businesses. Under the new organizational structure, members of PKI Forum will join OASIS and be eligible to contribute to all OASIS technical work. Existing OASIS members will have the option to participate in PKI committee activities without additional membership dues. PKI committees will be formed and operate under the OASIS technical process. The PKI Forum Executive Board will continue to guide the alliance as the OASIS PKI Member Section Steering Committee. Members include Derek Brink of RSA Security, Peter Doyle of Baltimore Technologies, John Sabo of Computer Associates, Mitch Arnone of Schlumberger Network Solutions, Patrick Gen Kanaishi of Neucom, Terry Leahy of Wells Fargo, and Jeff Stapleton of KPMG." [Full context]

• [November 05, 2002]   UK e-GIF Publishes XML Schemas For Use in Local Elections.    XML Schemas for use in local elections have been published as part of the UK e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF). These XML Schemas have undergone public consultation and have been agreed by the Office of the e-Envoy. The Schemas represent a UK adaptation of the EML International Schema developed by the OASIS Election and Voter Services Technical Committee. The distribution contains some 33 XML Schema (.xsd) files and an overview document EML: Customisation for UK Local Elections. The specification includes an introduction on (optional) validation of EML-UK document using Schematron schemas. [Full context]

• [November 04, 2002]   OASIS Technical Committee for Open Office XML File Format.    OASIS has issued a Call for Participation in a new 'Open Office XML Format Technical Committee'. The TC members intend to create an open, XML-based file format specification for office applications. Michael Brauer (Sun Microsystems) will chair the TC. The proposed XML file format is to be "suitable for office documents containing text, spreadsheets, charts, and graphical documents." It will be compatible XML v1.0 and W3C Namespaces. The file format will "retain high-level information suitable for editing the document and keep the document's content and layout information separate such that they can be processed independently of each other." For interoperability, it must be "friendly to transformations using XSLT or similar XML-based languages or tools. The design will borrow from similar, existing standards wherever possible and permitted. Since the OpenOffice.org XML format specification meets these criteria and has proven its value in real life, this TC will use it as the basis for its work. Sun Microsystems intends to contribute the OpenOffice.org XML Format to this TC at the first meeting of the TC, under reciprocal Royalty Free terms. TC work will be done in two phases, each resulting in a Committee Specification that includes (1) a set of XML DTDs/schemas setting the vocabulary, constraints and semantics of the file format in question, and (2) a set of written specifications that describe the elements and attributes of the DTDs/schemas in plain English." [Full context]

• [November 04, 2002]   IETF Charters Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) Working Group.    A posting from Pete Resnick announces that IETF's Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) approved the charter for a new Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) Working Group. XMPP is "an open, XML-based protocol for near real-time extensible messaging and presence. It is the core protocol of the Jabber Instant Messaging and Presence technology which is currently deployed on thousands of servers across the Internet and is used by millions of people worldwide. The XMPP working group will adapt the XMPP for use as an IETF Instant Messaging and Presence technology." Three IETF Internet Drafts for XMPP will serve as a basis for the deliverables of the IETF working group: XMPP Core describes the core features XMPP which is used by the servers, clients, and other applications that comprise the Jabber network; XMPP Instant Messaging describes the specific extensions necessary to create a basic instant messaging and presence application; XMPP CPIM Mapping describes a mapping of XMPP to the IETF Common Presence and Instant Messaging specification. "The main focus of the Working Group will be on XML streams (including stream-level security and authentication), the core data elements (<message/>, <presence/>, and <iq/>), and the namespaces required to achieve basic instant messaging and presence." [Full context]

• [November 01, 2002]   IBM Infoprint XML Extender for z/OS Supports XSL Stylesheets and XSL-FO.    A communiqué from Bob Schloss (IBM) reports on the availability of software to perform "high quality printing of XML documents using XSL stylesheets and the XSL-FO vocabulary, using the existing AFP (Advanced Function Printing) support for z/OS. The Infoprint XML Extender for z/OS enables XML applications to be printed on AFP printers using standard XSL formatting. AFP is the de facto standard solution for mission critical business output in many large enterprises. Producing an AFP document from XML data is a two-step process. First the XML document is transformed using an XSL style sheet into an intermediate XML document, referred to as an XSL Formatting Object (XSL-FO) document. The XSL-FO document is then composed by Infoprint XML Extender into an AFP document. Because of this two step process, Infoprint XML Extender can accommodate either XML documents with companion XSL style sheets or XSL-FO documents as input into the production of AFP, providing a highly flexible formatting solution for XML-based applications." [Full context]

• [October 29, 2002]   OASIS Members Propose TC for User Interface Markup Language (UIML).    An OASIS technical committee for User Interface Markup Language (UIML) is being formed based upon a proposal from interested members. The purpose of the TC "is to develop a specification for an abstract meta-language that can provide a canonical XML representation of any user interface (UI); the language should be capable of specifying the requirements, design, and implementation of any UI. The committee will use the UIML version 3.0 specification created by Virginia Tech's Center for Human Computer Interaction, Harmonia, Inc., and other organizations on uiml.org as a starting point" for the TC work. According to the announcement, a "general motivation for a canonical UI representation language is to accelerate the development of tools for UI development. If practitioners from these fields build tools with UIML, then the tools can interoperate. Just as XML made toolbuilders more efficient (because tools built for XML work for any XML vocabulary), so can UIML make UI toolbuilders more efficient (because tools built for UIML work for any vocabulary representing any concrete UI implementation language). Thus the TC's work will serve to assemble the jigsaw puzzle pieces of UI and HCI technology that have been created." [Full context]

• [October 29, 2002]   Diffuse Final Conference Focuses on Web Services, Grid Services, and Semantic Web.    A communiqué from Martin Bryan (Technical Manager, The Diffuse Project) announces the program for the Diffuse Final Conference, to be held December 12, 2002 in Brussels. The conference title is: "Convergence of Web Services, Grid Services and the Semantic Web for Delivering e-Services?" Organized by the IST Diffuse Project and hosted by the European Commission, the conference will feature keynote presentations by Erkki Liikanen (Member of the European Commission responsible for Enterprise and Information Society), Carl Kesselman (a Founder of the Grid), Bruce Perens (Primary Author of the Open Source Definition), and Guus Schreiber (Co-Chair, W3C Web Ontology WG). Vendors' Perspectives will be presnted by David Orchard (BEA Systems), Steve Holbrook (IBM), and Simon Phipps (Sun Microsystems). "The conference will review, explore and discuss the strategic issues concerning and surrounding the three interrelated technologies of Web Services, Grid Services and the Semantic Web from a broad perspective. It will identify their synergies or otherwise, examine the drivers for development and implementations, chart current development paths and debate likely future directions." [Full context]

• [October 29, 2002]   CIMI Consortium Releases SPECTRUM XML Schema Version 1.5 for Testing.    The Consortium for Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI) has announced a public release of the Version 1.5 CIMI XML Schema for SPECTRUM, together with an implementation and testing forum. CIMI is a consortium of cultural heritage institutions and organizations that encourages open, standards-based approaches to creating and sharing digital information. The CIMI Schema for SPECTRUM enables the XML encoding of individual items in museum collections, across the full scope of Edition 2 of SPECTRUM: The UK Museum Documentation Standard. The Schema v1.5 release includes CIMI XML Schema for SPECTRUM: Supporting Documentation. Section 5.1 of this document describes the test-bed datasets which demonstrate the potential of the CIMI Schema to encode data from a wide range of museum collections. Examples are provided. Section 5.2 supplies guidance on the use of the XML Schema within specific areas. "The examples illustrate areas of the Schema relating to complex issues in the description of museum objects. Implementers requiring further details are invited to post queries on the XML Discussion List, where CIMI staff and members will be happy to respond." [Full context]

• [October 25, 2002]   Sun Secure Trading Agent Technology Preview Supports ebXML MS and CPA.    Sun Microsystems has announced a Technology Preview for the Sun ONE Integration Server Secure Trading Agent (STA). STA Version 1.0 Beta "implements a standards-based, secure, reliable system that provides for the exchange of business documents between trading partners, according to an agreement between the trading partners. This support for electronic business transactions is based on emerging ebXML standards, which are geared toward helping small to medium-sized companies use the Internet for conducting business transactions with their trading partners. This version supports both the ebXML Message Service Specification v2.0 and ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement Specification v2.0. This Beta release of Secure Trading Agent enforces the following security measures specified in an ebXML agreement: (1) Transport Security: Security measures for the transport of ebXML messages, including business documents attached to the message. Transport security can be implemented using a combination of secure transport protocols (such as SSL), digital certificates, and digital signatures. (2) Document Security: The encryption and digital signing of business documents attached to an ebXML message, providing measures for authentication, data integrity, and confidentiality. (3) Authorization: Verification by Secure Trading Agent that persons acting in roles for parties are authorized to perform those roles. Authorization of user roles is not implemented in the Beta release of Secure Trading Agent. (4) Nonrepudiation: A guarantee that a message arrives and also a guarantee of the contents of the message. Nonrepudiation includes being able to provide a history of transactions for auditing purposes and proof of delivery for each transaction." [Full context]

• [October 24, 2002]   Microsoft XSD Inference Tool Creates Schemas from XML Instances.    A posting from Dare Obasanjo announces the availability of a Microsoft XSD Inference utility. The Beta 1 XSD Inference Tool "is used to create an XML Schema definition language (XSD) schema from an XML instance document. The input must be a well-formed XML instance document, and not an XML fragment. The output is an XML schema that can validate the instance document. When provided with well-formed XML file, the utility generates an XSD that can be used to validate that XML file. You can also refine the XSD generated by providing the tool more well-formed XML files." An interface to the tool is available online, and a binaries may be downloaded for use with Microsoft .Net Frameworks. For the online version, the total size of the file must not exceed 1 MB. Related utilities from the Microsoft 'GotDotNet' XML Tools Team include the Microsoft XML Diff and Patch tool and an XSD Schema Validator. [Full context]

• [October 24, 2002]   Sun Microsystems Announces Java Architecture for XML Binding Beta Implementation.    Sun Microsystems has announced the availability of a JAXB beta Reference Implementation, version 0.75 Public Draft Specification, API documentation, and User's Guide. JAXB (Java Architecture for XML Binding) "provides an API and tools that automate the mapping between XML documents and Java objects. It is a Java technology that enables you to generate Java classes from XML schemas, providing an efficient and standard way to map between XML and Java code. With JAXB, you can quickly bind XML schemas to Java representations, making it easy to incorporate XML data and processing functions in your Java applications. JAXB makes XML easy to use by compiling an XML schema into one or more Java technology classes. The combination of the schema derived classes and the binding framework enable one to perform the following operations on an XML document: (1) unmarshal XML content into a Java representation; (2) access, update and validate the Java representation against schema constraint; (3) marshal the Java representation of the XML content into XML content. The current specification release provides several enhancements, including support for a subset of W3C XML Schema and XML Namespaces, more flexible unmarshalling and marshalling functionality, and validation process enhancements." [Full context]

• [October 22, 2002]   Enhanced Adobe Document Servers Support XML-Based Workflow and Digital Signature Facilities.    Adobe Systems has announced a new server and solutions product line, including Adobe Document Server and Adobe Document Server for Reader Extensions. The Adobe Document Server automates the production of complex Adobe PDF documents by assembling XML data with professionally formatted templates incorporating rich visual content. By using form fields that are defined in Adobe PDF documents, Document Server supports the customization of documents down to the individual user. With the Adobe Document Server for Reader Extensions, "agencies can automate electronic forms and document processes -- reducing reliance on inefficient paper-based workflows. They can give their constituents the ability to apply digital signatures using industry-standard technologies, and finally submit the filled-in form electronically, completely eliminating paper from the forms workflow. Completed Adobe PDF forms and forms data in the Extensible Markup Language (XML) can also be easily integrated with an organization's backend systems to enable round-trip transactional workflows." [Full context]

• [October 21, 2002]   EAN.UCC Global Data Dictionary (GDD) Supports Standards Development Framework.    The EAN.UCC Global Data Dictionary (GDD) was recently announced by EAN International and the Uniform Code Council (UCC) as a new tool providing a common framework for global standards development. "Developed by the UCC, EAN International, and global users representing a wide range of industries, the GDD is a relational database of names, terms, and definitions that support the standards of the EAN.UCC System. This online repository supports the definitions and references associated with all data components and entities of EAN.UCC standards. The GDD also supports cross-reference to external standards organization entities, including ebXML, X12, and EANCOM. The dictionary will provide a foundational information tool for the EAN.UCC Global Standards Management Process, which provides a single-pass source for the development of open, global standards for users of the EAN.UCC System. By providing a clear and common framework, the dictionary will help eliminate ambiguity from the terms used in EAN.UCC business messages and XML standards. The development of new e-business standards by EAN and UCC has created a critical need to store, reuse and share precise core components and business definitions and their equivalent representations in targeted standards such as EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), XML (Extensible Markup Language), or AIDC (Automatic Identification and Data Capture). The EAN.UCC Global Data Dictionary functions as a core components repository for this data. The dictionary provides a single, global source for the names, terms, and definitions that support EAN.UCC standards and will greatly enhance the ability of users to understand and implement the standards." [Full context]

• [October 18, 2002]   Web Services Interoperability Organization Publishes Basic Profile Version 1.0.    WS-I (Web Services Interoperability Organization) has released a working group draft specification for WS-I Basic Profile Version 1.0. Produced by the WS-I's Basic Profile Working Group, the document defines the WS-I Basic Profile, consisting of a set of non-proprietary Web services specifications, along with clarifications to those specifications which promote interoperability. The Basic Profile "dictates how a selected set of specified Web services technologies should be used together in an interoperable manner. They are: (1) Messaging -- the exchange of protocol elements, usually over a network, to effect a Web service; (2) Description -- the enumeration of the messages associated with a Web service, along with implementation details; (3) Discovery -- metadata that enables the advertisement of a Web service's capabilities; (4) Security -- mechanisms that provide integrity, privacy, authentication and authorization functions. The profile mandates the use of a particular technology (or technologies), when appropriate, for each of these components." [Full context]

• [October 18, 2002]   ComCARE Alliance Publishes XML-Based Emergency Incident Data Set Recommendation.    An announcement from the ComCARE Alliance (Communications for Coordinated Assistance and Response to Emergencies) reports on the completion of a recommended data set for electronic emergency incident data. The draft vehicular emergency incident data set recommendation was produced by the ComCARE Alliance Automatic Crash Notification (ACN) Data Set Working Group. The data set is designed to enable the electronic flow of emergency information from telematics service providers to multiple public safety agencies, hospitals, transportation agencies, and EMTs dispatched to the incident scene. "More than 20 organizations participated in the development effort, including safety leaders of the Northern Shenandoah Valley Initiative, OnStar, ATX Technologies, the National Emergency Number Association (NENA), the National Association of State EMS Directors, the National Academies of Emergency Dispatch (NAED), and others. The participation and leadership of OnStar and ATX represents more than 95 percent of the existing telematics market. The ComCARE Working Group will now present the data set to numerous other safety and medical organizations, government, companies, and standards development organizations that may be interested in the topic. The Working Group plans to work with these groups to get their input and endorsement of the data set and begin discussing implementation. Once implemented by users, the data set will enable efficient, national electronic transmission of crash and other emergency information from telematics service providers, as well as other data from emergency response agency and private sources related to vehicular emergencies." [Full context]

• [October 18, 2002]   International Press Telecommunications Council Approves NewsML Version 1.1 Specification.    A posting from David Allen announces the approval of the NewsML Version 1.1 specification by the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC). A revised XML DTD and XML Schema are available on the project website. The NewsML Schema Version 1.1 represents the same document structure as the NewsML DTD version 1.1; in addition it provides control over element and attribute content in accordance with the NewsML Specification. IPTC has also published an updated V1.1 NewsML Functional Specification and IPTC NewsML NewsAgency Implementation Guidelines document. NewsML is "a compact, extensible and flexible structural framework for news, based on XML and other appropriate standards and specifications. It supports the representation of electronic news items, collections of such items, the relationships between them, and their associated metadata. It allows for the provision of multiple representations of the same information, and handles arbitrary mixtures of media types, formats, languages and encodings. It supports all stages of the news lifecycle and allows the evolution of news items over time. Though media-independent, NewsML provides specific mechanisms for handling text. It allows the provenance of both metadata and news content to be asserted." [Full context]

• [October 17, 2002]   IBM alphaWorks Releases WSDL Explorer Web Application.    The IBM alphaWorks developers have released a Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Explorer to assist in analyzing candidate web services. It is available as an online viewer and as a standalone application. The WSDL Explorer "is a Web application that displays WSDL files, generates views of operations, allows invocation of operations, and allows viewing of sample message flow. It enables users to compare and contrast Web services without going through the time and trouble of importing them into a heavy development tool. WSDL Explorer provides the ability to browse WSDL files, and it offers immediate access to Web service operations. WSDL Explorer displays the port types and operations as a tree in a navigation frame, and it displays a form view for a selected operation in a content frame. Data may be put in the form view and the operation invoked. Formatted results are displayed in an output frame. WSDL Explorer also displays the actual request and response messages. The WSDL Explorer is an innovative application of dynamic HTML combined with JSP technology. WSDL files are analyzed on the server; however, all tree navigation and operation invocation takes place on the client using JavaScript. Because all SOAP requests come from the client, this approach prevents an organization's servers from unwittingly participating in a denial-of-service attack." [Full context]

• [October 16, 2002]   OASIS Members Propose Digital Signature Services Technical Committee.    Representatives from five OASIS corporate members (Entrust, Datum, NIST, webMethods, TIBCO) have proposed the creation of a new Digital Signature Services Technical Committee to develop techniques to support the processing of digital signatures. According to the proposal, the OASIS DSS technical committee will "define an interface for requesting that a web service produce and/or verify a digital signature on a given piece of data and techniques for proving that a signature was created within its private key validity period. The TC will develop a protocol for a digital signature creation web service. Providing digital signatures via such a web service facilitates policy-based control of the provision of the signatures. The TC will also develop a protocol for a centralized digital signature verification web service that can verify signatures in relation to a given policy set. Finally, the TC will develop an XML-based protocol to produce cryptographic time stamps that can be used for determing whether or not a signature was created within the associated public key's validity period or before revocation. This is required as part of the signature verification algorithm." Robert Zuccherato of Entrust Inc. will serve as the DSS TC Chair. [Full context]

• [October 16, 2002]   W3C Publishes Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.1 as a Candidate Recommendation.    W3C has released Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.1 as a Candidate Recommendation specification, signifying "that the document is believed to be stable, and to encourage implementation by the developer community. The specification addresses Unicode, control character, and line ending issues. Everything that is not forbidden is permitted in XML 1.1 names." XML 1.1 was known earlier as 'XML Blueberry'. The document "takes the form of a series of alterations to the XML 1.0 Recommendation, and its numbered sections correspond to those of the XML 1.0 Recommendation. Sections of that Recommendation that do not appear in this document remain unchanged in XML 1.1. It is likely that the final XML 1.1 Recommendation will take the form of an integral revision of the XML 1.0 specification." Interoperable implementations are being sought, and the W3C XML Core Working Group invites public comment on the draft. [Full context]

• [October 15, 2002]   Storage Vendors Announce CIM Product Rollout and Joint Interoperability Testing.    Four storage vendors have announced a new coordinated effort "dedicated to the promotion and progress of SNIA's Common Information Model (CIM), Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) technology, and Storage Management Initiative (SMI) specifications for Storage Area Network (SAN)-based storage management. As part of this effort, the four companies are also announcing their individual plans to roll out CIM/WBEM-based products in calendar year 2003. CIM/WBEM has been endorsed by SNIA as the technology to help enable simplified multi-vendor management of storage networks. Hitachi Data Systems, IBM, Sun, and VERITAS are active members of SNIA and contributed to drafting the SNIA-adopted Bluefin/SMI specifications. These specifications define how CIM technology is used to manage storage environments. The companies are also actively encouraging all other storage vendors to join them in supporting CIM/WBEM standards. Participating companies would be expected to: (1) Ship CIM/WBEM based storage management software commercially in calendar year 2003; (2) Support the emerging SMI specifications endorsed by SNIA; (3) Make their CIM Providers (SMI Agents) available to others for testing; (4) Conduct joint interoperability testing and qualifications; (5) Support the CIM/WBEM interface as specified by SNIA's Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF). The CIM specification is the language and methodology for describing management data; the CIM XML schema includes models for Systems, Applications, Networks (LAN) and Devices." [Full context]

• [October 10, 2002]   ISDA Announces New FpML Working Groups for Energy and Validation.    A communiqué from Karel Engelen (FpML Project Manager) announces ISDA's call for participation in two new working groups for the Financial Products Markup Language (FpML) standard. FpML "is the XML-based, freely licensed, e-commerce standard supporting OTC trading of financial derivatives." The new FpML Validation Working Group will work to "enable the extension of the FpML product definitions to include semantic or business validation rules through the use of a validation rule language. A Business Rule Definition effort will build on the standards definition work in each of the FpML product working groups to start the plain English definition of the relevant business rules for each version of the FpML standard. A related Rule Language Definition activity will document the requirements for a FpML validation rule language and describe unambiguous business validation rules for the different versions of the FpML standard." The new Energy Derivatives Working Group will "extend the product coverage of the FpML standard to include products for the following energy markets while ensuring that the design will accommodate other commodities. The scope includes Financial Oil, Financial Natural Gas, Physical Natural Gas, Financial Power, and Physical Power." FpML is "a business information exchange standard for electronic dealing and processing of financial derivatives instruments. It establishes the industry protocol for sharing information on, and dealing in, complex financial products over the Internet. It is based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), the standard meta-language for describing data shared between applications. Currently focusing on interest rate derivatives, FX, equity derivatives and credit derivatives, FpML will eventually cover all categories of privately negotiated derivatives." [Full context]

• [October 09, 2002]   PayCircle Releases WSDL Specification Version 1.0 for Mobile Payment.    An announcement from PayCircle describes the release of the PayCircle Payment Web Service Specification 1.0 for public review. The specification contains WSDL sources, XML schema definitions, and supporting documents, together with use case scenarios. PayCircle is "a vendor-independent non-profit organization; its main focus is to accelerate the use of payment technology and to develop or adopt open payment APIs based on XML, SOAP, Java and other Internet languages. The PayCircle API specifications provide standard payment interfaces for merchants, content and application service provider with the expectation of making payment transaction easier for mobile users, which is essential for future market growth. The PayCircle consortium was formed January 2002 to define standard APIs for mobile payments, regardless of the payment systems used by application or service providers. Currently the large number of incompatible payment systems has hindered the growth and uptake of m-commerce. PayCircle defines open and uniform interfaces based on existing standards." [Full context]

• [October 09, 2002]   Microsoft 'XDocs' Office Product Supports Custom-Defined XML Schemas.    Microsoft officials have announced a new 'XDocs' Office product with scheduled availablity in the middle of 2003. XDocs "looks and feels like a traditional word-processing program, but has all the sophisticated data-capture capabilities of a forms package. Built from the ground up to work with XML, 'XDocs' can gather information that has been generated from documents in which customers can define their own schema, or the structure and the type of content that each data element can contain. 'XDocs' can then integrate that information with existing databases and servers, making it easier to reuse data across the enterprise or via XML Web services." According to Microsoft XML Architect Jean Paoli, XDocs represents "an end-user product that at its core understands XML using customer-driven schema." XDocs exemplifies "the vision behind Microsoft's overall XML Web Services strategy: to make it easy to create, access, and share XML data between different systems on the network... Because XDocs understands XML at its core, customers can define their own business-specific schema using the latest XML standards... it lets organizations determine for themselves what kind of data they want to gather. Native support of XML also means XDocs can send data using these customer-defined schemas to backend systems via XML Web services. XDocs is the first tool that can gather and send, or receive and read, XML data from a Web service without having to first translate the data to the .xml file format. The benefits of this are enormous: because XML is the native file format of all information that is gathered, XDocs reduces translation errors and the need to do custom programming, thus reducing development time and costs. This level of support in XDocs also lowers the cost of developing solutions that use this data, because the data is represented and structured the way you need it from the very beginning." [Full context]

• [October 08, 2002]   Entrust Announces New Secure Transaction Platform and Proposed Security Standards.    Announcements from Entrust on 2002-10-07 outline a comprehensive vision and product delivery roadmap for web services security, to be offered through the Entrust Secure Transaction Platform. "Developed using open industry standards, these services initially include: (1) the Entrust Identification Service, designed to enable validation of federated and non-federated identities across a spectrum of standards-based identification methods, including digital certificates and UserID/passwords. This capability enhances Web services application security by managing multiple identification methods; it also allows organizations to centrally specify which identities are accepted for Web services transactions; (2) The Entrust Entitlements Service, which implements the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) standard protocol that enables applications to validate that an identity has a right to interact with specific Web services; (3) The Entrust Verification Service, which supports accountability and integrity for more trusted transactions through centralized digital signature and time stamping capabilities, implemented using standards-compliant XML Digital Signatures." Entrust announced that it has submitted a set of related security standards proposals for Web services to OASIS. "These standards proposals specify open, XML protocols for digital signature and timestamping services operating in a Web services context." [Full context]

• [October 08, 2002]   Exchangable Faceted Metadata Language (XFML) Version 1.0.    A communiqué from Peter Van Dijck announces the version 1.0 release of the XFML Core - eXchangeable Faceted Metadata Language. XFML Core "is an open XML format for publishing and sharing hierarchical faceted metadata and indexing efforts. XFML is a model to express topics, organised in hierarchies or trees within mutually exclusive containers called facets. It also expresses indexing efforts: metadata you have assigned to pages. It lets you publish this information in an open, XML based format. Finally, XFML lets you build connections between different XFML maps, by indicating that a topic in one map is equal to a topic in another map (we call this connecting topics), or that a topic is described on a certain resource (a webpage usually; we call this published subject indicators). Facetmap, an application to browse faceted metadata, was the first application to import XFML... The real power of XFML lies in the concept of connecting topics. This allows you to reuse indexing efforts. It means you don't have to index the entire web yourself, you can reuse parts of other XFML maps. Metadata authoring applications that take advantage of this concept are being developed." [Full context]

• [October 08, 2002]   HR-XML Consortium Announces Employee Stock Plan Interface Standard.    A new specification produced by the HR-XML Consortium Employee Share Plans Workgroup has been approved as an HR-XML Recommendation. The Employee Stock Plans Interface 1.0 specification defines standard, vendor-neutral data definitions for the transfer of stock plan data. The standard "promises new efficiencies and cost savings for employers, third-party administrators, brokers, and other stakeholders involved in the administration of stock-based compensation programs. In addition, the specification will enable easy compilation of data required for reporting and compliance." The Version 1.0 release includes ten XML schemas as well as primary prose document. This initial version of the specification is designed to support the administration of stock option programs. It describes the elements required to exchange data related to the administration of employee share plans, including the expected usage of those elements, and the business processes meant to be supported. A future version will address employee stock purchase plans and other types of plans. [Full context]

• [October 08, 2002]   NTT Communications Launches Asia's First UDDI Registry.    NTT Communications Corporation has announced the October 9, 2002 launch of "Asia's first UDDI Business Registry based on the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) specifications, joining IBM, Microsoft and SAP in providing a completely open public registry with a standard access method for companies to register their services and search for business partners' services online." In July 2002 NTT Com and IBM announced a collaborative arrangement for building NTT Com's UDDI Business Registry using IBM's WebSphere and DB2 products and technologies. "The UDDI Business Registry is an online directory that enables companies to register, search and dynamically share information completely free of charge. NTT Com joined the UDDI Operators Council in December 2001 to become Asia's first UDDI Business Registry node operator. Information is registered in a unified format as defined by the UDDI specifications. Information registered in the database of each registry node operator is regularly copied to the other operators' databases, assuring a consistent, worldwide network of registered information. As part of registering its own services in the registry, NTT Com plans to develop new business-to-business (B2B) Web Services and thereby establish the company as a new leader in this field. Like the registries currently operated by IBM, Microsoft and SAP, NTT Com's registry will be based on the UDDI Version 2 specifications." [Full context]

• [October 07, 2002]   W3C Specifications for XML Encryption Released as Proposed Recommendations.    The W3C XML Encryption Working Group has released Proposed Recommendation specifications for XML Encryption Syntax and Processing and Decryption Transform for XML Signature. Pending review of comments from the W3C Advisory Committee Members and the public, the specifications may reach Recommendation status after November 14, 2002. The XML Encryption document "specifies a process for encrypting data and representing the result in XML. The data may be arbitrary data (including an XML document), an XML element, or XML element content. The result of encrypting data is an XML Encryption element which contains or references the cipher data." The Decryption document "specifies an XML Signature 'decryption transform' that enables XML Signature applications to distinguish between those XML Encryption structures that were encrypted before signing (and must not be decrypted) and those that were encrypted after signing (and must be decrypted) for the signature to validate. XML Encryption is a method whereby XML content can be transformed such that it is discernable only to the intended recipients, and opaque to all others. There are many applications for such a specification given the increasing importance of XML on the Internet and Web including the protection of payment and transaction information." [Full context]

• [October 02, 2002]   New Website for Layered Markup and Annotation Language (LMNL).    A communiqué from Jeni Tennison announces an online collection of resources for the Layered Markup and Annotation Language (LMNL), first introduced at the 2002 Extreme Markup Languages Conference 2002 in Montréal. Project principals include Jeni Tennison, Gavin Thomas Nicol, and Wendell Piez. LMNL, pronounced 'liminal', "is an experimental approach to digital text encoding that supports, in SGML/XML terms, overlapping elements (ranges in LMNL) and structured attributes (annotations in LMNL)." The Extreme paper by Tennison and Piez presented LMNL as a solution to the challenge of representing multiple hierarchies within a single document and annotating existing tree structures with type information (as in the PSVI). The layered data model is based on the Core Range Algebra investigated by Gavin Nichol; this data model views documents as strings over which span a number of named ranges, each of which can themselves have associated metaranges with their own internal structure. The development team has now published a simple tutorial for LMNL and continues to address the "interesting challenges of extracting tree models, writing schema, query, and transformation languages." Initial online specifications cover; (1) the core LMNL Data Model, (2) a Reified Data Model which is used to describe physical documents that represent LMNL documents, and (3) a draft LMNL Object Model (LOM) API which specifies an object-oriented API for the LMNL data model. A public mailing list is dedicated to the discussion of LMNL and its applications. [Full context]

• [October 01, 2002]   UN/CEFACT Releases ebXML Core Component Technical Specification for Second Public Review.    A posting from Hartmut Hermes (UN/CEFACT Core Component Project Team Lead) and Klaus-Dieter Naujok (Techniques and Methodologies Group Chair) announces the release of the UN/CEFACT - ebXML Core Component Technical Specification Version 1.85 for Public Review provided by its Open Development Process. Under the UN/CEFACT Open Development Process, all interested parties have the opportunity to review, comment on, and contribute to Technical Specifications. The public review period ends 22-November-2002. The ebXML Core Component solution described in the specification "presents a methodology for developing a common set of semantic building blocks that represent the general types of business data in use today and provides for the creation of new business vocabularies and restructuring of existing business vocabularies. The Core Components User Community consists of business people, business document modellers and business data modellers, Business Process modellers, and application developers of different organisations that require interoperability of business information. This interoperability covers both interactive and batch exchanges of business data between applications through the use of Internet and Web based information exchanges as well as traditional Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems." [Full context]

Earlier in 2002 Q3...

• [September 30, 2002]   IBM alphaWorks Releases UDDI Registry Extensions.    An IBM alphaWorks development team has released a package of extensions that enhance IBM WebSphere UDDI product with advanced search capabilities. These UDDI Registry Extensions support Version 1.1.1 of the IBM WebSphere UDDI Registry. The new UDDI Registry Extensions provide "advanced search capabilities that enable the formation of complex queries comprising search criteria from two standard UDDI 'find' APIs, find_business and find_service, all in one query. With these advanced search capabilities, requesters can find businesses with services of specific names or in a specific category and vice versa to find services owned by businesses that match specified criteria. Such capabilities are not available with current UDDI search technology and these searches cannot be done without much effort. To make equivalent queries with the current UDDI search technology, the client search requester must perform two steps: (1) Issue two queries: a find_business query and a find_service query, and (2) Process the two sets of results returned by the queries and perform the appropriate intersection of the results, which is complex and error-prone." [Full context]

• [September 30, 2002]   US Internal Revenue Service Establishes Online XML Developers' Forum for Employment Tax E-file System.    The US Internal Revenue Service has set up an online "94x XML Developers' Forum" to provide information and technical guidance for software developers interested in developing software for the new Employment Tax e-file System in XML. The website provides links to the relevant XML Schemas, technical documents, news, and announcements. Supported tax forms include: Form 940 - Employer's Annual Federal Unemployment (FUTA) Tax Return (Forma 940-PR in Spanish), Form 941 - Employer's Quarterly Federal Tax Return (Form 941-PR in Spanish), Form 941-SS - Employer's Quarterly Federal Tax Return, Form 941c - Supporting Statement to Correct Information, and XML PIN Registration. An Employment Tax e-file System Implementation and User Guide and a Preliminary Guide to Creating 94x Return Transmission Files provide procedural guidelines and validation criteria for the Employment Tax e-file System. Section 5 of the User Guide ('Building XML Transmission Files') describes the procedure for creating a 94x return transmission file with XML structures for the SOAP Transmission Envelope, TransmissionHeader, PINRegistrationOriginHeader, PIN Registration Transmission Envelope, and a complete Transmission Envelope with the ReturnData and MIME parts. "The new Employment Tax e-file System has been designed to replace all previous electronic filing options for returns in the 940 and 941 families. Previous e-file formats will be maintained in order to allow for transition to the new XML based system." The IRS XML Development Teams also maintain two lists (XML Schema News and Information, XML Schema Discussion Group) for distributing communications, and encouraging open discussion on the overall XML development effort. An associated US Fed/State Employment Tax XML Forum provides guidance for software developers and Federal/State partners who are interested in developing a gateway and/or software to file both federal and state employment taxes along with payments. The state level XML schemas are designed to be used with the Federal 94x schemas. [Full context]

• [September 30, 2002]   STARLab Object Role Modeling Markup Language (ORM-ML) Represents ORM Models in XML.    The research team at STARLab (Systems Technology and Applications Research Laboratory, Vrije Universiteit Brussel) has developed an Object Role Modeling markup language (ORM-ML) for representing ORM models in an XML based syntax. Stylesheets may be written to convert this ORM-ML syntax into other syntaxes for processing by business rule engines. The team "has chosen ORM for its rich constraint vocabulary and well-defined semantics and elected to use XML Schema to define this communication 'protocol' for conceptual schemas seen as XML document instances. The design approach respects the ORM structure as much as possible by not 'collapsing' it first through the usual relational transformer that comes with most ORM-based tools (or UML, or EER tools). ORM-ML allows the representation of any ORM schema without loss of information or change in semantics, except for the geometry and topology (graphical layout) of the schema (e.g., location, shapes of the symbols), which easily may be provided as a separate graphical style sheet to the ORM Schema." [Full context]

• [September 24, 2002]   Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) Specification Submitted to W3C.    W3C has acknowledged receipt of the Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) Version 1.1 specification from IPR Systems, and has published the document as a W3C Note. The submission request and W3C Team Comment reference the possible chartering of a DRM/Rights Language activity within W3C, but no commitment has yet been made. The Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) "is a proposed language for the Digital Rights Management (DRM) community for the standardisation of expressing rights information over content. The ODRL is intended to provide flexible and interoperable mechanisms to support transparent and innovative use of digital resources in publishing, distributing and consuming of electronic publications, digital images, audio and movies, learning objects, computer software and other creations in digital form. The ODRL has no license requirements and is available in the spirit of 'open source' software." The ODRL specification is presented in four main sections: Section 2 describes the model for the ODRL expression language; Section 3 describes the semantics of the ODRL data dictionary elements; Section 4 describes the XML syntax used to encode the ODRL expressions and elements; Section 5 describes how additional ODRL data dictionaries can be defined. The Expression Language and Data Dictionary elements are formally defined in two normative appendices: Appendix A provides the ODRL Expression Language XML Schema and Appendix B gives the ODRL Data Dictionary XML Schema. [Full context]

• [September 24, 2002]   W3C Publishes Note on Extensible Media Commerce Language (XMCL).    RealNetworks, Inc. has submitted the Extensible Media Commerce Language (XMCL) specification to W3C with the suggestion "that the Consortium start a working group to develop a W3C recommendation for XML based digital rights specification language." The Extensible Media Commerce Language is "an interchange format that describes usage rules that apply to multi-media content. It is designed to communicate these rules in an implementation independent manner for interchange between business systems and DRM implementations responsible for enforcing the rules described in the language." The submission notes that "a standard XML-based business rule definition language would bring DRM systems together on the back end and reduce the cost for the publisher/e-tailer; most importantly, a standard business rule definition language would enable the e-tailer to become independent of the particular implementation choices of any single DRM vendor and any single back-end system." XMCL "describes the minimum, self-complete set of business rules under which digital media is licensed for consumer use. These business rules support multiple business models including rental, subscription, ownership, and video on demand/pay-per-view. When a business system authorizes a customer transaction for digital media, it generates a XMCL document that is then acted upon and enforced by a specific trusted system." [Full context]

• [September 24, 2002]   Last Call Working Draft for SOAP 1.2 Attachment Feature.    A Last Call Working Draft for SOAP 1.2 Attachment Feature has been released by the W3C XML Protocol Working Group as part of the W3C Web Services Activity. The specification is based upon the IETF Internet-Draft "WS-Attachments" and "defines a SOAP feature that represents an abstract model for SOAP attachments. The compound SOAP structure model is abstract in the sense that it does not define an actual means by which compound SOAP structures are represented or transmitted by a SOAP binding. [The specification] provides the basis for the creation of SOAP bindings that transmit such attachments along with a SOAP envelope, and provides for reference of those attachments from the envelope. SOAP attachments are described using the notion of a compound document structure consisting of a primary SOAP message part and zero or more related documents parts known as attachments. The compound SOAP structure model is independent of the underlying protocol used for transmitting the primary SOAP message part and any of the secondary parts. That is, there is no requirement that all parts of a compound SOAP structure representation be transmitted within the same unit of the underlying protocol." The last call review period for the WD ends on 15-October-2002. [Full context]

• [September 21, 2002]   Discussion Forum for Web Services Security Quality of Protection.    An OASIS discussion list has been created on the topic Web Services Security Quality of Protection. Subscribers to the 'WSSQoP-Discuss' list will discuss the possible creation of an OASIS Technical Committee. Sponsors of the proposal include representatives from CommerceOne, Cisco, Entrust, IBM, RSA Security, SAP, Sun Microsystems, and VeriSign; the discussion leader is Tim Moses (Entrust). The stated purpose of the TC under discussion would be "to identify candidate solutions for communicating the required security tokens and quality of protection for a Web service, taking advantage of the common service definition tools, such as WSDL. The solutions are intended to allow a service consumer to determine (1) how to produce a SOAP message including security tokens and protection mechanisms, in accordance with WSS, that is acceptable to both the provider and consumer, and (2) whether the consumer is capable of performing the required security processing on the response from a Web service. Components of security policy include at least the set of acceptable types of security token, the set of acceptable cryptographic algorithms, (optionally) what key to use for encryption, and the payload nodes to be protected. The topic is potentially open-ended, leading to solutions for trust policy, authorization policy, personal privacy policy, etc. While recognizing this, it is the intention to limit the identified solutions to those that address the QoP of the initial mechanisms of WSS. This is analogous to the 'cipher suites' and "supported algorithms" mechanisms of TLS and S/MIME, respectively. In addition, the group will identify candidate process models for producing a WSDL instance from a security policy definition, and producing a language-specific API from a WSDL instance..." [Full context]

• [September 19, 2002]   Sun Offers Developers Interoperability Prototype for Liberty.    An Interoperability Prototype for Liberty (IPL) was among several announcements issued by Sun Microsystems at the SunNetwork 2002 Conference and Pavilion. The prototype is based upon the Liberty Alliance Version 1.0 specification, and has been designed "for developers (enterprise customers and ISVs) who want to build or test Liberty-enabled applications to manage and maintain their own identity management systems. Based on open standards such as SAML 1.0, XML, and SOAP, both the IPL prototype and the Liberty specification are available immediately for download. The Interoperability Prototype for Liberty is the first open-source implementation of the Liberty Alliance Version 1.0 specification based on Java technology. IPL is designed to help developers learn how the project Liberty Alliance Version 1.0 specification can be implemented. Written for the Java 2 platform, IPL provides the foundation for building liberty into applications and testing interoperability between liberty compliant solutions such as the Sun ONE Identity Server version 6.0. IPL consists of sample Java source code libraries, implementing the Liberty version 1.0 specification, and is not designed for commercial deployment." [Full context]

• [September 17, 2002]   W3C Issues Second Candidate Recommendation for XML Inclusions (XInclude).    The W3C XML Core Working Group has published a second Candidate Recommendation for XML Inclusions (XInclude) Version 1.0 which incorporates implementation feedback based upon the first CR. The XInclude document "specifies a processing model and syntax for general purpose inclusion. Inclusion is accomplished by merging a number of XML information sets into a single composite Infoset. Specification of the XML documents (infosets) to be merged and control over the merging process is expressed in XML-friendly syntax (elements, attributes, URI references). Feedback received during the first Candidate Recommendation has prompted some features to be removed from the specification, namely, full namespace fixup, and conformance to full XPointer in favor of a lower level made possible by the factoring of XPointer into the XPointer Framework and separate fragment schemes. The second Candidate Reommendation provides an opportunity for these changes to be reflected in implementations, and for the XML Core Working Group to collect additional test cases and information about implementations. [The WG] expects that sufficient feedback to determine its future will have been received by 1-November-2002." The working group welcomes feedback on patterns of implementation and use of this specification, as well as contributions of XInclude test cases. [Full context]

• [September 16, 2002]   IONA Orbix E2A XMLBus Version 5.4 Connects Corba with Web Services.    IONA has announced Orbix E2A Web Services Integration Platform 'XMLBus Edition' version 5.4 as the latest release of its visual environment for developing, deploying, integrating, and managing secure Web services. XMLBus Edition v5.4 delivers enhanced features that enable the bridging of CORBA systems to Web services. New features such as an Operation Flow Designer address the problems inherent in mapping complex CORBA systems into more abstract, business-focused Web services. The XMLBus is "a highly productive visual environment that enables developers to rapidly develop, deploy, integrate, and manage secure Web Services. XMLBus lets developers create Web services from existing applications, including existing Java Classes, EJB's, and CORBA systems. The result is a SOAP gateway that conforms to a WSDL interface derived from the original Java code. XMLBus Edition also provides a graphical tool to define the sequence of calls on fine-grain back-end components -- a capability that is required to create complex and truly loosely-coupled Web services. And XMLBus Edition is integrated with IONA's Process Engine, which enables the coordination of various business activities and Web services in a way that lets you integrate multiple activities into a single executable business process. [Full context]

• [September 16, 2002]   Altova Introduces New XML Product Line for Design and Development.    Altova Inc. has released a new XML product line consisting of three easy-to-use software tools designed to facilitate and advance the adoption of XML technologies. The XMLSPY 5 tool "builds on the previous XMLSPY version by adding XSLT debugging, WSDL editing, Java/C++ code generation, HTML Importing, and Tamino Integration. Altova's AUTHENTIC 5 is a standards-based browser enabled document editor; it allows business users to seamlessly capture thoughts and ideas directly in XML content for storage in any content management system, database, or XML repository, for later retrieval or transformation, unlocking corporate knowledge. The STYLEVISION 5 XML tool supports web developers by providing powerful conversion utilities for painless migration of traditional HTML websites to true XML-based sites; it consists of XSLT stylesheets, XML Schema/DTD, and XML content." Each of the tools is available from the Altova website for free trial download and evaluation. [Full context]

• [September 14, 2002]   freebXML Initiative Supports Open Source ebXML Implementations: Message Service Handler (MSH) and Registry/Repository.    A posting from Thomas Lee (CECID) announces the formation of a new 'freebXML' initiative that aims to foster the development and adoption of ebXML and related technologies. freebXML is an international effort comprising of founding members from technology firms, government organizations, standardization bodies, and academic institutions. The mission of freebXML is to provide a centralized Website for ebXML users and developers from around the world to access and share 'free' ebXML code and applications. Users and developers can also exchange their ebXML development and deployment experience at www.freebXML.org. Some features of www.freebxml.org include 'open source' projects for download, deployment or use cases of ebXML technology, a list of ebXML vendor products, latest news on freebXML, and discussion forums for developers and users. Access to www.freebxml.org is free of charge and open to all individuals and organizations interested in ebXML. Initially, two 'open-source' projects are available for download: Hermes and ebxmlrr. Hermes is a Message Service Handler (MSH) implementation of OASIS' ebXML Message Service V2 Standard. ebxmlrr is an implementation of the ebXML Registry/Repository V2 Standard. Donated to the ebXML development community by CECID, Hermes is released under the Academic Free License. ebxmlrr, hosted at SourceForge, is an international collaboration with developers from around the world based on the initial code donation by Sun Microsystems Inc. The ebxmlrr project is released under an Apache style open source license that permits royalty free use of the source and binaries." [Full context]

• [September 14, 2002]   W3C HLink Working Draft Defines Hyperlink Markup Facility for XHTML Family.    W3C's HTML Working Group has released a first public Working Draft specification for HLink: Link Recognition for the XHTML Family. The HLink module defined in the specification "provides XHTML Family Members with the ability to specify which attributes of elements represent hyperlinks, and how those hyperlinks should be traversed, and extends XLink use to a wider class of languages than those restricted to the syntactic style allowed by XLink." Normative 'Appendix A' documents three implementations defined in terms of XML DTD, RELAX NG, and W3C XML Schema. The HLink module defined in the WD uses the XML Namespaces identifier http://www.w3.org/2002/06/hlink. The new markup that can be used to describe links in XHTML Family members "consists of two elements; they are used to associate properties with markup elements and attributes to describe how they behave as links. Many of the descriptive properties are taken from XLink, but with additions to support the behaviour of links in XHTML. The <hlinks> element exists only to be a root element for a document containing only <hlink> elements. The empty element <hlink> is used to identify an element and/or attributes within a namespace, and associates properties with them to specify how the element should be treated as a link, or how the attributes contribute to an element that is a link. HLink may be used in two ways: (1) the first is by putting the <hlink>s in the <head> [element]; (2) the other is by putting them in a separate resource, and referring to that resource by a hlink:definition URI attribute on the root element of the document. At the time of publication, the Working Group believed there were no patent disclosures relevant to the HLink specification. [Full context]

• [September 11, 2002]   Topologi Collaborative Markup Editor Supports XML and SGML.    A posting from Rick Jelliffe announces the release of the Topologi Collaborative Markup Editor version 1.0.1. The Collaborative Markup Editor is a delimiter-aware text editor with markup-aware cut-and-paste operations, undo/redo, rectangular selection, clear diagnostics, and over a dozen innovative tools to handle common markup tasks. The editing environment is described as "a new tool for professional publishing teams and individuals which supports the whole of lifecycle for large and complex XML and SGML documents." The program design reflects an observation that "standard text editors don't provide enough validation but XML editors lack the flexibiltiy that publishers require." The Topologi Collaborative Markup Editor is suitable especially in contexts where the editing tasks involve markup, text conversion, efficient teamwork, multiple DTDs, larger files, and multiple languages or platforms. The tool supports Unicode and offers validation for both SGML and XML. It "gracefully handles long files and bad markup, offers fast text input and scrolling, and incorporates innovative tools in a familar interface framework. It provides flexibility by working with different document types, and adjusts readily to new document types, with special validation modes for incomplete documents." Topologi is based upon standards from ISO, IETF and W3C; it supports ISO RELAX NG, Schematron 1.5, W3C XML, Namespaces, and W3C XML Schema. The Community Edition for Wintel may be downloaded for evaluation from Topologi's website; Linux and Mac OS X versions are now in beta testing. [Full context]

• [September 10, 2002]   Workflow Management Coalition Publishes XML Process Definition Language (XPDL) Beta.    The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) has released a draft beta version for the XML Process Definition Language (XPDL), together with a supporting XML schema. The document relates to WfMC's Interface One, supporting Process Definition Import and Export. The interface includes a common meta-model for describing the process definition and an XML schema specifying XPDL. Interface One is one of five functional interfaces to a workflow service identified by the WfMC as part of its standardization program. The draft document "describes the meta-model which is used to define the objects and attributes contained within a process definition. The XPDL grammar is directly related to these objects and attributes. This approach needs two operations to be provided by a vendor: (1) Import a workflow definition from XPDL; (2) Export a workflow definition from the vendor's internal representation to XPDL. The specification uses XML as the mechanism for process definition interchange. XPDL forms a common interchange standard that enables products to continue to support arbitrary internal representations of process definitions with an import/export function to map to/from the standard at the product boundary. A variety of different mechanisms may be used to transfer process definition data between systems according to the characteristics of the various business scenarios. In all cases the process definition must be expressed in a consistent form, which is derived from the common set of objects, relationships and attributes expressing its underlying concepts." [Full context]

• [September 09, 2002]   Creative Commons Project Releases RDF Metadata Specification for Copyright Licenses.    A posting from Aaron Swartz announces the release of a new draft Creative Commons Metadata Specification which defines RDF descriptions for copyright licenses. "Unlike Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology, which tries to prevent people from doing things with digital works, Creative Commons is working towards promoting these uses of works." The draft Creative Commons Metadata specification "describes Works, Licenses, and License Characteristics (permissions, prohibitions, requirements). Licenses are created via tools and databases in a variety of data and metadata formats, including RDF metadata and application-specific XML vocabularies; this data and metadata will be made available for use by third-party software applications. An initial goal of Creative Commons Project is to release a public a set of copyright licenses free of charge; these licenses tell others that works are free for copying and other uses, but only on certain conditions. In addition to supporting fixed licenses, the software tools will help users mix and match preferences from a menu of options to create custom licenses. Custom licenses declare permission to copy, distribute, display, perform the work, create a derivative work (etc) with several variations, including terms for non-commercial use, copyleft license principles, etc. The CC licenses will be expressed in three forms: (1) a 'Commons Deed' written as a simple, plain-language summary of the license; (2) the 'Legal Code' fine print that one needs to be sure the license will stand up in court; (3) one or more 'Digital Code' machine-readable [XML/RDF] translations of the license which help search engines and other applications identify the work by its terms of use. The license tool will also help a user dedicate a work to the public domain in a legally accepted way. [Full context]

• [September 05, 2002]   IBM alphaWorks Updates XML Schema Quality Checker.    A posting from Achille Fokoué (XML/XSL Transformational Systems, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center) announces the release of the IBM XML Schema Quality Checker version 2.1.1 from IBM Alphaworks. XML Schema Quality Checker (SQC) "is a program which takes as input documents containing XML Schemas written in the W3C XML schema language and diagnoses improper uses of the schema language. Where the appropriate action to correct the schema is not obvious, the diagnostic message may include a suggestion about how to make the fix. For Schemas which are composed of numerous schema documents connected via <include>, <import> or <redefine> element information items, a full schema-wide checking is performed. The tool can also be run in batch mode to quality check multiple XML schemas in a single run. SQC may be installed as an Eclipse or WSAD Plugin." Changes in version 2.1.1 include: (1) improved error detection; (2) implementation of fixes based upon the W3C 'XML Schema 1.0 Specification Errata' document; (3) SchemaQualityChecker is now using Apache's XERCES-J version 2.1; (4) Additional command line options; (5) Eclipse progress meter. [Full context]

• [September 05, 2002]   W3C Publishes Note on XHTML 1.0 in XML Schema.    The W3C HTML Working Group has released a Note defining XHTML 1.0 in XML Schema. "This work in progress provides informative XML schemas corresponding to the XHTML 1.0 Strict, Transitional, and Frameset DTDs. For the most part, these XML Schemas are written to imitate the structure of the XHTML 1.0 DTDs; major differences are those affecting the validation of XHTML 1.0 documents." Using XML Schema for XHTML 1.0 provides three principal benefits via-à-vis DTDs: (1) Strong datatyping and thus better validation; (2) Better expressive power for describing content models [e.g., fieldset]; (3) Better namespace support. "DTD validation and XML Schema validation are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes authors might want to use some DTD features (e.g., entities) while taking advantage of the XML Schema validation." [Full context]

• [September 04, 2002]   Cape Clear Software Releases Free WSDL Editor Graphical Tool.    Cape Clear Software has announced the availability of a free WSDL Editor graphical tool "that enables you to create and edit WSDL definitions of Web services. It facilitates the creation of Web Services Description Language (WSDL) files and manages WSDL file syntax and validation." Designed for programmers interested in working with Web Services, the Cape Clear WSDL Editor "delivers the first complete environment for rapid Web Services Definition Language (WSDL) development. It supports novice programmers, while also providing sophisticated features for more experienced Web Services developers. The WSDL Editor includes powerful wizards that eliminate the complexity of WSDL, as well as WSDL validation, which simplifies testing, and support for the rapid creation of Web Services from XML Schema. It offers an intuitive graphical environment for the design of Web Services and, in particular, assists developers who wish to create Web Services from existing XML interfaces such as SWIFT, ACORD, BAPI, and RosettaNet. The WSDL Editor is an early access component of CapeStudio, Cape Clear's integrated Web services development environment. CapeStudio's design-time components include a WSDL Generator (generates WSDL files from existing server-side component interfaces, such as Java classes, Enterprise JavaBeans, or CORBA IDL definitions), a WSDL Assistant (automatically creates Visual Basic and Java client proxies, JSP pages to be deployed as Web clients, and Java and EJB skeleton code for server-side components), an XSLT Installer, and a Deployment Wizard." The Java-based WSDL Editor tool is available for download. [Full context]

• [August 30, 2002]   W3C Publishes Working Draft of Architectural Principles of the World Wide Web.    An initial public working draft of "Architectural Principles of the World Wide Web" has been published on the W3C website. The WD seeks to establish a reference set of principles for Web architecture. The World Wide Web, according to this working draft, "is a networked information system. Web Architecture is the set of principles that all agents in the system follow to create the large-scale effect of a shared information space. Identification, data formats, and protocols are the main technical components of Web Architecture, but the large-scale effect depends on social behavior as well." Agents are programs acting on behalf of another person, entity, or process that exchange information. The main sections of the document discuss identifiers, formats, and protocols; each section highlights principles of Web architecture and notes on good practice. The World Wide Web architecture "consists of: (1) Identifiers - a single specification to identify objects in the system, namely, the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI); (2) Formats - a nonexclusive set of data format specifications designed for interchange between agents in the system; this includes several data formats used in isolation or in combination (e.g., XHTML, CSS, PNG, XLink, RDF, SMIL animation), as well as technologies for designing new data formats (XML, XML Namespaces); (3) Protocols - a small and nonexclusive set of protocol specifications for interchanging information between agents, including HTTP, SMTP, and others. Several of these protocols share a reliance on the Internet Media Type (or, 'MIME') the metadata/packaging system." The document is edited by Ian Jacobs, and its authors are the participants of W3C's Technical Architecture Group: Tim Berners-Lee (Chair, W3C), Tim Bray (Antarctica Systems), Dan Connolly (W3C), Paul Cotton (Microsoft), Roy Fielding (Day Software), Chris Lilley (W3C), David Orchard (BEA Systems), Norman Walsh (Sun), and Stuart Williams (Hewlett-Packard). [Full context]

• [August 30, 2002]   Web Services Security TC Receives WS-Security Profile for XML-based Tokens.    A communiqué from IBM, Microsoft, and Verisign to the OASIS WSS TC describes the submission of a WS-Security Profile for XML-based Tokens specification designed to supplement the existing WS-Security input specification. The authors request consideration of the specification by the WSS-TC, as the document "further clarifies how XML Tokens are used with WS-Security." The document "describes a general framework to enable XML-based security tokens to be used with WS-Security. Two profiles that use this general framework are provided: one for the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) and another for the Extensible rights Markup Language (XrML). Since these formats are described in standalone specifications, not unlike X.509 and Kerberos, the document describes their usage with respect to the WS-Security specification. The specification does not endorse any particular XML security token standard; the description of SAML and XrML are provided to show the mechanisms by which the bindings should be performed. Additional XML token formats may be added to the specification in future revisions as needed." A Web Services Security Addendum was submitted to the WSS-TC previously. [Full context]

• [August 29, 2002]   STAR and OAGI Approve XML Standards in the Automotive Retail Space.    A communiqué from Tom Campisi (STAR Communications Chair) describes the approval of XML standards for the retail automotive industry. Seven new XML specifications have been completed, and will be publicly available on the STAR web site. According to the announcement, STAR (Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail) and OAGI (Open Applications Group, Inc.) have recently approved seven new XML standards for automotive dealer-to-manufacturer transactions. STAR is a North American "non-profit, auto industry-wide initiative to create voluntary IT standards for the data elements and transmission format used by manufacturers, dealers, and retail system providers to communicate with each other. STAR's initiatives will result in a more efficient data exchange between dealers and manufacturers, with lower costs, more accurate and timely data, and increased levels of customer satisfaction. OAGI is a non-profit consortium focused on building reusable, interoperable XML messages." OAGI created the XML message methodology on which STAR standards, called BODs (Business Object Documents) are based. The seven standards govern Parts Order, Parts Pick List, Parts Return, Repair Order, Sales Lead, Vehicle Service History, and Warranty Reconciliation. [Full context]

• [August 29, 2002]   OASIS UDDI Specification Technical Committee Continues Work on Web Services Registry Foundations.    A UDDI Specification Technical Committee has been formed within the OASIS UDDI Member Section to "continue work on the Web services registry foundations developed and published by UDDI.org." The new technical committee has been chartered to support: "specifications for Web services registries and Web service interfaces to the registries; replication or synchronization mechanisms across multiple implementations; and security facilities for access or manipulation of the registry and maintaining data integrity." Specifically, the OASIS UDDI Specification TC will: "(1) Accept as input the UDDI version 2.0 and 3.0 specifications published by the members of UDDI.org; (2) Produce as output a specification for Web Services Description, Discovery and Integration; this specification will reflect refinements and changes made to the submitted version of UDDI that are identified by the UDDI Specification TC members, and for additional functionality within the scope of the TC charter; (3) Liaise and/or forge relationships with other Web services efforts to assist in leveraging UDDI as a part of their specifications or solutions; (4) Coordinate with the chairs of the other related OASIS Technical Committees via Joint Committees as appropriate; (5) Coordinate with the UDDI Business Registry operators in order to get early feedback from their implementation experiences; (6) Oversee ongoing maintenance and errata of the UDDI specifications." Members of the OASIS UDDI Specification Technical Committee include BEA Systems, Cincom, Computer Associates, E2open, Entrust, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, IONA, Microsoft, MSI Business Solutions, NerveWire, Novell, Oracle, Perficient, SAP, SeeBeyond, Sun Microsystems, TIBCO, Verisign, webMethods, XML Global, and others. [Full context]

• [August 27, 2002]   IDEAlliance Announces Speaker Lineup for XML 2002 Conference and Exposition.    IDEAlliance has published a detailed program listing and roster of keynote presentations for the XML Conference and Exposition 2002, to be held December 8-13, in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. XML 2002 "Putting the Pieces Together" is presented by IDEAlliance, co-hosted by DISA and OASIS. The Program Committee includes Paul Cotton, Eve Maler, and Marion Elledge. This comprehensive XML event, "now in its 16th year, is known for the quality of its program, which draws information technology experts from around the globe." The XML 2002 keynote speakers include: (1) Tim Bray, Chief Technology Officer, Antarctica Systems Inc.; (2) Whitfield Diffie, Chief Security Officer, Sun Microsystems; (3) Robert Haycock, Manager for the Office of Management and Budget's Federal Enterprise Architecture Initiative; (4) Craig Hayman, Vice President of Software Group Strategy, IBM; (5) Pam Samuelson, Professor, University of California at Berkeley; (6) Robert Wahbe, General Manager, XML Web Services, Microsoft Corporation. Lauren Wood, once again the Conference Chair, promises that "this year's keynote roster will give attendees the opportunity to hear leading technology visionaries share their insights on how business and government are putting the pieces of their XML-based systems together." The XML 2002 program includes "more than 150 presentations which will address current and emerging trends in e-business, ebXML, wireless communications, B2B, content management, web standards, syndication and metadata, security issues, graphics, XML tools, schemas, topic maps, and many, many other key issues relating to today's XML technologies." [Full context]

• [August 26, 2002]   Stream Index 'SIX' Used in XML Stream Processing Toolkit.    A research team at the University of Washington Department of Computer Science and Engineering has developed an XML toolkit using a highly scalable XML stream processor and an XML stream index. The XML toolkit "consists of a number of utilities that perform simple operations on XML files. [The team has built] a sort utility, an aggregation utility, a mapping utility to transform Unix directory hierarchies to XML, and some smaller utilities. The utilities can be combined sequentially, in pipes, to perform more complex XML processing. The toolkit defines a binary XML format that is more compact than XML (by a factor of two, on average). This format can be optionally used as communication format in a pipeline, to achieve speedups by a factor of two. The toolkit defines a novel index called stream index, SIX. All utilities check if the input data has a pre-computed SIX, and use it if it is available... From a technical point of view, it is essential for XML Toolkit commands to parse XML data and process a collection of XPath expressions. As a common library for these command, the team has implemented two technologies to realize a high-throuput XML data processing: (1) Lazy DFA-based XPath processor, a deteministic finite automaton that is constructed lazily, and (2) 'SIX' streaming index for XML data for the XML parser. They have implemented the Lazy DFA and SIX on a tokenized (binary) SAX parser and xerces1_4_0 SAX parser." The XML Toolkit library is available for download. [Full context]

• [August 26, 2002]   Microsoft Announces Web Services Development Kit Technology Preview.    Microsoft has announced a technical preview for the Microsoft Web Services Development Kit (WSDK), which "provides the tools developers need to build advanced Web services applications using the latest Web services specifications, such as WS-Security, WS-Routing and WS-Attachments. The WSDK is a new Microsoft .NET class library for building Web services using the latest Web services protocols, including WS-Security, WS-Routing, DIME and WS-Attachments. The WSDK offers a low-level API that allows you to apply these protocols directly to individual SOAP messages being sent using HTTP. The library also integrates with the higher-level Microsoft ASP.NET Web service APIs (ASMX) included in the Microsoft .NET Framework. The design of the WSDK reflects the principles of the basic message-level protocols themselves, as outlined in the document 'Understanding GXA': Decentralization and federation; Modularity; XML-based data model; Transport neutrality; Application-domain neutrality... The WSDK incorporates Microsoft's recent work with industry customers and partners to develop Web services specifications beyond XML and SOAP, such as WS-Security, that address the core challenges of Web services in a way that is broadly interoperable across heterogeneous systems. The core features included in the technology preview of the Microsoft WSDK include (1) the ability to help secure XML Web services across platforms and trust domains, including digital signing and encryption of SOAP messages that are compliant with the WS-Security specification; (2) the ability to route an XML Web service through intermediaries using the WS-Routing specification; (3) communication between XML Web services can contain attachments that are not serialized into XML." [Full context]

• [August 26, 2002]   New Draft Specifications from MPEG-21 Multimedia Framework Project.    An announcement from the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) Convenor describes the advancement of important ISO draft specifications in ISO's MPEG-21 project. The goal of MPEG-21 is to "define a multimedia framework to enable transparent and augmented use of multimedia resources across a wide range of networks and devices used by different communities. Its scope is the integration of the critical technologies enabling transparent and augmented use of multimedia resources across a wide range of networks and devices to support functions such as: content creation, content production, content distribution, content consumption and usage, content packaging, intellectual property management and protection, content identification and description, financial management, user privacy, terminals and network resource abstraction, content representation and event reporting." The MPEG-21 Part 3 'Digital Item Identification' specification (DII ISO/IEC FDIS 21000-3) was elevated to Final Draft International Standard and will become an International Standard following a two-month ballot by JTC 1; DII supports the unique identification of digital items in the MPEG-21 framework. The MPEG-21 Multimedia Description Schemes Subgroup has completed Committee Drafts for MPEG-21 Part 5 'Rights Expression Language (REL)' and MPEG-21 Part 6 'Rights Data Dictionary (RDD)'. REL "specifies the expression language for issuing rights for Users to act on Digital Items, their Components, Fragments, and Containers"; RDD "forms the basis of all expressions of rights and permissions as defined by the MPEG-21 Rights Expression Language. The MPEG-21 REL and RDD work together to allow the machine-readable expression of rights associated with the use of multimedia. These parts will be finalized by MPEG over the next year." [Full context]

• [August 26, 2002]   Apache Xalan XSLT Compiler (XSLTC) Integrated into the Java Web Services Developer Pack (WSDP).    An announcement from Sun Microsystems' XML Technology Center describes the availability of a new Java Web Services Developer Pack integrating the Apache Xalan XSLT Compiler. The XSLT Compiler (XSLTC) is a "high-performance alternative to the Xalan Classic XSLT Processor for transforming XML documents into a variety of output formats. XSLTC is a free, open-source, Java-based tool that generates fast and lightweight Java class files called translets that can be plugged into existing applications or used directly for transforming XML files according to an input XSL stylesheet. It assists developers who need high-volume, portable, embeddable XML transformation capabilities in their applications." The Java Web Services Developer Pack (Java WSDP) is "a free, integrated toolset that in conjunction with the Java platform allows Java developers to build, test and deploy XML applications, Web services, and Web applications. The Java WSDP provides Java standard implementations of existing key Web services standards including WSDL, SOAP, ebXML, and UDDI as well as important Java standard implementations for Web application development such as JavaServer Pages (JSPTM pages) and the JSP Standard Tag Library. These Java standards allow developers to send and receive SOAP messages, browse and retrieve information in UDDI and ebXML registries, and quickly build and deploy Web applications based on the latest JSP standards. Java WSDP Version 1.0_01 also includes: (1) Java XML Pack [Java API for XML Messaging (JAXM); Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) with XML Schema support; Java API for XML Registries (JAXR); Java API for XML-based RPC (JAX-RPC); SOAP with Attachments API for Java (SAAJ)]; (2) JavaServer Pages Standard Tag Library [JSTL] (3) Java WSDP Registry Server; (4) Web Application Deployment Tool; (5) Ant Build Tool; (6) Apache Tomcat 4.1.2 container. [Full context]

• [August 21, 2002]   IBM alphaWorks Releases Conversation Support for Web Services.    A development team at IBM alphaWorks labs has released 'Conversation Support for Web Services'. Conversation Support for Web Services is "a technology that proposes and implements a conversational model of e-business interaction by extending and building on the Web Services architecture. In the conversational model, the interoperability technology consists of two distinct parts: messaging and conversation support. Messaging is the plumbing needed to send and receive electronic communications with others. Conversation support governs the formatting of messages that are to be sent, the parsing of messages that have been received, and the sequencing constraints on the exchange of multiple, correlated messages. It is a separate subsystem that mediates between the messaging system and business processes. These pre-programmed interaction patterns are captured in a progamming element called Conversation Policies." A companion document "Conversation-Enabled Web Services for Agents and e-Business" written by the 'Conversation Support for Web Services Team' at IBM T.J.Watson Research Center, describes IBM's Conversation Policy XML (cpXML), an XML dialect for describing conversation policies, now under development. cpXML "permits CPs to be downloaded from third parties (such as standards bodies, providers of conversation-management systems, or specialized protocol-development shops). Once downloaded and fed into a firm's conversation-management system, bindings are added to specify the connections between the decision points of the CP and the firm's business logic." [Full context]

• [August 21, 2002]   W3C Publishes Preview Candidate Recommendation for XForms Specification.    The W3C XForms Working Group has released an updated working draft for the XForms 1.0 specification. XForms is "an XML application that represents the next generation of forms for the Web. By splitting traditional XHTML forms into three parts -- XForms model, instance data, and user interface -- it separates presentation from content, allows reuse, gives strong typing, reducing the number of round-trips to the server, as well as offering device independence and a reduced need for scripting. XForms is not a free-standing document type, but is intended to be integrated into other markup languages, such as XHTML or SVG." The latest Working Draft incorporates the resolution of all last call issues reported on the XForms 1.0 Last Call Working Draft published on 18-January-2002. This draft is characterized as a "pre-version the Candidate Recommendation document [designed] to show the work on disposition of comments and allow authors of the Last Call comments to review the current XForms specification before advancing the specification to CR status." [Full context]

• [August 20, 2002]   ISO Prepares Reference Ontology for Interchange of Cultural Heritage Information.    In collaboration with the International Council of Museums Committee for Documentation (ICOM CIDOC), ISO Technical Committee 46 is developing a reference ontology for the interchange of cultural heritage information. The ISO/CD 21127 (Committee Draft) published August 8, 2002 provides a formal "domain ontology for cultural heritage information... it is intended to cover all concepts relevant to cultural heritage information, but most particularly those needed for wide area data exchange between museums, libraries, and archives. Due to the diversity of the subject matter and the nature of cultural heritage collections, this goal can ultimately be achieved only by extensions to the standard. However, thanks to its object-oriented nature, the ontology offers a backbone of powerful general concepts, which have a wide application... This proposed standard is already being tested and implemented by members of the working group. Mappings (crosswalks) have been established with major data schemas and metadata standards such as Dublin Core, ABC, and Spectrum. XML and RDFS implementations have been developed using the CRM and data migrations have been made using test data provided by different institutions. The scope of the CRM has been extended to provide enhanced support for archeology and natural sciences." [Full context]

• [August 20, 2002]   Tiny API for Markup (TAM) and Parser for Lightweight XML Processing.    A posting from Simon St.Laurent announces the initial release of a Tiny API for Markup (TAM) and supporting Java 2 Micro Edition parser. "The Tiny API for Markup (TAM) provides a very small interface for parsing XML and similar documents, targeted at Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME). TAM is designed to report pretty much everything the parser encounters, leaving it to applications to do some work (notably DTD interpretation) if they need it. TAM is based on a subset of SAX2, which is then slightly expanded. TAM is not a proper drop-in replacement for SAX; it uses similar method calls, and a similar approach, but it's been reduced to meet the needs of even smaller projects, and expanded slightly to reflect that TAM parsers are not required to process the DTD... This parser does support namespaces, and namespace declarations are reported as attributes. The startPrefix/endPrefix methods of SAX2 are not supported by TAM. The current version also does very little character checking of markup, and while it normalizes line-ends, it doesn't do attribute white-space normalization. These features (and DOCTYPE processing) will appear in a later version of the parser which supports more of XML 1.0 and also Markup Object Events (MOE)." [Full context]

• [August 20, 2002]   W3C Working Groups Update Specifications for XSLT, XML Query, and XPath.    Seven revised working draft specifications have been published by the W3C Working Groups for XML Query, XSL, and XML Schema. Several working drafts represent collaborative work by the XSL and XML Query Working Groups, which are jointly responsible for XPath 2.0, a language derived from both XPath 1.0 and XQuery; the XPath 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Working Drafts are generated from a common source. The updated working drafts include: XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.0; XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0; XML Query Use Cases; XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language; XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics; XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model; XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators. Comments on these drafts may be sent to the W3C Query and Transform mailing list ('public-qt-comments') set up for public feedback on W3C specifications published by the XML Query and XSL Working Groups. [Full context]

• Continued...

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What Was New in 1995 - 2002

Other SGML/XML news items recorded for 1995 and later may be found in separate online documents:

• SGML/XML News July - September 2002
• SGML/XML News April - June 2002
• SGML/XML News January - March 2002
• SGML/XML News October - December 2001
• SGML/XML News July - September 2001
• SGML/XML News April - June 2001
• SGML/XML News January - March 2001
• SGML/XML News October - December 2000
• SGML/XML News July - September 2000
• SGML/XML News April - June 2000
• SGML/XML News January - March, 2000
• SGML/XML News October - December, 1999
• SGML/XML News July - September, 1999
• SGML and XML News. April - June, 1999
• SGML and XML News. January - March, 1999
• SGML/XML News for 1998
• SGML/XML News for 1997
• SGML/XML News for 1996
• SGML News for 1995