A new OASIS ebXML Business Process Technical Committee (ebXML BP TC) has been proposed to "continue work on a royalty-free technology representation and model compatible with an underlying generic metamodel for business processes, activities, and collaboration. This business collaboration could occur within or between enterprises. The collaboration may be enforceable, easily manageable, and/or traceable. This representation and model will provide a set of guidelines to define the business process-rules, semantics and syntax for both binary and multi-party collaborations. The representation and model will work within the ebXML architecture (for metamodel and model exchange) and will also support standards-based development and exchange of business process definitions. The OASIS ebXML Business Process TC's effort will address and align with vertical industry needs for business process collaboration and focus on ease of use. The specification can be integrated into and bind with existing or emerging technologies. The TC's work should build upon similar, existing standards wherever possible and align with other relevant standards for feature reuse, bindings, guidelines on how to jointly use the specification with other related standards, and addressing requirements from other related standards."

"The TC will base its work upon the ebXML Business Process Specification Schema Version 1.01 jointly developed by OASIS and UN/CEFACT, and upon derivative work expected to be donated by co-sponsors and participants."

The proposed TC Co-Chairs are Dale Moberg (Cyclone Commerce) and Monica J. Martin (Sun Microsystems). The first meeting of the OASIS ebXML Business Process TC will be held on October 20, 2003 as a teleconference.

From the Announcement

The ebXML BP TC specification will support the computable and executable language used for business collaboration, rather than the processing accomplished from the view of a single party. The TC may identify bindings to support the business process instance and ultimately the run-time execution. A binding (map) could enable other executable process mechanisms to drive enterprise applications where ebBP controls (rather than create) service behavior.

In no event shall this Technical Committee finalize or approve any technical specification if it believes that the use, distribution, or implementation of such specification would necessarily require the unauthorized infringement of any third party rights known to the Technical Committee, and such third party has not agreed to provide necessary license rights on perpetual, royalty-free, non-discriminatory terms.

At the appropriate time the OASIS ebXML Business Process TC shall submit its Committee Drafts for balloting by OASIS membership for OASIS Standard status.

The work of the TC will:

• Enable business systems to be configured in a canonical way to support the execution of business collaborations and transactions. This will improve interoperability of business processes across and within enterprises and should help to simplify and converge current collaboration models and methodologies.

• Enable an organization to express characteristics of its business processes -- such as configuration parameters specific to choreography and business collaboration and refined by a collaboration agreement (such as an ebXML Collaboration Profile Agreement) -- to enable electronic integration of business processes as part of a larger collaboration. This includes the interaction points in the organization's business process to determine whether and how to engage in a collaboration and the kinds of information exchanges required. ebBP will be capable of working with e-business specifications from other industry and standards organizations such as RosettaNet, EAN.UCC, and UN/CEFACT.

• Provide integrated operational and functional service views of business processes, which will enable business analysts to more directly participate in business collaboration creation and management.

• Allow business process models to be expressed visually (through diagrams) and in XML (machine readable).

• Support the ebXML framework and Web services to provide a loosely coupled, highly aligned specification set, while enabling support for other emerging technologies. Promote the utility of this principle, through, for example, actively working with other OASIS technical committees, industry and standards organizations.

Deliverables

• Requirements document: Due within 2 months of first meeting.

• ebXML Business Process specification and schemas: This specification will reflect refinements and changes made to the submitted version of ebXML BPSS that are identified by the TC members for additional functionality, semantic clarity and technical robustness within the scope of the TC charter. Final draft will be due within 6 months of first meeting.

• Industry or domain specific examples or implementation guides may be developed. The due dates will be determined after the initial set of deliverables is complete.

As appropriate, the OASIS ebXML Business Process TC will collaborate with other relevant OASIS TCs, such as the Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WSBPEL), ebXML Message Service, ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement (CPP/A), and the ebXML Implementation, Interoperability and Conformance (IIC) TC. The TC will also work to align with relevant efforts of other organizations, such as the W3C's Web Service Architecture Working Group and Web Services Choreography Working Group, RosettaNet, the Open Applications Group Inc (OAGI), and the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and eBusiness (UN/CEFACT) organization.

TC Co-Sponsors

The following persons eligible to participate in OASIS technical committees state that they are committed to the purpose and schedule stated above:

• Jacques Durand, Fujitsu, Jacques.Durand@fsw.fujitsu.com
• Jean-Jacques Dubray, attachmate, jeanjadu@Attachmate.com
• Neelekantan Kartha, Sterling Commerce, N_Kartha@stercomm.com
• Dale Moberg, Cyclone Commerce,dmoberg@cyclonecommerce.com
• Himagiri Mukkamala, Sybase himagiri@sybase.com
• Martin Roberts, Individual, martin.me.roberts@bt.com
• John Yunker, Individual, yunker@amazon.com
• Monica J. Martin, Sun Microsystems, monica.martin@sun.com

From the TC FAQ Document

"The ebXML Business Process Specification Schema (BPSS) provides a generic framework for business process collaborations, both between two parties/partners (binary) and multiparty (expressed as two or more binary collaborations). This framework includes the means and descriptions by which one or more activities are accomplished in performing a business collaboration. This business collaboration could be part of an enterprise-to-enterprise collaboration (B2B) or within an enterprise for a collaboration that is required to be enforceable. The original BPSS version 1.01 was approved by the final ebXML Plenary in May 2001 in Vienna."

"In BPSS version 1.01, much groundwork was laid for multiparty collaborations, but this feature was not fully elaborated. Multiparty collaboration has been an inexact science because the contractual obligations, security and identity, and implementations requirements and issues were not fully understood. This is not particularly a limitation of BPSS, but rather a reflection of the gradual increase in industry understanding of how business collaborations can be implemented electronically. BPSS continues to be the most advanced standard in the industry in developing these capabilities, especially when combined with functions available in the other ebXML layers,and the one that has enjoyed the most industry understanding, acceptance and broad global adoption."

"ebXML adoption continues to flourish around the globe since its original release in 2001. A wide range of readily available and open source ebXML tools have been developed to implement the stack of specifications. Examples of ebXML implementers include General Motors, the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) and TransCanada Pipelines. Much adoption is being driven by industry specific organizations, which are recommending parts or all of the ebXML framework to their members. RosettaNet has formally adopted ebXML BPSS as its mechanism for expressing business collaborations involving RosettaNet PIPs. Many governmental organizations are also recommending ebXML, such as the Electronic Commerce Promotion Council of Japan (ECOM). ebXML standards are also in use in the Pan Asia e-Trade Alliance (PAA), comprising seven member countries, the Malaysian tax system, Thai e-trade and Hong Kong's e-government initiative."

Background to the formation of the OASIS ebBP TC: "In late August, CEFACT announced that they reached the successful completion of their portion of the ebXML project. OASIS continues to successfully advance the body of ebXML specifications -- Messaging, Registry, and CPP/A, so it is logical for BPSS to also continue development at OASIS. Most of the initial participants in the CEFACT ebXML BPSS project and co-editors of the most recent drafts have helped to form the OASIS ebBP TC -- which will continue work on ebXML BPSS, starting from the version 1.01 specification jointly developed by OASIS and CEFACT."

"The new OASIS ebBP TC will commence work in a reliable manner that will effectively advance the standard and future enhancements as well as maintain the core premises of the ebXML architecture: interoperability, modularity, and use of XML. Further development of this specification at OASIS will also enable greater industry participation and coordination across the ebXML specifications. We also expect this to help increase the coordination between ebBP and other OASIS specifications..." [adapted from the ebXML BP TC FAQ document]