Cover Pages: SGML and XML News 2004 Q3

Quick News: Bookmark 'News Headlines' or subscribe to an XML RSS channel [RSS 0.91], also HTML-ized. See Clippings for news in the making.

[October 08, 2004] AMD, Dell, Intel, Microsoft, and Sun Release Web Services for Management (WS-Management). A new Web Services for Management (WS-Management) specification edited by Alan Geller (Microsoft) has been published. This initial joint publication of the specification names Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Dell, Intel and Sun Microsystems as co-developers. The WS-Management specification describes a general SOAP-based protocol for managing systems such as PCs, servers, devices, Web services and other applications, and other manageable entities. According to Microsoft's announcement, WS-Management "reshapes the concept of distributed management. A key distributed application area is the management of systems and devices. Web services offer a strong foundation for building robust and interoperable systems management solutions. Designed to scale from small footprint controllers to enterprise class servers while maintaining security, WS-Management will help to create a common way of surfacing management-related operations and events within connected systems." Key terms in the WS-Management systems management model include a System as a top-level managed entity composed of one or more Resource Instances; a Resource Instance, also called a Resource or an Instance, is a single manageable item such as a disk drive or a running process. A Resource Service is a Web service that provides access to a single category of manageable items, such as disk drives or running processes, that share the same operations and representation schema. An Agent is application that provides management services for a System by exposing a set of Resource Services. A Manager is a Web service that is used to manage one or more Systems by sending messages to and/or receiving messages from an Agent for that System." The WS-Management specification is designed to satisfy basic requirements of systems management in terms of web services. It is intended to "(1) constrain Web services protocols and formats so Web services can be implemented in management agents with a small footprint, in both hardware and software; (2) define minimum requirements for compliance without constraining richer implementations; (3) ensure composability with other Web services specifications, such as WS-ReliableMessaging and WS-AtomicTransactions; (4) minimize additional mechanism beyond the current Web service architecture." Namespaces are declared in the WS-Management document for other WS-* specifications, including WS-MetadataExchange, WS-Addressing, WS-Eventing, WS-Enumeration, and WS-Transfer. [Full context]
[October 07, 2004] W3C Announces Formation of New Web Services Addressing Working Group. W3C has chartered a new Web Services Addressing Working Group as part of the W3C Web Services Activity, under the W3C Architecture Domain. The TC Chair is Mark Nottingham (BEA), while Hugo Haas and Philippe Le Hégaret have been designated as W3C Team Contacts. The charter extends through 28-February-2006. The goal of the new Working Group is to produce a W3C Recommendation for Web Services Addressing by "refining the W3C Member Submission WS-Addressing based on consideration of the importance of this component in the Web Services architecture, implementation experience, and interoperability feedback. WS-Addressing defines how message headers direct messages to a service or agent, provides an XML format for exchanging endpoint references, and defines mechanisms to direct replies or faults to a specific location." In particular, the Web Services Addressing Working Group has been chartered to "standardize the mechanisms for referencing and addressing Web services by refining WS-Addressing, which includes four principal components of the W3C's Web Services Architecture specification. These referencing and addressing mechanisms are (1) a means by which message headers are used to direct messages to a Web service or agent; (2) abstract message properties (message identifier; a URI for the destination address; a URI designating the action to be taken at the destination; correlation with other message[s]; the nature of the relationship with those messages) (3) an appropriate XML Infoset definition; (4) abstract properties to identify subsequent destinations in the message exchange, including the reply destination and the fault destination." The XML Infoset required for "communicating the information necessary to generate appropriate headers to direct messages to a service or an agent includes a URI designating the destination address; service specific message headers; interaction specific message headers; WSDL definitions relevant to this service; additional metadata as required." According to the WG Charter, these components "must be extensible to enable other mechanisms such as new kinds of relationships between correlated messages, policies, or service semantics to be built upon Web Services Addressing. The components must also be usable independently of the SOAP or WSDL version in use." Additionally, the WG will define SOAP 1.1 and WSDL 1.1 bindings (defined for backward compatibility only). It will define (1) a binding of all abstract message properties to SOAP 1.1 and SOAP 1.2 headers, (2) the use of these abstract message properties in the context of all WSDL 1.1 or WSDL 2.0 Message Exchange Patterns, including the asynchronous use of these MEPs; in particular, the relationship between message properties and WSDL 1.1 and WSDL 2.0 service descriptions will be provided if applicable, and (3) a security model for using and communicating these abstract properties." [Full context]
[October 06, 2004] Legal Information Institute Releases Complete United States Code in XML Format. Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute has announced the release of a new online edition of the United States Code, including all the Federal law passed by Congress currently in force. For the first time, the project team is also releasing the underlying XML version as a dataset for use in research. The data set has been generated from the most recent official version made available by the US House of Representatives. The United States Code "is the official compilation of the Federal statutes of a general and permanent nature; by Federal statute, the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives is the publisher and compiler of the Code, and the Counsel is an appointee of the Speaker of the House." Thomas R. Bruce, Director of the Legal Information Institute (LII), suggests that this edition of the United States Code represents perhaps the largest body of legislation ever made available online in XML format for use by researchers interested in legal text. One of the goals of the US Code project is to stimulate interest on the part of the research community in working with legal text, and to survey the uses to which people put XML versions of legislation. According to the LII's USC Bell Code Browsing Environment User Guide, the Institite is sponsoring a "continuing effort to render the United States Code as an open-source multi-use XML data set. An important part has been to develop an environment to make the raw data, and emerging interpretations of it, as visible as possible in an analytical mode. As this is primarily a laboratory artifact, not many user friendliness features have been implemented; the emphasis has been utility for someone who knows the project." The US Code supplied to the Legal Information Institute "is marked up for typesetting; the project team uses this specialized markup to help discover the structure to motivate more generalized XML elements. In a preliminary micro-translation, the control-code based input is rendered in a quite literal readable format, which is then stored as a file with the same scope as the input (title or appendix) as well as fragmented along data-natural boundaries and rendered as static HTML for easy viewing." The U.S. Code XML data is licensed under a Creative Commons License. [Full context]
[October 05, 2004] OASIS Extensible Access Control Markup Language TC Approves XACML 2.0 Specifications. Members of the OASIS Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) Technical Committee have approved several Version 2.0 documents as Committee Drafts. The approved CD documents are available for public review through November 4, 2004. The motivation behind XACML is to express the well-established ideas in the field of access- control policy (e.g., rules, policies, policy sets, subjects, decision requests, authorization decisions,) using an extension language of XML. According to the Core specification, "there is a pressing need for a common language for expressing security policy. If implemented throughout an enterprise, a common policy language allows the enterprise to manage the enforcement of all the elements of its security policy in all the components of its information systems. Managing security policy may include some or all of the following steps: writing, reviewing, testing, approving, issuing, combining, analyzing, modifying, withdrawing, retrieving and enforcing policy." The XACML specification thus "enables the use of arbitrary attributes in policies, role-based access control, security labels, time/date-based policies, indexable policies, 'deny' policies, and dynamic policies — all without requiring changes to the applications that use XACML. Adoption of XACML across vendor and product platforms should provide the opportunity for organizations to perform access and access policy audits directly across such systems." The XACML 2.0 Specification Set includes a normative subset of eleven documents, including four XML Schemas and seven prose specifications. The complete distribution for public review is a ZIP archive with sixty-some files, including non-normative formats and examples. Version 2.0 provides profiles for SAML 2.0, XML Digital Signature, Privacy Policy, Hierarchical/Multiple Resources, and Role Based Access Control (RBAC). The principal features of XACML are documented in the core Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) Version 2.0 specification, supported by the Core Policy Schema and Core Context Schema. This document provides the model descriptions for data-flow, XACML context (canonical representation of a decision request and an authorization decision), and policy language (rule, policy, policy set). [Full context]
[September 30, 2004] W3C Issues XML Inclusions (XInclude) Version 1.0 as a Proposed Recommendation. Members of the W3C XML Core Working Group have produced a Proposed Recommendation version of XML Inclusions (XInclude) Version 1.0 as part of the W3C XML Activity. A Proposed Recommendation is the penultimate stage in W3C standards ratification, indicating that the specification "is a mature technical report that, after wide review for technical soundness and implementability, W3C has sent to the W3C Advisory Committee for final endorsement." XInclude 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)." The specification Introduction explains the differences between the XInclude mechanism and other markup-based mechanisms which support inclusion, transclusion, and content-merging facilities by linking and other constructs. "Many programming languages provide an inclusion mechanism to facilitate modularity, and markup languages also often have need of such a mechanism. The XInclude specification uses the standard XML syntax defined for elements, attributes, and URI references in the design of a generic inclusion mechanism. It supports merging of XML documents based upon a document's information items as represented given by the documents' XML Information Set (Infoset). The XInclude specification provides a "media-type specific (XML into XML) transformation. It defines a specific processing model for merging information sets. XInclude processing occurs at a low level, often by a generic XInclude processor which makes the resulting information set available to higher level applications." Release of the XInclude Proposed Recommendation includes an XInclude Implementation Report and XML Inclusions (XInclude) Conformance Test Suites, developed jointly with NIST, Red Hat Network, FourThought, and the University of Edinburgh. The Implementation Report is based upon tests using software from Markup Technology, Elliotte Rusty Harold's XOM (XML object model), and libxml (XML C parser and toolkit developed for the Gnome project). [Full context]
[September 29, 2004] RSA Security Announces Support for OMA DRM 2.0 and Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL). An announcement from RSA Security Inc. describes the company's plans to "offer a standards-based solution for digital rights management (DRM) that represents a consumer-friendly alternative to the DRM methods currently deployed by several major digital content providers." The RSA Security DRM solution will leverage open standards such as the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) DRM 2.0 and the Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) Version 1.1. The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Digital Rights Management technology based upon XML "enables the distribution and consumption of digital content in a controlled manner, where content is distributed and consumed on authenticated devices per the usage rights expressed by the content owners. OMA DRM work addresses the various technical aspects of this system by providing appropriate specifications for content formats, protocols, and rights expression languages." The OMA DRM Rights Expression Language (REL) V2.0 is defined as a mobile profile of the Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL). ODRL is an XML-based rights expression language free of licensing restrictions, providing a lightweight formal mechanism for specifying rights independently of the content type and transport mechanism. RSA Security's DRM solution uses the OMA model which "adds the much needed concept of consumer identity protection — something currently missing from today's DRM technologies. This DRM solution will enable several fundamental requirements for broad-based adoption and usage of both PC-based and mobile content services, including (1) an open, flexible platform built on widely-supported standards; (2) content portability through rights portability; (3) a frictionless digital content experience through transparency to consumers; (4) new revenue opportunities for content owners through support of legal peer-to-peer distribution and subscription services; (5) rights protection that can span all playback devices including mobile phones, personal computers, portable digital music players, car audio systems, and PDAs." RSA observes that the number of competing DRM implementations are problematic for users, saying that the current infighting between major content providers over technology is creating roadblocks between consumers and their content: "Apple Computer's iTunes application program uses Apple's homegrown FairPlay technology, Yahoo! and Microsoft's services use Microsoft DRM technology, and Sony's Connect service has its its own DRM technology." A superior approach, and the one advocated by RSA, is a "common DRM technology standard that is free for anyone to implement and allows both consumers and the entertainment industry to achieve common ground on a solution that works." In the model proposed by RSA Security, "both content and usage rights would be downloaded as 'rights objects' from a download service onto a user's device. Objects would be encrypted using strong encryption technology, like RSA BSAFE software." [Full context]
[September 29, 2004] OASIS Forms Four Technical Committees to Advance Data Center Markup Language (DCML). The Data Center Markup Language (DCML) Organization recently transitioned its technical activities to OASIS under a new DCML Member Section and has now formed technical committees to continue work on the DCML specification. A Call for Participation and accompanying TC Proposal has been issued for each of the four new OASIS DCML technical committees. The Data Center Markup Language (DCML) is "an XML-based specification for representing the contents of data centers and information used in managing those contents. The goal of the OASIS DCML technical committees is to support the development of a holistic set of standards related to the automated management of data center infrastructure. The TCs will promote the use of utility computing by providing a standard way to represent the IT environment and enabling data center automation and system management solutions to easily exchange information about the environment under management." A new OASIS DCML Framework TC has been chartered to "create a data model and format for exchanging information about the contents of data centers and other IT resources, and the information used in managing those contents. The OASIS DCML Framework TC will continue work on the DCML Framework specification produced by the DCML organization. An OASIS DCML Applications and Services TC has been formed to extend the [proposed] OASIS DCML Framework Specification by defining extensions to represent Applications and Services and the information necessary to manage these components. The new OASIS DCML Server TC has been chartered to "define extensions to the DCML Framework specification to facilitate the representation and management of information about servers. 'Server' refers to a logical or physical compute resource in the datacenter. An OASIS DCML Network TC has been chartered to "design a data model and XML-based format for the exchange of information about networking elements in a data center. [Full context]
[September 28, 2004] W3C Publishes InkML and EMMA Working Drafts for the Multimodal Interaction Framework. The W3C Multimodal Interaction Working Group has published revised Working Drafts for EMMA: Extensible MultiModal Annotation Markup Language and Ink Markup Language as part of the W3C Multimodal Interaction Activity. The W3C Multimodal Interaction Activity involves technical work to extend the Web user interface "to allow multiple modes of interaction (aural, visual and tactile), offering users the means to provide input using their voice or their hands via a key pad, keyboard, mouse, or stylus. For output, users will be able to listen to spoken prompts and audio, and to view information on graphical displays. The Multimodal Interaction Working Group is producing specifications intended to be implementable on a royalty-free basis." The Ink Markup Language "serves as the data format for representing ink entered with an electronic pen or stylus. The markup allows for the input and processing of handwriting, gestures, sketches, music and other notational languages in Web-based (and non Web-based) applications. It provides a common format for the exchange of ink data between components such as handwriting and gesture recognizers, signature verifiers, and other ink-aware modules." The updated EMMA: Extensible MultiModal Annotation Markup Language is also part of the W3C's set of specifications for multi-modal systems designed to enable access to the Web using multi-modal interaction. EMMA "provides details of an XML markup language for describing the interpretation of user input. Examples of interpretation of user input are a transcription into words of a raw signal, for instance derived from speech, pen or keystroke input, a set of attribute/value pairs describing their meaning, or a set of attribute/value pairs describing a gesture. The interpretation of the user's input is expected to be generated by signal interpretation processes, such as speech and ink recognition, semantic interpreters, and other types of processors for use by components that act on the user's inputs such as interaction managers." [Full context]
[September 21, 2004] Revised WS-MetadataExchange Specification Supported by CA, Sun, and webMethods. Microsoft has announced the release of a second public version of Web Services Metadata Exchange (WSMetadataExchange), adding new functionality and broader industry support. The September 2004 version of WSMetadataExchange is co-authored by Computer Associates International, Sun Microsystems, and webMethods, together with authors named on the previous version of March 2004 (BEA Systems, IBM, Microsoft Corporation, and SAP AG). WSMetadataExchange is designed to define a bootstrap mechanism for metadata-driven message exchange, including XML Schema, WSDL, and WS-Policy. It is also intended to "support future versions of known metadata formats, allowing new metadata formats to be added. It is supposed to leverage other Web service specifications for secure, reliable, transacted message delivery. The design supports both SOAP 1.1 and and SOAP 1.2 Envelopes, and enables description in WSDL 1.1." The protocol binding by default is SOAP 1.1 over HTTP, and adherence to constraints expressed by the WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 is recommended as a means of bootstrapping communication. The previous version of WSMetadataExchange defined a Get Policy request, Get WSDL request, and Get Schema request as methods for retrieving metadata. These have been generalized in the updated specification to provide more flexible endpoint metadata access and to support versioning. Metadata retrieval is now implemented in WSMetadataExchange by 'Get Metadata' and 'Get': "to retrieve a service's metadata, a requester may send a Get Metadata request message to an endpoint. To retrieve a referenced Metadata Section, a requester may send a Get request message to a Metadata Reference. 'Get' fetches a one-time snapshot of the metadata, according to the metadata type (@Dialect) and identifier specified in the Metadata Section. To facilitate intelligent intermediaries, all implementations of the Get operation must be 'safe', as defined in RFC 2616; specifically, safe operations are required to have no significant semantic side-effects on the service, including such actions as the acquisition of long-lived locks." A new appendix for "Dialect URI Definitions" has been added, defining several values for @Dialect; "other specifications are expected to define values for @Dialect for other metadata formats and/or versions." [Full context]
[September 20, 2004] Arbortext Version 5.1 Supports Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA). Arbortext, Inc. has announced the Version 5.1 release of its enterprise publishing software with enhanced support of the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) specification. Arbortext's XML-based single-source publishing architecture "helps companies capture their information in a single media-independent form and automatically publish from XML to multiple media types, including Web, print, CD-ROM and wireless devices." Arbortext's software is applicable especially to the production of catalogs, datasheets, operating instructions, user guides, service manuals, training courses, technical journals, reference publications and other complex documents. The Arbortext Version 5.1 release features several enhancements for DITA. The Darwin Information Typing Architecture was originally designed by IBM, and is now under development in the OASIS DITA Technical Committee. DITA is an architecture for creating topic-oriented, information-typed content that can be reused and single-sourced in a variety of ways. It is also an architecture for creating new information types and describing new information domains based on existing types and domains. This allows groups to create very specific, targeted document type definitions using a process called specialization, while still sharing common output transforms and design rules developed for more general types and domains. Five new document types have been added for DITA support in Arbortext Version 5.1 (Topic, Task, Reference, Concept, and Ditabase) these types enable authors to create content based on the DITA methodology. Arbortext now also provides custom table support: "also referred to as semantic tables, Arbortext 5.1 supports custom tables, which not only conforms to DITA's table models (simpletable, choicetable) and properties, but also allows users to select their own tags to be displayed and edited in a tabular form." The Arbortext Version 5.1 software includes 'Conref' support: "Conref is DITA's inclusion method used to include content from another file, which enables efficient reuse of information." Enhanced specialization support is also feature in the Arbortext release: "With the ability to use a single stylesheet to control the style of Topic, Task, Concept, Reference and other DITA applications, users can quickly expand their publishing applications as well as easily incorporate content produced in other DITA-aware systems." [Full context]
[September 17, 2004] WS-Enumeration and WS-Transfer Published as Web Services Messaging Specifications. Two new Web Services messaging specifications have been published under terms of co-development and joint authorship by BEA Systems, Computer Associates, Microsoft, Sonic Software, and Systinet. The documents have been released as-is, for review and evaluation only, with no further warrantees or representations. Web Service Enumeration (WS-Enumeration) "describes a general SOAP-based protocol for enumerating a sequence of XML elements that is suitable for traversing logs, message queues, or other linear information models. It brings enumeration capabilities to the WS-* suite of specifications, enabling an application to ask for items from a list of data that is held by a Web service. In this way, WS-Enumeration is useful for reading event logs, message queues, or other data collections." WS-Enumeration recognizes that "there are numerous applications for which a simple single-request/single-reply metaphor is insufficient for transferring large data sets over SOAP. Applications that do not fit into this simple paradigm include streaming, traversal, query, and enumeration. In its simplest form, WS-Enumeration defines a single operation, Pull, which allows a data source, in the context of a specific enumeration, to produce a sequence of XML elements in the body of a SOAP message. Each subsequent Pull operation returns the next N elements in the aggregate sequence. The Web Service Transfer (WS-Transfer) specification "describes a general SOAP-based protocol for accessing XML representations of Web service-based resources. It enables state transfer over SOAP by defining how to invoke a simple set of familiar verbs (Get, Post, Put, and Delete) using SOAP. An application protocol may be constructed to perform these operations over resources." WS-Transfer "defines two types of entities: (1) Resources, which are entities addressable by an endpoint reference that provide an XML representation; (2) Resource factories, which are Web services that can create a new resource from an XML representation. Specifically, it defines two operations for sending and receiving the representation of a given resource and two operations for creating and deleting a resource and its corresponding representation." [Full context]
[September 16, 2004] Ecma International Approves Standard ECMA-269 With Enhanced SALT-Based Voice Services. Ecma International, producer of standards for information and communication technology (ICT) and consumer electronics (CE), has announced the approval of Standard ECMA-269: Services for Computer Supported Telecommunications Applications (CSTA) Phase III as an official standard. ECMA-269 together with a series of related publications, provides "a complete toolbox for developing a wide range of enterprise CSTA applications taking advantage of Internet technologies such as XML, SIP, and speech recognition and processing." CSTA specifies an Applications Interface and Protocols for monitoring and controlling calls and devices in a communications network. These calls and devices may support various media and can reside in various network environments such as IP, Switched Circuit Networks, and mobile networks. CSTA however, abstracts various details of underlying signalling protocols (e.g., SIP/H.323) and networks for the applications. The revised third edition of ECMA-323, XML Protocol for Computer Supported Telecommunications Applications (CSTA) Phase III, specifies a set of XML schemas for this 6th edition of Phase III Services for CSTA. The second edition of ECMA-348, Web Services Description Language (WSDL) for CSTA Phase III specifies a set of WSDL schemas for the approved 6th edition of Phase III Services for CSTA. Ecma CSTA "supports a range of application landscapes, from basic first party call control to advanced third party call control with the same standardised model. CSTA exposes advanced communication platform features to application developers without burdening them with underlying protocol specifics. All of the Standards and Technical Reports in the CSTA suite "are based on practical experience of ECMA member companies and each one represents a pragmatic and widely-based consensus." [Full context]
[September 14, 2004] IBM Contributes XML-Based Speech Software to Apache and Eclipse Open Source Projects. At the SpeechTEK 2004 Conference IBM announced a major contribution of software to open source initiatives at the Apache Software Foundation and the Eclipse Foundation. The new software projects are intended to "spur the availability of speech-enabled applications by making it easier and more attractive for developers to build and add speech recognition capability in a standardized way. Supported by more than 20 key industry players from speech vendors to platform providers, the initiative is aimed at ending the battles over competing, proprietary specifications." An Eclipse Voice Tools Project will "focus on Voice Application tools in the JSP/J2EE space, based on W3C standards, so that these standards become dominant in voice application development. It will depend on and extend the XML and Web development capabilities of the Eclipse Web Tools Platform Project, providing a set of Eclipse plugins that will provide development tools for W3C Standards/Recommendations for Voice application markup." Under the project proposal, the Voice Tools will initially "consist of editors for VoiceXML, the XML Form of SRGS (Speech Recognition Grammar Specification), and CCXML (Call Control eXtensible Markup Language). Implementations of other tools that implement W3C voice standards, such as the LexiconML (Pronunciation Markup Language), will be added as the standards solidify and the Voice Tools Eclipse community grows." IBM is also contributing its Reusable Dialog Components (RDCs) technology to the Apache Software Foundation. RDCs are "pre-built speech software components, or building blocks that handle basic functions such as date, time, currency, locations (major cities, states, zip codes). They are often-used functions in speech-enabled infrastructure applications. For example, these RDCs allow a caller to book a flight using an auto-agent over the phone. Multiple reusable dialog components can be aggregated to provide higher levels of user functionality." [Full context]
[September 10, 2004] OASIS WSRM TC Releases Web Services Reliable Messaging (WS-Reliability) Version 1.1. The OASIS Web Services Reliable Messaging Technical Committee has published a milestone version of its Web Services Reliable Messaging (WS-Reliability) specification, including a prose document and four supporting XML schemas. WS-Reliability is a "SOAP-based specification that fulfills reliable messaging requirements critical to some applications of Web Services. It is needed because SOAP over HTTP is not sufficient when an application-level messaging protocol must also guarantee some level of reliability and security. Reliable Messaging in this context refers to "act of processing the set of transport-agnostic SOAP Features defined by WS-Reliability, which results in a protocol supporting quality of service features such as guaranteed delivery, duplicate message elimination, and message ordering. Reliable messaging requires the definition and enforcement of contracts between (1) The Sending and Receiving message processors — contracts about the wire protocol, (2) The messaging service provider and the users of the messaging service — contracts about quality of service." WS-Reliability supports message reliability by defining: (1) Guaranteed message delivery, or At-Least-Once delivery semantics; (2) Guaranteed message duplicate elimination, or At-Most-Once delivery semantics; (3) Guaranteed message delivery and duplicate elimination, or Exactly-Once delivery semantics; (4) Guaranteed message ordering for delivery within a group of messages. The WS-Reliability specification "defines reliability in the context of current Web Services standards and has been designed for use in combination with complementary protocols. [Full context]
[September 08, 2004] Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.0 Advances to W3C Recommendation. The World Wide Web Consortium has published Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.0 as a W3C Recommendation. SSML 1.0 elevates the role of high-quality synthesized speech in Web interactions and represents a fundamental specification in the W3C Speech Interface Framework. SSML Version 1.0 has been produced by members of the W3C Voice Browser Working Group as part of the the Voice Browser Activity within W3C's Interaction Domain. W3C's Voice Browser WG seeks to "develop standards to enable access to the Web using spoken interaction. The Speech Synthesis Markup Language Specification is one of these standards and is designed to provide a rich, XML-based markup language for assisting the generation of synthetic speech in Web and other applications. The essential role of the markup language is to provide authors of synthesizable content a standard way to control aspects of speech such as pronunciation, volume, pitch, rate, etc. across different synthesis-capable platforms." The W3C announcement describes SSML 1.0 as a specification "built for integration with other Web technologies and to promote interoperability across different synthesis-capable platforms. Companion W3C Recommendations like VoiceXML 2.0 and Speech Recognition Grammar Specification (SRGS) published by the W3C Voice Browser Working Group help define "a suite of markup languages covering dialog, speech synthesis, speech recognition, call control and other aspects of interactive voice response applications. Application designers for mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and a host of emerging technologies use SSML 1.0 to achieve both coarse- and fine-grain control of important aspects of speech synthesis." Specifications produced by the W3C Voice Browser Working Group "bring the advantages of Web-based development and content delivery to interactive voice response applications. Speech Synthesis Markup Language, Speech Recognition Grammar Specification, and Call Control XML are core technologies for describing speech synthesis, recognition grammars, and call control constructs respectively. VoiceXML is a dialog markup language that leverages the other specifications for creating dialogs that feature synthesized speech, digitized audio, recognition of spoken and DTMF key (touch tone) input, recording of spoken input, telephony, and mixed initiative conversations." In the Voice Browser Working Group, W3C is working "to expand access to the Web to allow people to interact via key pads, spoken commands, listening to prerecorded speech, synthetic speech and music. This will allow any telephone to be used to access appropriately designed Web-based services, and will be a boon to people with visual impairments or needing Web access while keeping their hands and eyes free for other things. It will also allow effective interaction with display-based Web content in the cases where the mouse and keyboard may be missing or inconvenient." [Full context]
[September 07, 2004] Sonic Software and VeriSign Join as Authors on Revised WS-Policy Specifications. Updated versions of Web Services Policy Framework (WS-Policy) and Web Services Policy Attachment (WS-PolicyAttachment) have been released, incorporating feedback from recent workshops. The September 2004 public draft releases are "provided for review and evaluation only"; the authors "hope to solicit your contributions and suggestions in the near future." The updated versions of WS-Policy and WS-PolicyAttachment are said to "refine the semantics for how to compare two policies to determine a base level of compatibility and expand on how policy is associated with Web services." Both WS-Policy and WS-PolicyAttachment are reckoned among the WS-* Metadata Specifications, according to Microsoft's classification scheme, along with WSDL, UDDI, WS-PolicyAssertions, WS-SecurityPolicy, WS-Discovery, and WS-MetadataExchange. Sonic Software and VeriSign are now listed as joint authors on the two specifications, together with BEA, IBM, Microsoft, SAP AG. The goal of WS-Policy is "to provide the mechanisms needed to enable Web services applications to specify policy information. Specifically, WS-Policy defines: (1) An XML Infoset called a policy expression that contains domain-specific, Web Service policy information; (2) A core set of constructs to indicate how choices and/or combinations of domain-specific policy assertions apply in a Web services environment. WS-Policy is designed to work with the general Web services framework, including WSDL service descriptions (Web Services Description Language Version 1.1) and UDDI service registrations, including UDDI Version 2.04 API, UDDI Version 2.03 Data Structure Reference, and UDDI Version 3.0. Where WS-Policy defines an abstract model and an XML-based expression grammar for policies, the Web Services Policy Attachment (WS-PolicyAttachment) defines "two general-purpose mechanisms for associating such policies with the subjects to which they apply. WS-PolicyAttachment also defines how these general-purpose mechanisms may be used to associate WS-Policy with WSDL and UDDI descriptions. Specifically it defines how to reference policies from WSDL definitions, how to associate policies with deployed Web service endpoints, and how to associate policies with UDDI entities." [Full context]
[September 03, 2004] Apache Software Foundation Rejects Microsoft Patent License Agreement for Sender ID. An open letter from Apache Software Foundation (ASF) to the IETF MTA Authorization Records in DNS (MARID) Working Group announces the decision of ASF projects not to implement or deploy the IETF Sender ID specification under terms required by Microsoft's Patent License Agreement. The letter from Apache also expresses concern that "no company should be permitted IP rights over core Internet infrastructure" and urges the IETF to "revamp its IPR policies to ensure that the core Internet infrastructure remain unencumbered." The IETF Sender ID specification as governed by the Microsoft Patent License Agreement includes an Internet Draft Sender ID: Authenticating E-Mail and companion I-D Purported Responsible Address in E-Mail Messages. The Sender ID specification defines mechanisms by which SMTP mail servers can determine "what email address is allegedly responsible for most proximately introducing a message into the Internet mail system, and whether that introduction is authorized by the owner of the domain contained in that email address." The PRA document defines an algorithm applicable to a given an e-mail message by which one "can extract the identity of the party that appears to have most proximately caused that message to be delivered." Microsoft has hoped for broad implementation of the Sender ID specification, said in its promotional web site to "address the widespread problem of domain spoofing. Domain spoofing refers specifically to the use of someone else's domain name when sending a message, and is part of the larger spoofing problem, the practice of forging the sender's address on e-mail messages. Eliminating domain spoofing will help legitimate senders protect their domain names and reputations, and help recipients more effectively identify and filter junk e-mail." However, legal review of the Microsoft Patent License Agreement by Larry Rosen (General Counsel, the Open Source Initiative) and others has determined that the license terms are "generally incompatible with open source, contrary to the practice of open Internet standards, and specifically incompatible with the Apache License 2.0." [Full context]
[September 02, 2004] dbXML 2.0 Production Release Provides Open Source Native XML Database. A communiqué from Tom Bradford reports on the recent production release of dbXML Version 2.0 by the dbXML Group. dbXML is a Native XML Database "capable of storing and indexing collections of XML documents in both native and mapped forms for highly efficient querying, transformation, and retrieval. In addition to these capabilities, the server may also be extended to provide business logic in the form of scripts, classes and triggers." New features in the dbXML Version 2.0 release include journaling transactions, XSLT transformations, full text indexing and full text querying, pluggable security models, a new command line system, new client/server APIs, SSL connection support, JSP Tag Library support, and embedded database APIs. dbXML 2.0 as an open source project governed by the terms of the GNU General Public License. This version of dbXML is basically "a complete rewrite of the dbXML 1.0 code, which forked into the Apache Xindice project. dbXML was developed using the Java 2 Standard Edition version 1.4, and should operate properly on all platforms to which J2SE 1.4 has been ported." The dbXML Group also "provides commercial licenses for situations where utilization under the terms of the GPL are inappropriate. Those using or deploying dbXML in a commercial environment may wish to consider contacting the group to discuss commercial licensing and support." [Full context]
[September 01, 2004] W3C Publishes Initial Working Draft for SVG's XML Binding Language (sXBL). A First Public Working Draft of SVG's XML Binding Language (sXBL) has been released by members of the W3C Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group and the CSS Working Group. The sXBL language defines the presentation and interactive behavior of elements outside the SVG namepace. sXBL is intended to be used to enable XML vocabularies (sometimes called tag sets) "to be implemented in terms of SVG markup elements. For instance, a tag set describing a flowchart could be mapped to low-level SVG path and text elements, possibly including interactivity and animation." sXML is thus "an SVG-specific first version of a more general-purpose XBL specification. In the future, a general-purpose and modularly-defined XBL specification will be developed which will replace this initial Working Draft specification; it will define additional features that are necessary to support scenarios beyond SVG, such as integration into web browsers that support CSS. Once a general-purpose XBL is defined, sXBL will become an SVG-specific subset or profile of the larger XBL specification." The feature set in sXBL represents a "repackaging and generalization of the Rendering Custom Content (RCC) feature described in previous SVG 1.2 specifications. Features that were formerly in RCC have been factored out into sXBL as a separate specification, reformulated for more general applicability for possible future use with other markup languages and moved into an XBL-specific namespace." Refactoring of RCC into sXBL is meant to ensure that RCC/sXBL would be forward-looking and can "develop into a future modularly-defined and general-purpose XBL specification which met the needs of multiple XML markup languages, not just SVG." Although refactoring has involved renaming of elements and major changes in syntax, "the resulting sXBL feature set performs the same operations and satisfies the same requirements as RCC. Sometimes it is possible to migrate RCC-based widget definitions to XBL-based widget definitions after some global search and replace string substitutions." Members of the XBL task force consider this sXBL specification "nearly ready for Last Call" and explicitly invite comments on the specification. "After evaluating public feedback on this draft, the next public draft might be a Last Call working draft." [Full context]
[August 31, 2004] BEA, CA, IBM, Microsoft, Sun, and Tibco Release Updated WS-Eventing Specification. A revised version of the Web Services Eventing (WS-Eventing) specification has been published by BEA Systems Inc., Computer Associates International Inc., International Business Machines Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Inc, Sun Microsystems, Inc, and TIBCO Software Inc. This draft version provided for public review and evaluation updates the earlier draft of WS-Eventing released by BEA, Microsoft, and TIBCO in January 2004. The WS-Eventing specification describes a protocol that allows Web services to subscribe to or accept subscriptions for event notification messages. It defines a single delivery mode, Push Mode, which is simple asynchronous messaging. WS-Eventing is designed as part of the WS-* composable architecture , viz., intended to to be composed with other WS-* specifications "to provide a rich set of tools to provide security in the Web services environment; the specification specifically relies on other Web service specifications to provide secure, reliable, and/or transacted message delivery and to express Web service and client policy." WS-Eventing "defines a protocol for one Web service (called a 'subscriber') to register interest (called a 'subscription') with another Web service (called an 'event source') in receiving messages about events (called 'notifications' or 'event messages'). The subscriber may manage the subscription by interacting with a Web service (called the 'subscription manager') designated by the event source." While many mechanisms are available by which event sources may deliver events to event sinks, the WS-Eventing specification "provides an extensible way for subscribers to identify the delivery mechanism they prefer. While asynchronous, pushed delivery is defined in WS-Eventing, the intent is that there should be no limitation or restriction on the delivery mechanisms capable of being supported by this specification." [Full context]
[August 30, 2004] Data Center Markup Language (DCML) Organization Transitions to OASIS Member Section. The DCML Organization has announced a decision to move its technical and marketing activities to OASIS, organized as a new OASIS Member Section. DCML is "an open coalition of vendors and users working to advance utility computing through the development and adoption of the XML-based Data Center Markup Language." Data Center Markup Language (DCML) is an open, vendor-neutral language used "to describe data center environments, dependencies between data center components and the policies governing management and construction of those environments. DCML provides a structured data format to describe, construct, replicate, recover and communicate about data center environments. DCML encompasses a wide array of data center elements, including UNIX, Linux, Windows and other servers, software infrastructure and applications, network components, and storage components." A version 1.1 Data Center Markup Language Framework Specification has already been published by members of the DCML Organization, which includes over 20 of the world's leading software, service provider, and systems vendors. The current DCML Framework Specification "defines the DCML data oriented framework for use by all DCML sub-specifications and DCML compliant management systems and tools. It utilizes a data oriented approach to solve the problem of large scale systems management, particularly in a data center environment. DCML stitches together multiple management systems and tools to form a unified management view of the environment." Transitioning the activities of the DCML Organization to an OASIS DCML Member Section is designed to "promote the use of utility computing by providing a standard way to represent the IT environment and enabling data center automation and system management solutions to easily exchange information about the environment under management. The OASIS DCML Member Section will be managed by a Steering Committee made up of the existing DCML board of directors that includes Louis Blatt of Computer Associates, Darrel Thomas of EDS, and Sharmila Shahani of Opsware Inc." [Full context]
[August 25, 2004] UN/CEFACT Applied Technologies Group Releases XML Naming and Design Rules Specification. The Applied Technologies Group (ATG) of the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) has announced the release of a UN/CEFACT XML Naming and Design Rules (NDR) specification for public review. The UN/CEFACT — XML Naming and Design Rules "describes and specifies the rules and guidelines that will be applied by UN/CEFACT when developing XML schema specifications. It provides a way to identify, capture and maximize the re-use of business information expressed as XML schema components to support and enhance information interoperability across multiple business situations." According to the design goals, the XML Naming and Design Rules specification "can be employed wherever business information is being shared or exchanged amongst and between enterprises, governmental agencies, and/or other organisations in an open and worldwide environment using the XML schema language for defining the content of the information exchange. This specification will form the basis for standards development work of technical experts developing XML schema specifications based on information models developed in accordance with the UN/CEFACT — Core Components Technical Specification — Part 8 of the ebXML Technical Framework (ISO 15000-5 Candidate)." Included in this specification is a "normative schema for the XML expression of ebXML Core Component Types (CCTs) and Unqualified Data Types (UDTs). These two schemas can be used by anyone interested in fostering international standardization of the use of ebXML core components." The NDR document has been developed "in accordance with the UN/CEFACT/TRADE/22 Open Development Process (ODP) for Technical Specifications and has been approved by the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) Applied Techniques Group (ATG) for promulgation for public review in accordance with Step 5 of the ODP." [Full context]
[August 24, 2004] Beta Release of Encoded Archival Context (EAC) for Name Authority Control. Members of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Encoded Archival Context (EAC) have released a Beta version of the EAC XML DTDs, Schemas, Tag Library, and other documentation, requesting feedback from projects that implement this specification on an experimental basis. The Encoded Archival Context specification provides a formal method of "encoding descriptions of persons, corporate bodies, and families responsible for the creation of records and other resources, where such descriptions provide context for understanding and interpreting the records and resources." Edited by Daniel V. Pitti (Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia), this proposed metadata standard complements other standard formalisms governing name authority control for personal and corporate entities. EAC data are designed for use in federated database applications and collaborative research across a broad range of domains, including prosopographical research and genealogical studies. The designers intend that intellectual content of EAC records comply with the International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families. EAC is also "complementary to the UNIMARC/Authorities format, combining bibliographic authority records and archival authority records, which give information both about the creator and the context of creation of archival material." The authoritative version of EAC Beta is in the form of an XML DTD. Alternatively, a W3C Schema and a Relax NG Schema are available for use. The EAC Tag Library provides a structural overview and definitions and descriptions of elements and attributes. The EAC is intended to be the second of three apparatus that "together form a complete archival description and access system. The Encoded Archival Description (EAD) Version 2002, used for encoding the description of records, is the first of these apparatus. The third apparatus, for the description of functions and activities performed by creating entities, is under discussion." The XML DTD and the Tag Library documentation "have been developed in cooperation and with support from the LEAF project. [Full context]
[August 23, 2004] IDEAlliance PRISM Working Group Issues Request for Comment on Metadata Specification. The IDEAlliance PRISM Working Group has issued a request for comment on the Version 1.2 PRISM: Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata specification for a 45-day review and comment period. PRISM "defines a set of XML metadata vocabularies that assist in automating repetitive tasks that are used in accessing, managing, tracking and repurposing content. The PRISM Specification and the PRISM Aggregator DTD, which is an application of the PRISM Specification, provide tools for interoperability so that organizations can easily and automatically syndicate, acquire, exchange and find magazine and mainstream journal articles, catalogs, images, and other types of content across multiple repositories." The PRISM specification "recommends the use of certain existing standards, such as XML, RDF, the Dublin Core, and various ISO specifications for locations, languages, and date/time formats. Additionally, it defines a small number of XML namespaces and controlled vocabularies of values." The Version 1.2 PRISM specification will replace the PRISM Vesion 1.1 specification published in 2002, featuring updates and additions resulting from the growing number of production implementations. Supporting specifications include an RSS (RDF Site Summary) 1.0 module for PRISM 1.2 and an RDF schema for PRISM 1.2. These documents were developed by Nature Publishing Group and are said to be applicable to multiple publishing domains, including scientific, educational, or trade. The PRISM working group is a joint effort of representatives from publishers and vendors organized under IDEAlliance (International Digital Enterprise Alliance, Inc). [Full context]
[August 20, 2004] Health Level Seven Releases Updated Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) Specification. Members of the Health Level Seven (HL7) Structured Documents Technical Committee have announced the publication of a revised HL7 Clinical Document Architecture specification. CDA Release 2.0 currently being balloted within the HL7 committee and is available for public review. The HL7 Clinical Document Architecture is an XML-based document markup standard that specifies the structure and semantics of clinical documents for the purpose of exchange. Known earlier as the Patient Record Architecture (PRA), CDA "provides an exchange model for clinical documents such as discharge summaries and progress notes, and brings the healthcare industry closer to the realization of an electronic medical record. By leveraging the use of XML, the HL7 Reference Information Model (RIM) and coded vocabularies, the CDA makes documents both machine-readable (so they are easily parsed and processed electronically) and human-readable so they can be easily retrieved and used by the people who need them. CDA documents can be displayed using XML-aware Web browsers or wireless applications such as cell phones..." The HL7 CDA was designed to "give priority to delivery of patient care. It provides cost effective implementation across as wide a spectrum of systems as possible. It supports exchange of human-readable documents between users, including those with different levels of technical sophistication, and promotes longevity of all information encoded according to this architecture. CDA enables a wide range of post-exchange processing applications and is compatible with a wide range of document creation applications." A CDA document is a defined and complete information object that can exist outside of a messaging context and/or can be a MIME-encoded payload within an HL7 message; thus, the CDA complements HL7 messaging specifications. The CDA specification prescribes XML markup for CDA Documents: CDA instances must valid against the CDA Schema and may be subject to additional validation, as described in the conformance section. "There is no prohibition against multiple schema languages (e.g., W3C, DTD, RELAXNG), as long as conforming instances are compatible. The CDA Schema conforms to the HL7 Version 3 Implementation Technology Specification (ITS). This Schema describes the style of XML markup of CDA instances for the purpose of exchange and thus cannot be understood outside the context of this defining specification including the normative R-MIM and Hierarchical Description. Semantic interoperability of CDA instances requires use and knowledge of the CDA Schema, R-MIM and HD as well as the corresponding RIM." The CDA Release 2.0 distribution includes a prose document in HTML, XML schemas, data dictionary, and sample CDA documents. [Full context]
[August 19, 2004] OASIS Security Services TC Releases Approved SAML 2.0 Committee Drafts for Review. Version 2.0 Committee Draft specifications for Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) have been approved for public review by the OASIS Security Services Technical Committee. SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) "defines the syntax and processing semantics of assertions made about a subject by a system entity. In the course of making, or relying upon such assertions, SAML system entities may use other protocols to communicate either regarding an assertion itself, or the subject of an assertion. The specification defines both the structure of SAML assertions, and an associated set of protocols, in addition to the processing rules involved in managing a SAML system. SAML assertions and protocol messages are encoded in XML and use XML namespaces." SAML assertions "are typically embedded in other structures for transport, such as HTTP POST requests or XML-encoded SOAP messages. The SAML bindings specification provides frameworks for the embedding and transport of SAML protocol messages. The SAML profiles specification provides a baseline set of profiles for the use of SAML assertions and protocols to accomplish specific use cases or achieve interoperability when using SAML features." The OASIS SAML Version 2.0 effort "addresses issues and enhancement requests that have arisen from experience with real-world SAML implementations and with standards architectures that use SAML, such as the OASIS WSS and XACML work. It adds support for features that were deferred from previous versions of SAML for schedule reasons, such as session support, the exchange of metadata to ensure more interoperable interactions, and collection of credentials. It seeks convergence on a unified technology approach for identity federation by integrating the specifications contributed by the Liberty Alliance." SAML is a flexible and extensible protocol designed to be used by other by other standards.The Liberty Alliance, the Internet2 Shibboleth project, and OASIS Web Services Security (WS-Security) have all adopted SAML as a technological underpinning to varying degrees. Public review of the SAML Version 2.0 Committee Draft documents begins on 2004-08-19 and ends 2004-09-19. Comments may be submitted to the TC using the online comment forms. [Full context]
[August 18, 2004] IESG Announces Last Call Review for IETF Internet Drafts on URIs and IRIs. Recent 'Last Call' postings from the Internet Engineering Steering Group announce the IESG's intention to make decisions on the approval of two URI-related IETF Internet Drafts within the next few weeks. The Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs) draft is being considered for approval as an IETF Proposed Standard. The IESG solicits final comments on the proposed action by 2004-09-08. Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax is under consideration for approval as an IETF Full Standard. Comments on this Internet Draft are invited through 2004-09-13. The IRI document defines a new protocol element named the Internationalized Resource Identifier (IRI) "as a complement to the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)." URIs are composed of sequence of characters chosen from a limited subset of the repertoire of US-ASCII characters. The IRI design is motivated by a need to accommodate non-English languages in which natural scripts use characters other than simply 'A-Z' to compose URIs. An IRI is a "sequence of characters from the Universal Character Set (Unicode/ISO 10646). A mapping from IRIs to URIs is defined, which means that IRIs can be used instead of URIs where appropriate to identify resources. The approach of defining a new protocol element was chosen, instead of extending or changing the definition of URIs, to allow a clear distinction and to avoid incompatibilities with existing software. Guidelines for the use and deployment of IRIs in various protocols, formats, and software components that now deal with URIs are provided." The World Wide Web, according to W3C's Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) Activity Statement, is a "universal, all-encompassing space containing all Internet resources referenced by Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). The Web is dominated today by relatively few technologies, including the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and the HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Perhaps more fundamental than either HTTP or HTML are the URIs, which are simple text strings that refer to Internet resources. URIs may refer to documents, resources, to people, and indirectly to anything. Document formats and protocols may come and go, but URIs will remain as the glue that binds the Web together." The new URI Generic Syntax document, if approved, will update IETF RFC 1738 and obsolete RFCs 2732, 2396, 1808. A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is "a compact sequence of characters for identifying an abstract or physical resource. The Generic Syntax specification "defines the generic URI syntax and a process for resolving URI references that might be in relative form, along with guidelines and security considerations for the use of URIs on the Internet. The URI syntax defines a grammar that is a superset of all valid URIs, such that an implementation can parse the common components of a URI reference without knowing the scheme-specific requirements of every possible identifier." [Full context]
[August 13, 2004] OASIS Web Services Security TC Prepares Additional WSS Profiles. Members of the OASIS Web Services Security Technical Committee are completing new work in the form of WSS profile specifications. The five profiles under development and review will complement the documents published as WSS 1.0 in April 2004. The OASIS Web Services Security (WSS) specification is an approved OASIS Standard that "builds upon existing security technologies such as XML Digital Signature, XML Encryption and X.509 Certificates to deliver an industry standard way of securing Web services message exchanges. Providing a framework within which authentication and authorization take place, WSS lets user apply existing security technology and infrastructure in a Web services environment. WSS handles complex confidentiality and integrity for SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) messages, providing a general-purpose mechanism for associating security tokens with message content. Designed to be extensible, WSS supports multiple security token formats." The WSS SAML Token Profile approved as an OASIS Committee Draft in July 2004 describes how to use Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) Version 1.1 assertions with the Web Services Security (WSS): SOAP Message Security specification. It defines how SAML assertions are carried in and referenced from <wsse:security> headers and describes how SAML assertions are used with XML Signature to bind the statements of the assertions (i.e., the claims) to a SOAP message. The Rights Expression Language (REL) Token Profile is a Committee Draft which describes the use of ISO/IEC 21000-5 Rights Expressions with respect to the SOAP Message Security 1.0 specification. SOAP Messages with Attachments (SwA) Profile 1.0 is an OASIS TC Working Draft which defines how to use the OASIS Web Services Security: SOAP Message Security standard with SOAP Messages with Attachments (SwA). It "describes how a web service consumer can secure SOAP attachments using SOAP Message Security for attachment integrity, confidentiality and origin authentication, and how a receiver may process such a message." The Kerberos Token Profile 1.0 Working Draft document "defines how to encode Kerberos tickets and attach them to SOAP messages. It also specifies how to add signatures and encryption to the SOAP message, in 50 accordance with WS-Security, which uses and references the Kerberos tokens." The WSS TC's Minimalist Profile (MProf) "defines a subset of OASIS WSS: SOAP Message Security features. The subset is "intended to minimize the resource requirements of its implementation and maximize the performance, while keeping the interoperability with the base specification." [Full context]
[August 11, 2004] WS-I Board of Directors Releases Three WS-I Approval Draft Profiles for Review. Board Approval Drafts have been issued for WS-I Basic Profile Version 1.1, WS-I Simple SOAP Binding Profile Version 1.0, and WS-I Attachments Profile Version 1.0. In the WS-I (Web Services Interoperability Organization) specification development process, a Board Approval Draft is a draft that "has been approved for publication by the Board of Directors, and is submitted for consideration by the Membership, and for public comment; it is a work in progress, and should not be considered as final; other documents may supersede this document." According to an overview from Christopher Ferris (IBM; co-editor on two of the Approval Drafts), the approved documents "are now before the WS-I membership for review" and are expected to reach final approval later in August 2004. Once approved by the WS-I membership, the documents becomes WS-I Final Material. Testing Tools and Sample Application implementations for these profiles will enter their own approval cycles in the near future." The WS-I Basic Profile 1.1 consists of "a set of non-proprietary Web services specifications, along with clarifications, refinements, interpretations and amplifications of those specifications which promote interoperability." The WS-I Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 "is derived from those Basic Profile 1.0 requirements related to the serialization of the envelope and its representation in the message, incorporating any errata to date. These requirements have been factored out of the Basic Profile 1.1 to enable other Profiles to be composable with it." Attachments Profile Version 1.0 profile "complements the WS-I Basic Profile 1.1 to add support for conveying interoperable SOAP Messages with Attachments-based attachments with SOAP messages." The overview provided by Ferris clarifies that WS-I "did not choose to produce multiple profiles arbitrarily. The initial intent was to add support for SOAP with Attachments to the Basic Profile 1.0 and to call the new profile Basic Profile 1.1. However, for a variety of reasons this approach proved to be infeasible. The three new profiles address both the need to address the customer requirement to provide guidance on the interoperable use of attachments today and the need to accommodate future bindings for technologies such as the W3C XML Protocol WG's MTOM and XOP." In essence, "the Basic Profile was re-architected to enable the composition of profiles that supported multiple bindings such as SOAP over HTTP, SOAP Messages with Attachments over HTTP and eventually MTOM/XOP over HTTP. It is conceivable that there might be other bindings in the future. The binding-specific requirements have been separated into their own profiles, each with its own conformance claim, and the testing tools have been modified to enable composition of the Test Assertion Documents (TAD) such that conformance to a set of relevant profiles can be measured." [Full context]
[August 10, 2004] WS-Addressing Specification Presented to W3C as a Member Submission. The Web Services Addressing (WS-Addressing) specification has been presented to W3C as a Member Submission by BEA, IBM, Microsoft, SAP AG, and Sun Microsystems. WS-Addressing provides transport-neutral mechanisms to address Web services and messages. Specifically, the specification defines XML elements to identify Web service endpoints and to secure end-to-end endpoint identification in messages. The specification enables messaging systems to support message transmission through networks that include processing nodes such as endpoint managers, firewalls, and gateways in a transport-neutral manner." The endpoint references defined in the specification serve to "identify the message destination; the message information headers allow the specification of endpoint references within messages, along with a way to relate messages to each other." The authors of the submission request that the W3C Consortium "start a Working Group whose mission is to produce a W3C Recommendation for Web Services Addressing by refining WS-Addressing based on consideration of the importance of this component in the Web services architecture, implementation experience, and interoperability feedback." The five companies identified as copyright holders have agreed to "offer licenses according to the W3C Royalty-Free licensing requirements for any portion of the Submission that is subsequently incorporated in a W3C Recommendation." According to the W3C Staff Comment, the new submission on the topic of Web services references and message delivery highlights the community's interest in this area; the W3C is considering creating a Working Group to address this important area of the Web services architecture." W3C invites feedback on this technology contribution. [Full context]
[August 06, 2004] W3C Public Workshop on Semantic Web and Life Sciences Features OWL, RDF, and LSID. W3C has announced a call for participation in a public W3C Workshop on Semantic Web for Life Sciences, to be held October 27-28, 2004 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Position papers published in advance of the Workshop will form the basis of the discussion. Workshop attendees will discuss "how Semantic Web technologies such as RDF, OWL and the Life Sciences Identifier (LSID) help to manage modern life sciences research, enable disease understanding, and accelerate the development of therapies." The workshop is free and open to the public, but will be limited to 100 participants; companies, government agencies, or individuals wishing to participate must submit a position paper by September 6, 2004. The scope of the workshop includes technology considerations and application use cases including new features or applications of Resource Description Framework (RDF), the Web Ontology Language (OWL), or OMG Life Sciences Identifiers Specification (LSID). Workshop papers may also address technical implementation problems with RDF/OWL/LSID, or requirements unmet by these specifications, including Semantic Web Advanced Development questions that have arisen as a result of SW-LS implementation. Proposals regarding intellectual property issues arising from SW-LS (Semantic Web and Life Sciences) adoption will also be considered. Technology papers are expected to "propose a new application of RDF/OWL/LSID in Life Sciences or identify a technical problem, explaining how the new feature or application might be achieved technically, or how the technical problem might be addressed. New features proposed may enable RDF/OWL/LSID to function better in new application contexts such as knowledge aggregation, scientifically relevant search or pharmaceutical decision support." [Full context]
[August 04, 2004] W3C Issues Last Call Working Drafts for WSDL Version 2.0 Specifications. W3C Last Call Working Draft documents have been released for the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) specification Version 2.0. The documents have been authored by members of the Web Services Description Working Group, produced as part of the W3C Web Services Activity. The WSDL 2.0 Core Language (Part 1) document describes the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 2.0, "an XML language for describing Web services. This Part 1 specification defines the core language which can be used to describe Web services based on an abstract model of what the service offers. It also defines criteria for a conformant processor of this language. WSDL enables one to separate the description of the abstract functionality offered by a service from concrete details of a service description such as 'how' and 'where' that functionality is offered." The WSDL 2.0 Predefined Extensions (Part 2) document "describes extensions for the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 2.0 . These extensions include Message Exchange Patterns (MEPs), features, SOAP modules, and bindings of features. The Working Group has discussed and approved these extensions, and recommends their use with WSDL. The WSDL Version 2.0 Bindings (Part 3) specification describes how to use WSDL in conjunction with SOAP 1.2 Part 1: Messaging Framework.MIME, and and HTTP/1.1, as well as other versions of HTTP. This Bindings specification depends on WSDL Version 2.0 Core Language. The W3C Web Services Description Working Group received three formal objections from Working Group participants against portions of the WSDL 2.0 specification draft. The WG especially invites feedback on these minority opinions as part of the Last Call review. The three objections pertain to compositors, feature and properties, and requiring unique GEDs or required feature to distinguish operations. The Web Services Description Working Group welcomes public comment on the WSDL Version 2.0 drafts through October 4, 2004. [Full context]
[August 03, 2004] US Securities and Exchange Commission Evaluates XBRL for SEC Financial Data Filing. Announcements from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and XBRL-US describe a new initiative of the SEC regulatory body to assess the benefits of XML-tagged data and consider a proposal to accept voluntary supplemental filings of financial data using the XML-based Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). The goal of using XML-tagged financial reporting data is to provide "greater context for data through standard definitions, enabling investors and other marketplace participants to analyze data from different sources and to support automatic exchange of financial information across various software platforms, including web services." XBRL is a "royalty-free, open specification for software that uses XML data tags to describe financial information for public and private companies and other organizations. It supports all members of the financial information supply chain by utilizing a standards-based method with which users can prepare, publish in a variety of formats, exchange and analyze financial statements and the information they contain. XBRL is being developed by an international non-profit consortium of approximately 250 major companies, organisations and government agencies." SEC's new initiative is being developed by the SEC Division of Corporation Finance, Office of the Chief Accountant, Division of Investment Management, and Office of Information Technology. The initiative is aimed at determining "the benefits of tagging to reporting quality and efficiency, the implications of tagging data for filers, investors, the Commission and other market participants, and the compatibility of existing tag definitions with current disclosure requirements." In its own announcement, XBRL-US expressed confidence in the SEC initiative "to leverage this private sector collaboration consisting of companies, financial data providers, accounting firms, standard setters, investors and all participants in the business information supply chain." [Full context]
[August 02, 2004] Web3D Consortium Forms Working Group to Develop X3D Binary File Format Encoding. The Web3D Consortium and Sun Microsystems have announced the creation of a new X3D Binary Format Working Group. X3D is an "Open Standards XML-enabled 3D file format to enable real-time communication of 3D data across all applications and network applications. It has a rich set of features for use in engineering and scientific visualization, CAD and Architecture, Medical visualization, Training and simulation, multimedia, entertainment, educational, and more." Other development initiatives within the Web3D Consortium include an X3D GeoSpatial Working Group, X3D Programmable Shaders WG, Web3D Consortium Medical Working Group (MedX3D), CAD3D Working Group, and Visual Simulation (XMSF) WG, and Humanoid Animation WG. The Consortium's new X3D Binary Format Working Group has been chartered to "develop both an encoding of X3D to enable advanced compression of 3D data to shorten the transmission time of models and scenes across a network and a data encryption scheme to protect sensitive model information. The working group is open to any member of the Web3D Consortium and has already received significant contributions, including patented, advanced geometry compression technology from Sun." The X3D Binary Format "will be extensible through the use of a pluggable architecture to enable specialized compression techniques on a per-node or per-geometry type basis. This flexibility can be used to deploy highly efficient mesh compression regimes that are ideally suited to a particular model. X3D's encryption scheme will leverage the XML encryption work at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), further strengthening the ongoing liaison between the two standards bodies." The X3D binary format is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2005, and will be an open, royalty-free specification. X3D itself is "an open standard that has no royalties associated with it; the Web3D Consortium has a strict policy about not requiring any IP encumbered technologies to be required, and a long-standing agreement with ISO to release the X3D specifications fee-free to the public." The X3D Consortium is currently "advancing X3D as an integrated 3D graphics and multimedia framework in the ISO process for Information technology — Computer graphics and image processing." [Full context]
[July 30, 2004] W3C and Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Cooperate on Mobile Web Specifications. A joint announcement from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) describes approval of a formalized relationship that "will enable both organizations to collaborate on specifications for mobile access to the Web." The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) outlines how the two organizations may "collaboratively engage in exchange of technical information and contributions. The result will benefit developers, product and service providers and others, by providing standardized technology at their disposal to accelerate the development and deployment of new mobile applications and services." The MOU is motivated by a goal of rapidly developing the Mobile Web Access infrastructure and providing for interoperability as a key feature of future mobile applications. The agreement "will further solidify the foundation for faster development, adoption, and standardization of new features and functions for mobile devices that connect to the Web." The W3C-OMA agreement establishes specific guidelines regarding the sharing of documents and the participation by observers in designated meetings. Observers are those persons "representing their respective parties from either the Open Mobile Alliance or W3C, who may attend the other party's meetings. Observers may only act as liaison officers and may not bind either the host organization or any other member organization. An observer may be permitted to attend and participate in the other party's relevant specification/expert groups, technical body or relevant subordinate technical groups/bodies," subject to applicable terms. [Full context]
[July 30, 2004] OASIS Members Form International Health Continuum Technical Committee. OASIS has announced the creation of a new International Health Continuum Technical Committee as a "forum for companies on the Healthcare continuum internationally to voice their needs and requirements with respect to XML and Web Services." OASIS member sponsors of the IHC TC include CommerceNet, BT, National Insurance Administration of Norway, ReadiMinds, Webify Solutions, and SeeBeyond. DeLeys Brandman (CommerceNet Consortium) is the TC Convener and Proposed TC Chair. A principal motivation for the TC activity is that many standards organizations are working to standardize transactions in the healthcare vertical space but "little attention is being paid to the continuum of health, viz., to horizontal standards allowing all related verticals to interoperate through the use of web services tools and technologies." A secondary motivation identified by the TC proposers is the problem of competing international standards in vertical healthcare industry domains. "International healthcare standards may diverge toward regional preferences. A goal of the committee will be to promote international healthcare standards interoperability regardless of geographic location. This is particularly important to OASIS membership since many are global organizations who will not want standards to be regional or national." Initial goals of the OASIS TC include the creation of a healthcare interoperability report providing a process map of healthcare processes, a list of existing standards for addressing the processes, and gap analysis. The TC will also create liaisons with each of the major health continuum standards organizations. [Full context]
[July 28, 2004] FIATECH AEX Project Publishes XML Schemas for Construction and Buildings Industry. The Automating Equipment Information Exchange (AEX) Project management has announced the public release of Version 1.0 XML schemas for the exchange of information about capital facilities equipment and operations. The schemas cover both project and technical information, and "are designed to be used to support multi-party collaboration work processes for the entire life cycle, including design, procurement, delivery, installation, operations and maintenance of facility equipment." FIATECH is a non-profit consortium "focused on fast-track development and deployment of technologies to substantially improve how capital projects and facilities are designed, engineered, built and maintained." The AEX Project was chartered to "provide the technology needed to enable both internal and external automated information exchanges among the multiple software systems and collaborating companies associated with design, procurement, fabrication, delivery, installation, operation and maintenance of engineered equipment items." The AEX Version 1.0 public release includes a user guide that summarizes the business drivers and provides an overview of the schema architecture; it supplies descriptions of the XML schemas and includes a tutorial for getting started with software implementations. The ZIP archive with 67 files provides a complete set of schema definitions, example files, and documentation for Public Release 1.0 of the AEX project, complete with a large mp3 narration file for the Schema Architecture presentation. Production of the AEX Version 1.0 schemas represents a joint industry effort involving over twenty-five organizations. Key technology contributions were made by the AIChE Design Institute for Physical Properties (DIPPR) 991 Project, ePlantData, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). FIATECH, DIPPR, and ePlantData initiated this open industry cooperative under an umbrella name of Capital Facilities Industry XML (cfiXML). The collaborative goal was to "achieve a pragmatic industry consensus around the use of XML technology to achieve the noted economic benefits for capital facilities equipment and material properties." The XML schemas are governed by open source licenses and are freely available for anyone to use. [Full context]
[July 22, 2004] W3C HTML Working Group Publishes Updated XHTML 2.0 Draft and XHTML FAQ. Members of the W3C HTML Working Group have released a sixth XHTML 2.0 Working Draft and a new HTML and XHTML Frequently Answered Questions. XHTML 2 is a "general purpose markup language designed for representing documents for a wide range of purposes across the World Wide Web. A modularized language without presentation elements, XHTML 2 takes HTML back to its roots in document structuring." XHTML 2 supplies a "generally useful set of markup elements with the possibility of extension using the class attribute on the span and div elements in combination with stylesheets, and attributes from the metadata attributes collection." The current Working Draft version includes an early implementation of XHTML 2.0 in RELAX NG. The Working Group intends to include implementations in DTD and/or XML Schema form in subsequent versions "once the content of the language stabilizes." Although XHTML 2.0 is a next generation markup language, its functionality is expected to remain similar to that of XHTML 1.1. "However, the markup language may be altered semantically and syntactically to conform to the requirements of related XML standards such as XML Base and XML Schema. The objective of these changes is to ensure that XHTML 2.0 can be readily supported by XML browsers that have no arcane knowledge of XHTML semantics such as linking, image maps, forms, etc." [Full context]
[July 21, 2004] HL7 Announces ANSI Approval of Several Health Level Seven V3 Specifications. Several Health Level Seven Version 3 (V3) Specifications have been approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), giving them normative status as American national standards. The HL7 Version 3 project "represents a new approach to clinical information exchange. It is built from the ground up around a single object model (Reference Information Model - RIM) and a rigorous UML-based methodology that ties model to messages and finally to the message's expression in XML syntax." Among the ANSI-approved HL7 documents is the XML Implementation Technology Specification — Data Types, Release 1. It "defines the V3 data types that will be used by all of HL7 V3 and onwards; it also defines the representation of HL7 V3 data types in XML, including the schema necessary to derive XML schemas for HL7 V3 Hierarchical Message Descriptions (HMD)." Other HL7 specifications approved by ANSI cover UML Implementation Technology (UML Data Types specification that binds the V3 data types to the UML/OCL kernel types to allow for formally correct OCL constraints), Scheduling, Claims and Reimbursements, Reference Information Model (RIM), Shared Messages, and Refinement, Constraint and Localization to Version 3 Messages. The HL7 Board believes that the use of XML represents a primary value in Version 3. XML's "transparent representation of complex data and its extensibility is creating widespread acceptance throughout the IT industry. Version 3 fully supports the expressive capability of XML. It supports generation of XML schemas with the logical information relationships and element names that directly relate to the HL7 models — and hence to the concepts that analysts and programmers will have to grasp to relate Version 3 messages to their own information systems or to use them in new ways for Web browsing, XML repositories, etc." [Full context]
[July 20, 2004] Ecma International Approves ECMAScript for XML (E4X) Specification. Ecma International has announced unanimous approval of the ECMAScript for XML (E4X) International Standard by the Ecma General Assembly. The ECMA-357 ECMAScript for XML (E4X) Specification "defines the syntax and semantics of ECMAScript for XML (E4X), a set of programming language extensions adding native XML support to ECMAScript. ECMAScript (ECMA-262 / ISO/IEC 16262) is one of the most widely used programming languages." E4X "adds native XML datatypes to the ECMAScript language, extends the semantics of familiar ECMAScript operators for manipulating XML objects and adds a small set of new operators for common XML operations, such as searching and filtering. It also adds support for XML literals, namespaces, qualified names and other mechanisms to facilitate XML processing." The E4X International Standard "provides a simple, familiar, XML programming model that flattens the XML learning curve by leveraging the existing skills and knowledge of one of the largest developer communities worldwide. It reuses familiar programming language concepts, operators and syntax for manipulating XML data, meaning software developers can start creating, navigating and manipulating XML with little to no additional knowledge. E4X reduces code complexity, time to market and revision cycles; decreases XML footprint requirements; and enables looser coupling between code and external data." The ECMAScript group is currently working on "significant enhancements for future editions of the ECMAScript language, including mechanisms for defining XML types using the XML Schema language and support for classes." [Full context]
[July 19, 2004] W3C Member Submission from IBM and Novell: Solution Installation Schema. W3C has acknowledged receipt of a Solution Installation Schema as a W3C Member Submission from IBM and Novell. InstallShield Software and Zero G Software are co-authors of the submission. The two-part submission includes Installable Unit Deployment Descriptor Specification Version 1.0 and Installable Unit Package Format Specification Version 1.0. The purpose of the specification is "to define the schema of an XML document describing the characteristics of an installable unit (IU) of software that are relevant for its deployment, configuration and maintenance. The XML schema is referred to as the Installable Unit Deployment Descriptor or IUDD schema." According to the IUDD document abstract, IUDDs are intended to "describe the aggregation of installable units at all levels of the software stack, including middleware products aggregated together into a platform; and user solutions composed of application-level artifacts which run on such a platform. The XML schema is flexible enough to support the definition of atomic units of software (Smallest Installable Units) as well as complex, multi-platform, heterogeneous solutions. A solution is any combination of products, components or application artifacts addressing a particular user requirement. The top-level aggregation is the root installable unit. In addition to the installable units that comprise a solution, the IUDD also describes the logical topology of targets onto which the solution can be deployed." An installable unit is "a logical component that can be selected for installation. An installable unit package (or packaged installable unit) contains files to be installed, files that implement change management operations, and a set of manifest files which include a deployment descriptor that describes the install characteristics of the installable unit, and a media descriptor that describes the binding (or physical locations) of the files." [Full context]
[July 16, 2004] Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.0 Advances to Proposed Recommendation. The W3C Voice Browser Working Group has released Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.0 as a Proposed Recommendation. Based upon wide review for technical soundness and implementability, the WG believes that SSML 1.0 is a now mature technical report. The Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) is part of the W3C Speech Interface Framework. The specification is designed "to provide a rich, XML-based markup language for assisting the generation of synthetic speech in Web and other applications. The essential role of the markup language is to provide authors of synthesizable content a standard way to control aspects of speech such as pronunciation, volume, pitch, rate, etc. across different synthesis-capable platforms." Related specifications in the W3C Speech Interface Framework include the Speech Recognition Grammar (SRGS), Call Control (CCXML), VoiceXML 2.0, VoiceXML 2.1, Semantic Interpretation, and Dialog Markup ("V3"). "SSML is part of a larger set of markup specifications for voice browsers developed through the open processes of the W3C. It is based upon the JSGF and/or JSML specifications, which are owned by Sun Microsystems, Inc. A related initiative to establish a standard system for marking up text input is SABLE, which tried to integrate many different XML-based markups for speech synthesis into a new one. The activity carried out in SABLE was also used as the main starting point for defining the Speech Synthesis Markup Requirements for Voice Markup Languages. Since then, SABLE itself has not undergone any further development." "The intended use of SSML is to improve the quality of synthesized content. Different markup elements impact different stages of the synthesis process. The markup may be produced either automatically, for instance via XSLT or CSS3 from an XHTML document, or by human authoring. Markup may be present within a complete SSML document or as part of a fragment embedded in another language, although no interactions with other languages are specified as part of SSML itself. Most of the markup included in SSML is suitable for use by the majority of content developers. However, some advanced features like phoneme and prosody (e.g., for speech contour design) may require specialized knowledge." [Full context]
[July 15, 2004] OASIS Security Services TC Releases SAML 2.0 Documents for Public Review. The OASIS Security Services Technical Committee (SSTC) has announced the release of a set of SAML Version 2.0 specifications in advance of TC ballot for approval at Committee Draft level. The Technical Committee is actively soliciting external input on these SAML draft documents; public comment and implementor feedback is invited through August 2, 2004. SAML is an XML framework for exchanging authentication and authorization information. SAML "provides a standard XML schema for specifying authentication, attribute, and authorization decision statements, and it additionally specifies a web services-based request/reply protocol for exchanging these statements." The SAML Version 2.0 review distribution includes five draft specifications and corresponding XML Schemas. Assertions and Protocols defines the syntax and semantics for XML-encoded assertions about authentication, attributes, and authorization, and for the protocols that convey this information. A Bindings specification defines protocol bindings for the use of SAML assertions and request-response messages in communications protocols and frameworks. A SAML 2.0 Profiles draft defines profiles for the use of SAML assertions and request-response messages in communications protocols and frameworks, as well as attribute syntax for use in attribute statements. The Metadata document defines an extensible metadata format for SAML system entities, organized by roles that reflect SAML profiles. Such roles include that of Identity Provider, Service Provider, Affiliation, Attribute Authority, Attribute Requester, and Policy Decision Point. The Authentication Context specification defines a syntax for the definition of authentication context declarations and an initial list of authentication context classes for use with SAML. The OASIS SSTC believes these five key SAML v2.0 specifications are feature-complete, but is prepared to revise the working drafts in response to comments. The SAML v2.0 specification set includes other documents that are non-normative or less crucial for initial implementation. These documents are publicly accessible and will be brought into the formal review process at a later date. Conformance, Security and Privacy Considerations, Baseline Identities and Attributes, Trust Models, SAML V1.x and Liberty ID-FF V1.2 Migration Paths, X.509 Attribute Sharing Profile, Glossary, Implementation Guidelines, Technical Overview, and Executive Overview are among these additional drafts. [Full context]
[July 12, 2004] W3C Releases Public Working Draft for Full-Text Searching of XML Text and Documents. W3C has published an initial Public Working Draft for XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Full-Text. Created as a joint specification by the W3C XML Query Working Group and the XSL Working Group as part of the XML Activity, this new draft specification defines a language that extends XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 with full-text search capabilities. As defined by the draft, "full-text queries are performed on text which has been tokenized, i.e., broken into a sequence of words, units of punctuation, and spaces." New full-text search facility is implemented by extending the XQuery and XPath languages to support a new "FTContainsExpr" expression and a new "ft:score" function. Expressions of the type FTSelection are composed of:(1) words or combinations of words that are the search strings to be found as matches; (2) Match options such as case sensitivity or an indication to use stop words; (3) Boolean operators that allow composition of an FTSelection from simpler FTSelections; (4) Positional constraints such as indication of match distance or window. The new Full-Text Working Draft endeavors to meet search requirements specified in an updated companion draft XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Full-Text Use Cases. This document provides use cases designed to "illustrate important applications of full-text querying within an XML query language. Each use case exercises a specific functionality relevant to full-text querying. An XML Schema and sample input data are provided; each use case specifies a query applied to the input data, a solution in XQuery, a solution in XPath (when possible), and the expected results." Full-text query designed as an extension of XQuery and XPath will support several kinds of searches not possible using simple substring matching. It allows precision querying of XML documents containing "highly-structured data (numbers, dates), unstructured data (untagged free-flowing text), and semi-structured data (text with embedded tags). Language-based query and token-based searches are also supported; for example, find all the news items that contain a word with the same linguistic stem as the English word "mouse" — which finds occurrences of both "mouse" and "mice" together with possessive forms. [Full context]
[July 09, 2004] DCMI Usage Board Announces Approval of Metadata Terms for Digital Rights Declaration. The Usage Board of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) has announced approval of the rights-related terms "License" and "Rights Holder." The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative is "an open forum engaged in the development of interoperable online metadata standards that support a broad range of purposes and business models." The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set is a standard for cross-domain information resource description, implemented in markup languages perhaps more widely than any other metadata specification. Version 1.1 has been endorsed as ISO Standard 15836-2003, NISO Standard Z39.85-2001, and CEN Workshop Agreement CWA 13874. The new DCMI term "license" is an element-refinement for "rights" and provides for reference of a legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource. The DCMI recommended best practice is to identify the license using a URI. Examples of such licenses can be found at the Creative Commons web site. The new term "rightsHolder" identifies a Rights Holder as a person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. The DCMI Recommended best practice for this element is to use the URI or name of the Rights Holder to indicate the entity. The proposal for adding new DCMI rights terms articulates a goal of supporting standard practice concerning rights declarations on the Internet. The design especially recognized that "the recent emergence of the Creative Commons as a clearinghouse for rights declarations affords an opportunity to improve standard practice, particularly for resources that have been developed with the intention of cost-free distribution, but whose creators wish to formally declare various rights." The authors believe that both Creative Commons proponents and Dublin Core adopters "will benefit by having a clear approach to formal rights declaration in a widely adopted metadata framework on the Internet." A growing collection of open source software tools supports the creation of Creative Commons machine-readable licenses and embedding of license metadata within digital objects. [Full context]
[July 07, 2004] WHAT Working Group Issues Call For Comments on Web Forms 2.0. A draft specification for Web Forms 2.0 has been released by members of the Web Hypertext Application Technology (WHAT) Working Group. This initial call-for-comments draft of Web Forms 2.0 "defines an extension to the forms features found in HTML 4.01's Forms chapter. Web Forms 2.0 applies to both HTML and XHTML user agents, and provides new strongly-typed input fields, new attributes for defining constraints, a repeating model for declarative repeating of form sections, new DOM interfaces, new DOM events for validation and dependency tracking, and XML submission and initialization of forms. The specification also standardises and codifies existing practice in areas that have not been previously documented. HTML4, XHTML1.1, and the DOM are thus extended in a manner that has a clear migration path from existing HTML forms, leveraging the knowledge authors have built up with their experience with HTML so far." The Web Hypertext Applications Technology Working Group is described as "a loose, unofficial, and open collaboration of Web browser manufacturers and interested parties. The group aims to develop specifications based on HTML and related technologies to ease the deployment of interoperable Web Applications, with the intention of submitting the results to a standards organisation. A public mailing list for the WHAT working group is hosted at 'whatwg-whatwg.org'. The Web Forms 2.0 specification "clarifies and extends the semantics put forth in HTML 4.01 for form controls and form submission. It is expected to be implemented in ordinary HTML user agents alongside existing forms technology, and indeed, some of the features described in this draft have been implemented by user agents as ad-hoc, non-standard extensions for many years due to strong market need. The specification can also be viewed as an extension to [XHTML1]. In particular, some of the features added in this module only apply to XHTML documents; for example, features allowing mixed namespaces." This initial call-for-comments draft of Web Forms 2.0 "defines an extension to the forms features found in HTML 4.01's Forms chapter. Web Forms 2.0 applies to both HTML and XHTML user agents, and provides new strongly-typed input fields, new attributes for defining constraints, a repeating model for declarative repeating of form sections, new DOM interfaces, new DOM events for validation and dependency tracking, and XML submission and initialization of forms. The specification also standardises and codifies existing practice in areas that have not been previously documented." [Full context]
[July 06, 2004] IPTC Working Group Releases EventsML 1.0 Business Requirements Document. A fourth Working Draft of EventsML 1.0 Business Requirements has been produced by members of the IPTC EventsML Working Group. 'EventsML' is the provisional name for a new IPTC standard designed for effective interchange of newsworthy event information. The objective of the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) EventsML Working Group is to "create an XML format to be used in notifications of news worthy events such as press conferences for distributions to news media and others users who have an interest in the information for internal or external purposes." This IPTC standard for describing newsworthy events and associated coverage will address: (1) "Event publishing: communication of information about events, including associated media; (2) Event planning: managing the coverage of breaking news or upcoming newsworthy events, including support for gathering associated media; (3) Event coverage: communication of information about coverage of events by news organizations, often referred to as a 'Daybook'. The proposed standard would include linkage between resulting news packages and event coverage information." Use cases documented in the draft include Planned Event Coverage, News Agency Daybook, Sports League Publishes a Season Schedule, Urgent Breaking News, and Urgent Breaking News. The EventsML specification is intended to be useful to organizations outside the IPTC. A proposed requirement is that it be compatible with other IPTC standards, and that it reuse existing external standards where possible. EventsML should interoperate easily with existing IPTC standards, specifically with the IPTC Subject Reference System, NewsML, SportsML, and NITF." The vCard and vCalendar standards are explicitly identified as specifications which should inform EventsML in terms of interoperability. The designers believe it may be possible to implement most or all of the EventsML requirements using NewsML. The EventsML Working Group responsible for the EventsML 1.0 Business Requirements draft is one of IPTC's activities organized under a Specialised Content Working Party. Chaired by Geoffrey Haynes (The Associated Press) and Henrik Stadler (Tidningarnas Telegrambyra), the IPTC Specialised Content Working Party oversees "maintenance and development of standards for specialised content in close relation to IPTC's open news standards NITF and NewsML," including SportsML, ProgramGuideML, and EventsML. The EventsML Project Team Leads are Johan Lindgren (TT) and Dominic Chan (Canadian Newswire). [Full context]
[July 02, 2004] W3C Working Draft on Mobile SVG Profiles Defines Features for Cellphones. The W3C SVG Working Group has issued an invitation for public comment on a third Working Draft of Mobile SVG Profiles: SVG Tiny and SVG Basic, Version 1.2, released as part of the W3C Graphics Activity. The SVG Tiny 1.2 mobile profile is a subset of features in SVG 1.2, defined to be suitable for displaying vector graphics on small devices such as cellphones. Whereas the W3C SVG Mobile 1.1 defined two profiles (SVG Tiny and SVG Basic), the SVG Mobile 1.2 specification only defines one profile: SVG Tiny 1.2. According to a note from Dean Jackson, W3C SVG Working Group Team, the mo


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