December 2001

• [December 31, 2001] "Data Capture: Extending the Net to New Capabilities." By Judith Lamont (Zentek). In KMWorld (January 2002), pages 8-9. "Paper-based forms still pervade the business world, despite the growth of online data capture. Account applications, invoices, taxes and a multitude of other forms remain largely paper-based. Major enterprises such as insurance companies and financial institutions have made significant commitments to dealing with this paper through automated data capture, scanning in forms to back-end systems. But U.S. companies, particularly small to midsize organizations, still spend billions of dollars each year keying in data. The cost of that work is estimated at $15 billion per year... The ability to handle Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a feature that most data capture companies have been adding to their repertoire. XML is becoming the de facto common language that can cross the lines between different enterprises, supporting e-commerce and other e-business initiatives. InputAccel from ActionPoint, for example, is geared for mid- to high-end applications and can convert scanned data to XML for delivery to back-end systems. After optical character recognition (OCR), the data is converted to the designated output format and directed by the InputAccel server to the appropriate repository. Data from a form can be split up so that one field is indexed and stored in a document management system, while another, such as order status information, is converted to XML for ready deployment on the Web... XML can also be captured at the front end. Ascent Capture from Kofax can import XML, printstream and other input, and convert it to an image. The image is then put through the OCR process and output in the desired format... Anything that can talk to XML, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), can also talk to AscentCapture. Ascent Capture exports 50 different formats, including XML; data can be sent to FileNet, Documentum, and IBM's Content Manager, as well as to repositories of software products from many smaller firms. AscentCapture is also tightly integrated with Microsoft's newly introduced SharePoint. One of Kofax's strengths is an improved scanning method called virtual rescan (VRS), which was shown by Doculabs to produce a 35% increase in character and field recognition accuracy. The process evaluates the scanned images in real time and adjusts for brightness, contrast and other characteristics. VRS provides images that are easier to read, which also facilitates keying from image, and improves recognition significantly during the OCR process. Because the image quality is higher, users rarely need to rescan images, a time-consuming and expensive process. Datacap converts all intermediate data from OCR and intelligent character recognition (ICR) into XML format in its Task Master 5.0 three-tier (client, server and browser) capture environment. The data remains in XML while operations such as verification and corrections are performed. It can then be retained in XML or readily converted to some other format..."

• [December 31, 2001] "Ubiquitous Web Services." By Maggie Biggs. In InfoWorld Issues 52/53 (December 24-31, 2001), page 31. "Web services hold significant promise for enterprises that need a better strategy for integrating enterprise applications and data with those of business partners. Combining the cross-platform strengths of Java with available XML-based Web services technologies provides a smooth path to rapid Web services deployments. This week, the Test Center examines three solutions that leverage the Java platform and Web services. We found that Java solution providers are well-prepared to support Web services in the enterprise with solutions that are economical as well as highly productive to use. For example, Borland's JBuilder 6, combined with its Web Services Kit, provides a fast path to SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), WSDL (Web Services Description Language), and UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration). Likewise, Oracle9i JDeveloper 4 -- part of the Oracle9i Developer Suite -- provides tools that developers can use to rapidly create and deploy Web services. For example, programmers can use Oracle9i JDeveloper tools to easily generate WSDL from Java classes. SilverStream is also jumping on the Web services bandwagon with its SilverStream eXtend Workbench 1.1, which offers developers a wizard-based approach to Web services creation and deployment. These three solutions are but a few of the Java-based solutions already available across all tiers that can help enterprises rapidly roll out Web services..."

• [December 31, 2001] "Oracle Spells Services." By Maggie Biggs.. In InfoWorld Issues 52/53 (December 24-31, 2001), page 33. "As enterprise it strategists hone their plans for Web services, corporate developers must begin working with tools that will let them rapidly create and deploy them. For Java-based enterprises, a plethora of tools is available that can speed up Web-services implementations. One such solution is Oracle9i JDeveloper 4, part of Oracle's Oracle9i Developer Suite. The newest release of Oracle's Java IDE (integrated development environment) sports several new additions that ease Web-services creation and deployment...When developers get JDeveloper navigation down, they will find several compelling additions in this release. Chief among these is new support for creating and deploying Web services. The IDE includes a Web Services Publishing wizard that helps developers create deployment descriptors and the WSDL (Web Services Description Language) necessary to publish Web services. We were able to quickly define which classes we wanted to publish as Web services, but we could deploy only to Oracle9i Application Server and Apache SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) Server with the default options presented in the IDE. As does JBuilder, JDeveloper 4 includes integrated support for UML (Unified Modeling Language) diagrams. Developers can quickly create activity or class diagrams. We constructed several class diagrams and found that JDeveloper's UML support is on par with that of JBuilder. Developers will be able to use the UML facilities to tighten up application and Web services designs... Oracle9i JDeveloper 4 also includes support for Javadoc, the tool created by Sun Microsystems to produce HTML-formatted code documentation, allowing developers to generate Javadoc files from the IDE. Moreover, the Oracle IDE includes support for rename and move refactoring. We found both the Javadoc and refactoring support to be on par with rivals such as JBuilder... New developers and those who may not be accustomed to using an IDE may have a tough time getting ramped up with Oracle9i JDeveloper 4. Nonetheless, available JDeveloper facilities that support Web services, XML, SQL , and J2EE development are quite compelling. Enterprises that need to move quickly on implementing Web services should give Oracle9i JDeveloper 4 a look..."

• [December 31, 2001] "Web Services Wizardry." By James R. Borck.. In InfoWorld (December 21, 2001). "... Silverstream has taken hits from some early adopters of its application server because they found ROI elusive due to the solution's highly proprietary nature and limited feature set. The latest iteration has made vast improvements from previous iterations, boasting many enhanced enterprise features. It also supports deployment to other J2EE-compliant application servers, such as BEA WebLogic, Oracle9i, IBM WebSphere, and Jakarta Tomcat, to increase your options. Workbench lacks some of the editing and debugging sophistication found in competing products such as Borland's JBuilder and Delphi. We also would have preferred to see some additional tools for easing XML manipulation efforts... The IDE (integrated development environment) is bundled with jBroker Web, Silverstream's compiler, and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) run-time engine for processing and invoking XML-based remote procedure calls. It was all up and running with minimal effort. Workbench meets compatibility requirements to operate with Web services standards, including SOAP, XML, UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration), and WSDL (Web Services Description Language), and it delivers a battery of time-saving tools, editors, and wizards that we found greatly simplified the development process. Wizards facilitated the creation and editing of WSDL files, a UDDI manager offered easy registry querying and publishing, and the Web services wizard enabled us to easily create Web services-ready applications from Java classes, EJBs (Enterprise JavaBeans), and WSDL files. We were immediately comfortable in the structured, J2EE archive environment available to manage projects. Here too, wizards offered timesaving capabilities, speeding many tasks of J2EE development from archive creation to generating deployment descriptors. Workbench can create and package entity and session beans, produce servlet skeletons, JSP (Java Server Pages) code, and create new Java classes, and in our tests, it delivered fast deployment capabilities equally well to both our Silverstream application server and BEA WebLogic. Further, jBroker Web performed particularly well, processing SOAP requests with a remarkable speed that was noticeably faster than in comparable tests using the Apache SOAP server for parsing..." See also "SilverStream Releases UDDI Directory."

• [December 31, 2001] "Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0." W3C Working Draft 20-December-2001. Interim Working Draft. Version URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-charmod-20011220. Latest version URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/charmod. Edited by Martin J. Dürst (W3C), François Yergeau (Alis Technologies), Richard Ishida (Xerox, GKLS), Misha Wolf (Reuters Ltd.), Asmus Freytag (ASMUS, Inc.), and Tex Texin (Progress Software Corp.). "This Architectural Specification provides authors of specifications, software developers, and content developers with a common reference for interoperable text manipulation on the World Wide Web. Topics addressed include encoding identification, early uniform normalization, string identity matching, string indexing, and URI conventions, building on the Universal Character Set, defined jointly by Unicode and ISO/IEC 10646. Some introductory material on characters and character encodings is also provided." See (1) the W3C Internationalization Activity and (2) "XML and Unicode." [cache]

• [December 31, 2001] "The ANTACID Replication Service: Protocol and Algorithms." By Michael F. Schwartz [WWW]. IETF Network Working Group, Internet-Draft. Reference: draft-schwartz-antacid-protocol-00. Date: October 7, 2001, Expires: April 7, 2002. See the following bibliographic item for the ARS Rationale and Architecture. ['This memo specifies the protocol and algorithms of the ANTACID Replication Service, designed to replicate hierarchically named repositories of XML documents for business-critical, internetworked applications.'] "This document specifies the protocol and algorithms used to implement the ANTACID Replication Service (ARS). Readers are referred to "The ANTACID Replication Service: Rationale and Architecture" [IETF 'draft-schwartz-antacid-service-00'] for a motivation of the problem addressed, the replication architecture, and terminology used in the current document. The current document assumes the reader has already read that document, and that the reader is familiar with XML. Moreover, since the ARS protocol is defined in terms of a BEEP profile, readers are referred to that document for background... We begin in Section 2 by walking through example ARS interactions, to give the reader a concrete flavor for how the protocol works. We then (Section 3) present the ARS syntax and semantics, and then provide algorithms and implementation details..." See the XML DTDs from Appendices D - I. See also: "Blocks eXtensible eXchange Protocol Framework (BEEP)." [cache, alt URL]

• [December 31, 2001] "The ANTACID Replication Service: Rationale and Architecture." By Michael F. Schwartz [WWW]. IETF Network Working Group, Internet-Draft. Reference: 'draft-schwartz-antacid-service-00'. Date: October 7, 2001, Expires: April 7, 2002. See also the preceding entry. ['This memo presents the ANTACID Replication Service, which replicates hierarchically named repositories of XML documents for business- critical, internetworked applications.'] "In this document we present the motivation, design rationale, and architecture for the ANTACID Replication Service (ARS). ARS replicates repositories of hierarchically-named, well-formed XML documents in a manner that supports business-critical, internetworked applications (BCIAs). The ARS protocol and algorithmic details are defined in a companion document. By 'business-critical' we mean applications requiring stronger data coherence guarantees than file-by-file replication, but weaker than global ACID semantics (i.e., Atomic, Consistent, Isolated, Durable semantics spanning all replicas). Our motivation is that many commercial services require coherence guarantees for replicated data, but that global ACID semantics are not appropriate across the Internet because: (1) global ACID semantics don't scale (a point we will discuss in more depth later); and (2) applications requiring global ACID semantics (e.g., banking) often require privately owned, centrally controlled infrastructure rather than the open Internet. The 'ANTACID' part of ARS refers to data coherence semantics we define later in this document, which we believe are well suited to BCIAs... The current effort seeks to define a standard capable of replicating data for use by BCIA's, allowing a robust service to be deployed by configuration rather than custom development/integration. The current effort also seeks to incorporate lessons learned over the past 20 years from both the RDBMS and the IETF worlds. Both the protocol and the data units replicated by ARS are XML-based because we're betting on XML to become a dominant means of structuring data on the Internet..." [cache, alt URL]

• [December 31, 2001] "The application/rss+xml Media Type." By Mark Nottingham (Burlingame, CA). IETF Network Working Group, Internet-Draft. Reference: 'draft-nottingham-rss-media-type-00'. Date: October 23, 2001. Expires: April 23, 2002. ['This document specifies the Media Type for the RSS format. RSS allows lists of information to be exchanged in an XML-based format.'] "RSS is a lightweight, multipurpose, extensible metadata description and syndication format. RSS is an XML application. RSS is currently used for a number of applications, including news and other headline syndication, weblog syndication, and the propogation of software update lists. It is generally used for any situation when a machine-readable list of textual items and/or metadata about them needs to be distributed. There are a number of revisions [.9, .91, .92, 1.0] of the RSS format defined, many of which are actively used. This memo defines a media type, application/rss+xml for all versions of RSS..." Note: Mark Nottingham also created xpath2rss [XPath-based HTML-to-RSS scraper] and MoinRSS [extension to MoinMoin to allow it to produce an RSS v1.0 feed] for RSS news feed creation. See "RDF Site Summary (RSS)." [cache]

• [December 29, 2001] "XHTML+Voice Profile 1.0." W3C Note 21-December-2001. Edited by Jonny Axelsson (Opera Software), Chris Cross (IBM), Håkon W. Lie (Opera Software), Gerald McCobb (IBM), T. V. Raman (IBM), and Les Wilson (IBM). Latest Version URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml+voice. "This note outlines how a set of mature WWW technologies including XHTML 1.1, VoiceXML 2.0, Speech Synthesis Markup Language, Speech Recognition Grammar Format, and XML-Events can be integrated using XHTML modularization to bring spoken interaction to the WWW. The design leverages open industry APIs like the W3C DOM to create interoperable web content that can be deployed across a variety of end-user devices. Multiple modes of interaction are synchronized and integrated using the DOM2 Events model and exposed to the content author via XML Events... Profile XHTML+Voice brings spoken interaction to standard WWW content by integrating a set of mature WWW technologies such as XHTML and XML Events with XML vocabularies developed as part of the W3C Speech Interface Framework. The profile includes voice modules that support speech synthesis, speech dialogs, command and control, speech grammars, and the ability to attach Voice handlers for responding to specific DOM events, thereby re-using the event model familiar to web developers. Voice interaction features are integrated directly with XHTML and CSS, and can consequently be used directly within XHTML content. The XHTML+Voice profile is designed for Web clients that support visual and spoken interaction. To this end, this document first re-formulates VoiceXML 2.0 as a collection of modules. These modules, along with Speech Synthesis Markup Language and Speech Recognition Grammar Format are then integrated with XHTML using XHTML modularization to create the XHTML+Voice profile. Finally, we integrate the result with module XML-Events so that voice handlers can be invoked through a standard DOM2 EventListener interface..." See also the XML DTD and XML Schema.

• [December 29, 2001] "Covisint to Start Auto Industry Initiative to Adopt ebXML and XML Schemas." By Ephraim Schwartz. In InfoWorld (December 27, 2001). "Soon after the new year begins, Covisint, the giant automotive industry exchange, will formally announce its intention to adopt a version of XML sponsored by international standards bodies as its standard document transport technology. The ebXML (e-business XML) specification is an XML-based standard in development that aims to facilitate the use of XML for e-business transactions, including messaging, data exchange, and registration of business processes. The project is sponsored by the United Nations body for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) and was launched in September 1999. Covisint will continue to support the many versions of XML, but it will standardize its own systems around ebXML, said Tom Hill, a spokesman for Covisint... Hill also said suppliers using Covisint need not fear that their investment in EDI (electronic data interchange), an older standard that many thousands of suppliers in the auto industry continue to use, will not be accepted if they want to work with Covisint... In addition, Hill said the exchange intends to work more closely with the major standards bodies, such as the OAG, to set global standards for the auto industry." See other details in the eWEEK article cited below, and: (1) "Open Applications Group"; (2) "Electronic Business XML Initiative (ebXML)."

• [December 28, 2001] "LEXML: A Network Community for XML and the Law." By Cecilia Magnusson Sjöberg (Professor of Law and IT, Faculty of Law, Stockholm University; email: Cecilia.MagnussonSjoberg@juridicum.su.se). In InterChange [ISUG Newsletter] Volume 7, Number 4 (December 2001), pages 8-10. The article surveys recent efforts to coordinate law-related XML activities, including the LEXML communities. LEXML has been confirmed as the 'European Network for XML' in the legal domain, as explained by Cecilia Magnusson Sjöberg. From the mission statement announced at the Berlin XML 2001 meeting: "(1) LEXML has been established to serve the growing interest in automated exchange of legal data. It serves as an open forum for the legal domain to exchange ideas and experiences associated with XML and related core standards. (2) LEXML is a point of co-ordination and a workforce for the development of standardized structures, vocabularies and data exchange tools. Lexml pursues its goals in particular through the development of a global legal data model and the development of an open source legal office program, which speaks and understands XML. (3) LEXML is a network of independently organised communities, which may be jurisdiction oriented (like Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden) or subject-matter oriented. It is decentralized, with a peer to peer approach. Anyone can start a LEXML community. (4) LEXML may also be described as a network of websites linked together so as to compose a true information resource within the European legal domain. The communities stay in contact through mailinglists, meetings and by jointly working on cross-jurisdictional projects." Web sites have been set up in Austria, the Netherlands, and Germany; a Swedish LEXML site is also being constructed. For other references, see the papers presented at the Berlin meeting (May 2001). See also the "Legal XML Working Group."

• [December 28, 2001] "Covisint Crafts XML Schema." By Renee Boucher Ferguson. In eWEEK (December 24, 2001). ['The auto industry e-marketplace will adopt OASIS' ebXML framework standard and align with the OAG to create an XML schema for the auto industry.'] "Covisint LLC, the auto industry e-marketplace backed by such heavyweights as DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp., is making decisive standards moves to improve efficiencies for its members. The Southfield, Mich., company will announce during the first week of January that it has aligned with the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards and will adopt that group's ebXML (Electronic Business XML) messaging standard. In addition, Covisint plans to announce in the first quarter that it has aligned with the Open Applications Group Inc. standards body to create an XML schema for the auto industry. Sponsored by two standards bodies, OASIS and the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business, ebXML is a modular suite of specifications that provides a messaging and enveloping standard for companies to exchange electronic business messages, communicate data in common terms, and define and register business processes. Covisint currently receives XML purchase orders from DaimlerChrysler, Ford and GM, but they are received in three different flavors. Covisint also receives electronic data interchange documents from other members that are also enveloped in a variety of flavors. What Covisint is attempting to do with ebXML is define a standard envelope as well as a standard payload, according to Jeffrey Cripps, the company's director of industry relations. An XML schema is a data structure for documents that not only defines the syntax of a document -- what a field is called -- but also defines semantics, or what a specific field means. Cripps said the exchange seeks to create for the auto industry a schema for a global dictionary that can be used for interoperability among vertical markets--a huge gap in business-to-business. While aligning with ebXML is a significant move for the exchange, Covisint's work with the OAG could prove even more worthwhile by enabling it to develop proprietary standards for the automotive industry under the umbrella of an open-standards group, officials said. Cripps is in talks with the action groups of the North American and European automotive industries -- Automotive Industry Action Group and Odette, respectively -- to see if they will join Covisint and the OAG in developing the schema for the industry..." See: (1) "Open Applications Group"; (2) "Electronic Business XML Initiative (ebXML)."

• [December 21, 2001] "Sun Adds Web Services to J2EE." By Matt Berger. In InfoWorld (December 17, 2001). "Sun Microsystems has brought its Java enterprise server platform up to speed with emerging Web services standards, releasing a set of extensions that allow developers to build and run XML applications on the Java platform. The Java XML Pack is the first certified release of Web services tools for J2EE (Java 2, Enterprise Edition), the server software platform that is based on the Java programming language. Java developers already have some tools provided by the open-source community that allow them to build XML-based Web services for J2EE, said Karen Shipe, a product manager with Sun's Java XML group. But Sun's release Monday is the first such technology that has gone through the Java certification process... Formerly known as the JAX Pack before Sun was forced to change the name due to a copyright conflict, the Java XML Pack adds capability for XML messaging and data binding, as well as remote procedure calls using SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). The Web services pack is missing support for the UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration) directory as well as WSDL (Web Services Description Language), two standard pieces of the Web services puzzle. Sun plans to add support for those additional standards in a software download that will be available from the company within 30 days, Shipe said. Makers of server software products for the J2EE platform -- ranging from BEA Systems to Sun, which has its own iPlanet line of software products -- are racing Microsoft to offer tools for building XML-based Web services. Microsoft's Visual Studio.Net development software, which is still in beta testing, enables developers to build XML Web services to run on the Windows operating system. Sun's technology is aimed mainly at enterprise developers building J2EE applications who are looking to add support for XML and SOAP . Sun is also making the Web services pack available to major tool vendors who will incorporate the standards-based technology into future versions of their Java toolkits. Those toolkits include Sun's Forte for Java, Borland Software's JBuilder, Oracle JDeveloper, and WebGain's Visual Cafe..." See references in the news article.

• [December 21, 2001] "IBM Connects Its Software Layers. [Integration.]" By Ed Scannell, Tom Sullivan, and Martin LaMonica. In InfoWorld Issue 51 (December 17, 2001), pages 15-16. ['IBM's focus for middleware growth, the CrossWorlds application integration product, will become IBM's process integration engine in WebSphere. The Xperanto database project, due in 2003, marries structured and unstructured data through XML. Xperanto also marks the materialization of IBM's work on other Web services-related standards such as XQuery and XML Schema. Server-based software such as WebSphere, MQSeries Integrator, and DB2 will gain features allowing them to interoperate more tightly for a wider range of integration among business processes.'] "IBM is embarking on a technical crusade to tie up key elements of its software and drive its users closer to the Holy Grail: business process integration and common access to structured and unstructured data... According to IBM officials, the company is already creating visual business process modeling with a 'microflows' tool in its WebSphere Business Integrator version, due to ship in the first quarter next year. The tool allows developers to visually compose a business process workflow between software systems. At the data level, IBM is hatching Xperanto, a native XML database that is currently in development at IBM's research labs and will function as a subset of the company's DB2 Universal Database, due in the fourth quarter of 2002. Xperanto will act as a dedicated server for information integration and will be packaged as a stand-alone server , as part of DB2 or WebSphere. By using XML and relying on XQL (XML Query Language), Xperanto will be a critical piece of IBM's long-term vision to marry structured and unstructured data... IBM is also stepping up a three-phase initiative to set new Web services standards through the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). IBM executives believe such a concerted effort to establish Web services standards is necessary to crystallize the Web services vision to integrate applications, information, and business processes. 'We needed to get the acceptance of SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and WSDL (Web Services Description Language), these so-called Phase 1 Web services standards. Unless you have the lower-level plumbing, you can't do upper-level functionality,' said Bob Sutor, director of IBM's e-business standards strategy. Phase 2 technologies, which are expected to be standardized by the end of the second quarter of 2002, comprise security , reliability, and authorization on a more granular level. Phase 3 technologies, which will overlap with the end of Phase 2 and are currently labeled 'enterprise Web services capabilities,' will address workflow, transactions, systems management, and provisioning... IBM, Microsoft, and the Business Process Management Initiative standards group are creating XML-based languages for describing business processes. IBM is proposing WSFL (Web Services Flow Language), which it expects to become a standard in 2002 and the mechanism for manipulating its own business process integration software. Some analysts caution that it will take IBM some time to pull together the far-flung pieces that are part of this initiative..." [XPERANTO 'provides a general and efficient means to (a) store and query XML documents using a relational database system and (b) publish existing relational data as XML documents. Some of the key architectural features of the XPERANTO system are that it provides users with a high-level, declarative, XML query interface, and that it executes XML queries efficiently by pushing most of the computation down to the underlying relational database system.'] See also: "Web Services Flow Language (WSFL)."

• [December 21, 2001] "XML Gets Bigger DB2 Role." By John Dodge. In eWeek Volume 18, Number 49 (December 14, 2001), pages 1, 16. "IBM has an all-encompassing data management product on the drawing board that promises to further the company's efforts to marry structured and unstructured data. Known informally inside IBM as the 'information integrator,' or II, the product will combine capabilities from three existing products and add next-generation XML technology, according to Janet Perna, general manager of IBM Data Management Solutions, in Armonk, N.Y. The product enters pilot testing in the first half of next year and will be delivered in 12 to 18 months, Perna said. In a sense, II will be a business coming-out party for two of three existing products, which are largely used in the life sciences industries to search huge disparate database and data sources. They are DiscoveryLink and DB2 Relational Connect, informally known as 'data joiner.' DiscoveryLink allows scientists to access multiple data sources' databases with a single query, while DB2 Relational Connect provides DB2 with native read access to Microsoft Corp.'s SQL Server, Oracle Corp.'s Oracle and Sybase Inc.'s Sybase. The third IBM product -- Enterprise Information Portal -- is another querying tool, although it's unclear if it will be added totally. 'What's added to these three products over time is XML and greater integration capability. This supports relational, XML and rich-media views of the world,' said Jim Kleewein, an IBM distinguished engineer working on the project in IBM's Silicon Valley Laboratory, in San Jose, Calif. 'It takes you beyond just integrating data to merging business with IT processes along with structured and unstructured data.' What makes this more than just the sum of the three products together are two pieces of XML technology developed by IBM, according to Kleewein. The first is Xperanto, a code name for an XML foundation technology that supports XML within DB2. The second is an XML query language based on the XQuery technology developed by IBM and under consideration as a standard by the World Wide Web Consortium. XQuery is part of Xperanto. II supports IBM's belief that XML and relational data must live together instead of the former replacing the latter... [But] said International Data Corp. analyst Carl Olofson, in Framingham, Mass. 'It has to hang together as product rather than come across as a loose collection of things that weren't designed to work together. If most of them come out of the DB2 family, they probably will work together.' Another analyst discounted the notion that the unstructured world of XML and highly structured DB2 model will collide..."

• [December 21, 2001] "IBM, Lotus Tie Up To Power Wireless Synchronization. WebSphere Everyplace Server Also to Support SyncML Standard." By Cathleen Moore. In InfoWorld (December 20, 2001). "IBM plans early in 2002 to unite its relational database wireless synchronization engine with the Lotus Domino Everyplace Server, in a new release of the WebSphere Everyplace Server family of software. The move is part of IBM's ongoing effort to realize closer technology ties with its Lotus Software subsidiary and to provide a more complete wireless synchronization offering to customers looking to wireless-enable business applications and information. IBM's DB2 Everyplace with relational database synchronization capabilities will come together with the e-mail and PIM synchronization in Lotus Domino Everyplace, in an attempt to address the requirement for synchronization that underlies enterprise efforts to extend e-mail and applications to wireless devices... Expected in the first quarter of 2002, the WebSphere Everyplace software family also will ship with support for the SyncML standard, an XML-based technology designed to enable synchronization of remote data and personal information across multiple networks, platforms and devices. IBM and Lotus are founding sponsors of the SyncML Initiative. SyncML support is critical to create the greatest amount of interoperability between all types of devices and servers, [IBM's] Prial said... IBM's long-term vision in the wireless space is to provide a common infrastructure for wireless, stitching together Lotus, Tivoli, and IBM technologies: 'We see the infrastructure requirement to support wireless devices coming together to a common infrastructure base, and IBM is bringing all those technologies together, whether it is synchronization, trans-coding, or subscription and device management. It is all part of a broader solution base'..." See also from August 2001, "IBM Retools WebSphere for Remote Access," - "...IBM announced plans to enhance parts of its WebSphere application server to make it easier for businesses to make information on the Web and in corporate databases available to mobile users, particularly using speech technologies. IBM said it juiced up its WTP (WebSphere Transcoding Publisher), a component of the application server used to reformat Web content and multimedia files so they can be accessed from PDAs, mobile phones, and other 'pervasive' devices..." See "The SyncML Initiative."

• [December 20, 2001] "Intel Readies EDI Retirement." By Mitch Wagner. In InternetWeek (December 17, 2001), pages 8, 45. "Intel last week said it will replace EDI with RosettaNet standards by 2006, making it the first company to publicly commit to retiring electronic data interchange. The chip maker also said it's reached a RosettaNet milestone: By year-end, Intel will be swapping data in RosettaNet's XML formats over the Internet with 50 trading partners. Intel sees the use of RosettaNet and the Internet as superior to EDI in cost and flexibility; hence the five-year plan to phase out the legacy technology. Although some companies have been conducting EDI transactions over the Internet, newer XML technology offers several advantages. EDI exchanges data in batch mode -- meaning transactions occur at prescheduled intervals, such as daily -- whereas XML supports real-time exchanges. Moreover, RosettaNet's error-checking features -- absent in EDI -- have made its transactions three times as accurate as those in EDI, Intel said. The 50 Intel partners that will be using RosettaNet are mostly large companies that also have EDI connections. Intel's plans for 2002 call for using RosettaNet to communicate electronically with smaller suppliers as well... Intel could save as much as 2 percent of revenue, or roughly $564 million, annually by tuning its supply chain with Internet technology, estimated Vernon Keenan, founder of analyst firm Keenan Vision. That includes the move away from EDI. The savings would be realized as customers and suppliers enter their own data into Intel systems. That would eliminate the need for people to enter the data manually and for specialized networks to transfer the data. Intel would also be able to reduce sales head count as customers enter their own orders in self-service systems, and the company would save from a reduction in transactional errors... Intel customers currently online with RosettaNet include Compaq, IBM and distributor Arrow Electronics. The RosettaNet initiative is part of a big online push for Intel. The company started selling chips and subsystems over the Web in July 1998 and almost immediately ramped up to $1 billion per month in sales. Today, Intel counts both EDI and traditional Internet sales as Internet-based. That's because key EDI-related functions are performed over the Internet, including inventory management at Intel and at the customer site, as well as exchanging price and availability data, said Sandra Morris, vice president of Intel's e-business group..." Note also: "Intel Announces Results Of 'Interoperability Fest'." See "RosettaNet."

• [December 20, 2001] "E-business Middleman. Native XML Databases." By Maggie Biggs. In InfoWorld Issue 51 (December 17, 2001), pages 37-38. ['Native XML databases tap heterogeneous back-end databases to feed Web-based applications and trading partners. A native XML database makes good economic sense for enterprises that must support XML document handling and interaction with multiple back-end data sources. In addition, native XML databases can simplify the management of enterprise data processing performance... An emerging technology, native XML databases are currently best suited to early adopters willing to experiment. When existing shortcomings -- such as query and update handling -- are resolved, these databases promise to make XML handling much more manageable for most IT shops.'] "Without a doubt, XML is fast becoming the lingua franca of b-to-b data exchange. As the use of XML increases, executives and IT managers must begin factoring in the growing number and differing types of XML solutions now coming to market before they can determine the most cost-effective XML strategy to implement. Recently major relational database vendors, such as Oracle and Microsoft, have introduced XML-enabling technologies in their products: Oracle's XDB and Microsoft's SQLXML. Rival IBM has offered an XML Extender for its DB2 database for some time. Another promising, more manageable approach to XML in the enterprise is the emerging NXDB (native XML database). An NXDB does not replace your existing enterprise data sources. Rather it acts as an intermediate cache that sits between back-end data sources and middle-tier application components. Using an NXDB provides two principal benefits. First, it's likely your enterprise has multiple back-end data sources and various types of middle-tier applications. Rather than liberally sprinkling XML capabilities across the middle tier and back end, which may significantly increase technology expenditures, you could add the XML support you need by implementing an NXDB. An NXDB supplies the programmatic interfaces and data access methods necessary to support multiple applications and data sources. Second, you might use an NXDB to augment the processing power of your primary enterprise databases. Rather than devote primary database processing cycles to XML translation, storage, and retrieval during peak hours, moving these operations to an NXDB can free primary databases for more important tasks, such as transaction processing. Interaction between the NXDB and your back-end data sources can then be performed at times of the day or night that allow you to optimize processing performance and reduce the load on back-end databases that must also serve other applications and end-users. Many of the XML handling capabilities recently added to RDBMSes provide functionality similar to that provided by an NXDB. This has caused some confusion and begs the question, What constitutes an NXDB? An NXDB differs from an RDBMS in three key ways... Executives and IT managers should consider NXDBs when formulating an XML strategy. However, NXDBs are an emerging technology; querying and update capabilities are still maturing..." See: "XML and Databases."

• [December 20, 2001] "Tamino Moves Forward." By Maggie Biggs. In InfoWorld (December 14, 2001). "Native XML databases are certainly a promising technology that executives and IT managers will want to weigh carefully when determining enterprise XML strategies. Although the native XML database market is relatively new, several options must be considered. One of the better options is Software AG's Tamino 3.1. The newly released version of Tamino is a solid improvement over Version 2.3, which we also tested, and it is a worthy rival to Ipedo, another leading native XML database solution. Using the documentation included with Tamino, we had no problem installing and setting up the database. Although IT staff with XML experience and some understanding of native XML databases should not find the going difficult, administrators and developers without this background might have a tough time getting up to speed. Inclusion of more detailed tutorial materials would help. Version 3.1 shows good improvement in the areas of schema support, application accessibility, and management capabilities. We especially liked Tamino's new Schema Editor, which let us create and modify schema, as well as migrate schema we created with Tamino 2.3 to Tamino 3.1, easily and without incident. During schema creation, administrators define the elements and attributes of an XML document. Software AG has implemented a subset of the XML Schema Language defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in its schema language, TSD 3 [Tamino Schema Definition 3]. Using the Tamino Schema Editor enabled us to create schema more rapidly than we could using a text editor... For enterprises that need to manage XML documents in heterogeneous data environments, Tamino 3.1 is definitely worth a look. With querying standards yet to fall into place for native XML databases, Tamino is still not a completely mature solution, but its good query support, broader support for Java applications, and capabilities for managing multiple databases push it beyond most competitors."

• [December 20, 2001] "CDNs Edge Into App Delivery. [Content Networking.]" By Cathleen Moore, Stephen Lee, and Martin LaMonica. In InfoWorld Issue 51 (December 17, 2001), page 20. "The increased use of dynamic content and the rise of Web services are pushing enterprise application distribution to the edge of networks and into CDNs (content delivery networks). CDN providers such as Akamai Technologies are growing beyond first-generation Web content delivery functions into distributed application delivery, whereas network equipment providers such as Cisco are offering gear to build dynamic content networking platforms within enterprises. Cambridge, Mass.-based Akamai has tapped a technique called ESI (Edge Side Includes) to evolve its model for speeding Web content into a distributed computing network that executes applications at the edge of the network. Co-developed with Oracle, ESI is a markup language that creates an interface between application servers and a globally distributed network. Akamai has relationships with application server vendors, including IBM, Oracle, and BEA Systems. This month, CDN provider Speedera Networks, of Santa Clara, Calif., announced support for ESI... Akamai's network of 13,000 servers supports XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation), used to transform XML into various content formats. In the second half of next year, the company plans to build support for a variety of Web services standards and protocols into its network, said Kieran Taylor, Akamai director of product management..." [Edge Side Includes (ESI) is a simple markup language used to define Web page components for dynamic assembly and delivery of Web applications at the edge of the Internet. ESI provides a mechanism for managing content transparently across application server solutions, content management systems and content delivery networks. As a result, ESI enables companies to develop Web applications once and choose at deployment time where the application should be assembled -- on the content management system, the application server or the content delivery network, thus reducing complexity, development time and deployment costs. The ESI open standard specification is being co-authored by Akamai, ATG, BEA Systems, Circadence, Digital Island, IBM, Interwoven, Oracle, and Vignette."] See: "Edge Side Includes (ESI)."

• [December 20, 2001] "XML Matters: XML-RPC as Object Model. A data bundle for the hoi polloi?" By David Mertz, Ph.D. (Sometime Attributor, Gnosis Software, Inc.). From IBM developerWorksm XML Zone. December 2001. ['XML-RPC for serialization? Columnist David Mertz examines XML-RPC as a way of modeling object data, and compares XML-RPC as a means of serializing objects with the xml_pickle module discussed in his earlier columns. Code samples illustrate this comparison in detail.'] "XML-RPC is a remote function invocation protocol with a great virtue: It is worse than all of its competitors. Compared to Java RMI or CORBA or COM, XML-RPC is impoverished in the type of data it can transmit and obese in its message size. XML-RPC abuses the HTTP protocol to circumvent firewalls that exist for good reasons, and as a consequence transmits messages lacking statefulness and incurs channel bottlenecks. Compared to SOAP, XML-RPC lacks both important security mechanisms and a robust object model. As a data representation, XML-RPC is slow, cumbersome, and incomplete compared to native programming language mechanisms like Java's serialize, Python's pickle, Perl's Data::Dumper, or similar modules for Ruby, Lisp, PHP, and many other languages. In other words, XML-RPC is the perfect embodiment of Richard Gabriel's 'worse-is-better' philosophy of software design. I can hardly write more glowingly on XML-RPC than I did in the previous paragraph, and I think the protocol is a perfect match for a huge variety of tasks. To understand why, it's worth quoting the tenets of Gabriel's 'worse-is-better' philosophy... By design, xml_pickle is more naturally extensible for representing new data types than is XML-RPC. Moreover, extensions to xml_pickle maintain good backward compatibility across versions. As its designer, I am happy with the flexibility I have included for xml_pickle. However, the fact is that XML-RPC is far more widely used and implemented. Fortunately, with only slight extra layering -- and without breaking the underlying DTD -- XML-RPC can also be adapted to represent arbitrary data types. The mechanism is somewhat less elegant, but XML-RPC is well thought out enough to allow compatibility with existing implementations after these adaptations..." See: "XML-RPC."

• [December 20, 2001] "XML-RPC vs. SOAP. A simple guide to choosing the best protocol for your XML Remote Procedure Call needs." By Kate Rhodes. November 14, 2001. [Cited by David Mertz, above: "Kate Rhodes has written a nice comparison called 'XML-RPC vs. SOAP';in it, she points to a number of details that [give the lie to]SOAP's description as a 'lightweight" protocol'..."] "Within the world of XML there are two main ways to implement a Remote Procedure Call (RPC). XML-RPC and SOAP. This document will explore the differences between these two methods in order to help you decide which is best suited to your needs. ... When you get right down to it XML-RPC is about simple, easy to understand, requests and responses. It is a lowest common denominator form of communication that allows you to get almost any job done with a minimum amount of complexity. SOAP, on the other hand, is designed for transferring far more complex sets of information. It requires profuse attribute specification tags, namespaces, and other complexities, to describe exactly what is being sent. This has its advantages and disadvantages. SOAP involves significantly more overhead but adds much more information about what is being sent. If you require complex user defined data types and the ability to have each message define how it should be processed then SOAP is a better solution than XML-RPC (be sure to check out language specific solutions to this problem like Java's RMI). But, if standard data types and simple method calls are all you need then XML-RPC will give you a faster app with far fewer headaches..." See: "XML-RPC."

• [December 20, 2001] "Clark Challenges the XML Community." By Edd Dumbill. From XML.com. December 19, 2001. ['James Clark opened the XML 2001 conference in Orlando, delivering his keynote speech on the subject of challenges facing the XML community. A highly respected figure, Clark provided a focus for many of the issues concerning those who develop XML programs and specifications.'] "Delivering the opening keynote at the IDEAlliance XML 2001 Conference in Orlando, Florida, James Clark described five challenges faced by the XML community. Just before delivering his speech, Clark was deservedly honored by the conference with the 'XML Cup' for his long-standing contributions to the world of XML. Though at the center of the development of XML 1.0 and XSLT, and much SGML technology before that, Clark has recently become an increasingly dissenting voice at the World Wide Web Consortium. He used his speech to set out his concerns about the position that the guardians of XML now find themselves in... [1] Making Progress While Keeping XML Simple; [2] Don't Neglect the Foundations; [3] Controlling the Processing Pipeline; [4] Improving XML Processing; [5] Avoiding Premature Standardization... Although there were those new to XML in the audience who didn't quite appreciate what Clark had to say, his speech was a very important one for the XML community. It summed up many of the issues expressed within the community over the last two years. In a sense, we were hearing little that was totally new; but the important thing was that it came from Clark, underlined by the fact that he showed that he was willing to throw away some of his own work and ideas in order to make XML better. It seems unlikely that the increasingly conservative W3C will adopt Clark's more radical suggestions. However, the speech had an energizing effect on many who heard it, highlighting as it did the potential for grassroots community members to change and improve XML -- with Clark leading by example..." See also the news item: "James Clark First Recipient of the IDEAlliance XML Cup Award."

• [December 20, 2001] "Patents and Web Standards Town Hall Meeting." By Michael Champion. From XML.com. December 19, 2001. "On 16-August-2001, the W3C's Patent Policy Working Group released a working draft of a new framework governing the potential use of patented technology in W3C Recommendations. This draft described a process that would mandate that working groups specify in their charter whether they would operate in 'RF' or 'RAND' mode with respect to patented technology. The "royalty-free" (RF) mode working groups would refuse to consider any technology encumbered by patents that would not be freely licensed to all. RAND mode groups would consider technologies whose owners agreed to license them on 'Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory' royalty terms to all. The proposed policy drew almost no response until two days before the deadline for comments from the public. On 28-September-2001, Adam Warner wrote a piece for Linux Today describing the proposed policy and warning that there was little time to get in comments. This was picked up by Slashdot and triggered an unprecedented response on the W3C's public comment mailing list, almost all of it vehemently opposed to the working draft. The XML 2001 Conference and Exposition in Orlando, Florida sponsored a Town Hall meeting on 11-December-2001 that was billed as providing 'an opportunity to listen to speakers describe the issues at stake in this controversy and to participate in debate over the best way for the Web community to respond.' Despite vigorous efforts by conference chair Lauren Wood, the only person brave enough to face the public on this contentious issue was Daniel Weitzner, technology and society domain leader at the W3C and chair of the Patent Policy Working Group. Weitzner gave a 20-minute summary of the issues, the response from the public, and the reaction of the W3C Advisory Committee, then took comments and suggestions from the audience... The participants appeared to leave happy that the W3C planned to heavily favor technologies that could be licensed on royalty-free terms, but thoughtful about the possibility that this would limit the access of Web users to the best technology in specific application areas. The overwhelming consensus was that Daniel Weitzner had done a superb job in explaining the challenges the W3C faces here." See the W3C Patent Policy Working Group public home page.

• [December 20, 2001] "Growing Ideas at XML 2001." By Simon St. Laurent. From XML.com. December 19, 2001. "The XML 2001 show floor displayed a wide variety of different offerings from over 50 vendors. Much of the show featured improved versions of what had come before, but there were some new ideas sprouting as well as different takes on older ideas. There was a much broader range of XSL Formatting Object implementations, with RenderX, AntennaHouse, ArborText, and Advent 3B2 showing off their XSL-FO support. ActiveState's Visual XSLT Debugger tools gave many developers hope of managing to debug their XSLT stylesheets. SVG was also a common topic of discussion on the floor, as the notion of XML for graphics seemed to be catching on... While many vendors offer editors which hide the markup or work as trees, Topologi is developing an editor that takes a very different approach. The Topologi markup editor keeps all of the markup accessible to writers while providing support for a wide variety of common tasks and teamwork. Aimed at customers who already intensively use XML or SGML, the Topologi editor is designed for people 'who want more exposure to angle brackets. They want to be close to the markup,' says CTO Rick Jelliffe..."

• [December 20, 2001] "All We Want For Christmas is a WSDL Working Group." By Martin Gudgin and Timothy Ewald. From XML.com. December 19, 2001. "Dear Santa Claus: We have both been very good this year. We've done our best to promote peace and understanding among web service developers around the world. We have run into some problems, however, with the Web Service Description Language (WSDL). In case you aren't familiar with WSDL, it's an XML-based language that captures the mechanical information a client needs to access a web service: definitions of message formats, SOAP details, and a destination URL. (Of course the client also needs to understand the semantics of particular messages, but that information is still imparted the old-fashioned way, i.e., documentation.) WSDL files are often interpreted by software, which uses the metadata they contain to generate client-side proxy code for accessing a service. This is appealing to developers who do not want to program in raw XML... We agree with most people in the web service community that something like WSDL is necessary. However, we have a number of issues with WSDL as it stands today, and we are hoping that you can fix them. Here is our list... Actually, Santa, forget about our list. We just realized that all we really want for Christmas is a WSDL working group. If you can get us one of those, we'd be very happy..." See: "Web Services Description Language (WSDL)."

• [December 20, 2001] "Versioning Problems. [XML Deviant.]" By Leigh Dodds. From XML.com. December 19, 2001. ['The biggest story of the week has been the release of the first working draft of XML 1.1, designed to resolve issues created by the relationship between XML and Unicode. The publication of the first draft of XML 1.1 is the cause of much dissent in the XML community. Leigh Dodds has been covering the reaction to the draft in the XML community.'] "This week saw the publication of the first Working Draft of XML 1.1. XML developers may well have felt their pulses rise at the pointy-bracketed pleasures that such a draft might contain. Disappointing, then, to discover the dismal taste of Blueberry on their palates. Regular XML-Deviant readers will remember that Blueberry was a sour summer fruit this year, causing a great deal of debate on the XML-DEV mailing list. The Blueberry requirements had a couple of aims: to extend the Unicode support to Unicode 3.1, and to accommodate some other changes to legal characters that would make life easier for some IBM mainframe users. XML is currently based on Unicode 2.0, and a number of new scripts have been added in later revisions of Unicode that are not currently legal to use in some aspects of XML markup, particularly tag names. This prevents truly internationalized markup. The debate, inevitably, ended up with some polarized viewpoints: those who believed that full internationalization was a worthwhile goal in itself, regardless of implementation costs, and those who saw those costs as too high considering the small returns involved. Alternatives were presented: IBM mainframe users could incur the cost to upgrade their text editors, and add some simple character conversions when producing XML from legacy systems; and international users would have to accept less freedom in choosing tag names than they have in the character content they can mark-up with those tags..." See (1) the XML 1.1 specification, and (2) the news item, "W3C Issues First Public Working Draft for XML Version 1.1."

• [December 20, 2001] "Conceptual Model for Processing DocBook SGML and XML." By Nik Clayton (FreeBSD Documentation Project). This "maps out the relationships between the various components in the FreeBSD DocBook pulishing toolchain (used to generate high quality PS, PDF, TXT, PDB, RTF, and HTML output). I thought it might be useful for people who are trying to understand how the various technologies and tools fit together..." Reviewers may email Nik Clayton for information on a sample implementation of the infrastructure which supports this processing framework. See: "DocBook XML DTD." [cache]

• [December 20, 2001] "XML Schema tome 0: Introduction." Recommandation du W3C du 2 Mai 2001. From W3C XML Schema Recommendation Part 0. Translated by Jean-Jacques Thomasson. Referenced by Eric van der Vlist: "It's my pleasure to announce the publication of an excellent translation of XML Schema part 0 by Jean-Jacques Thomasson on XMLfr...". Note: "Ce document est une traduction de la recommandation XML Schema du W3C, datée du 2 mai 2001. Cette version traduite peut contenir des erreurs absentes de l'original, introduites par la traduction elle-même." See the W3C web site for XML Schema and "XML Schemas."

• [December 20, 2001] "Smart Tags are Helping the War -- And Businesses Too. Radio-frequency ID Tags Offer New Efficiency In Supply-Chain Management" By Steve Konicki. In InformationWeek Issue 867 (December 10, 2001), pages 22-24. "The U.S. military and commercial businesses have a common challenge: the need to skillfully manage supply-chain logistics. Be it the assembly of cars or the maintenance of attack helicopters, the timely coordination of parts and supplies is key to success. A new class of radio-frequency ID systems is being brought to bear in both arenas, bringing unprecedented efficiency and control to the shipment of everything from canned peas to Humvees. The military is using RFID in conjunction with the satellite-based global positioning system to track virtually every shipment destined for the war in Afghanistan. RFID smart tags can be affixed to boxes, pallets, and industrial shipping containers to transmit the location and status of goods en route... Basic RFID tags, such as the passive read-only type widely used in retail, have been around for more than 10 years, and their prices have dropped to as little as 25 cents each. Newer tags, called active tags, contain memory chips that can be programmed to include information about what's in a pallet or box. They can cost as little as $3 in large quantities. Savi's combination device that includes active RFID, GPS, and wireless communications can cost $500 each in quantities of 50,000. Throw in the cost of additional software and infrastructure upgrades, and a complete system can range from $150,000 to several million dollars. Kevin Ashton, executive director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Auto-ID Center, which is researching new uses for RFID technology with sponsors such as Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, and Wal-Mart, says the lack of software to manage the data these smart tags emit is a barrier to adoption... Savi's SmartChain software is designed to handle the large amounts of data generated by real-time tracking, but mainstream supply-chain management software typically can't do the job. Most RFID vendors say their software uses XML and open APIs to make integration easier with existing supply-chain apps. ... Volkswagen is using new technology, dubbed Intelligent Long Range RFID from Identec Solutions to check the location of finished and near-finished autos at plants in Germany. A single device that combines GPS and RFID capabilities is placed on the windshield of every car on large lots. A security guard making rounds takes inventory of cars every hour by driving around the lot on a golf cart equipped with an RFID reader connected to a notebook computer, which links via wireless LAN to Volkswagen's inventory-management software..." Note also a technology overview presented in the sidebar, "Bringing Real-Time Tracking To Logistics." Related references: (1) "Physical Markup Language (PML)" and the news item of 2001-11-21: "Auto-ID Center Uses Physical Markup Language in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Tag Technology."

• [December 14, 2001] "Differences between XTM 1.0 and the HyTime-based meta-DTD." Edited by Michel Biezunski and Steven R. Newcomb. ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC34 N0277. Project: Topic Map Models. 8-December-2001. Editors' Draft, informational. "The ISO/IEC 13250:2000 'Topic Maps' International Standard has two interchange syntaxes, the HyTime-based meta-DTD, and the XTM DTD. The following is a survey of the relationships and differences between these two syntaxes. Describing the semantics of both syntaxes: One of the purposes of the layered model of Topic Maps Information is to provide a means of describing the semantics of such information, in general, regardless of the representations that may be used to interchange it. The layered model also can be used to show how each different syntax (or other representation) can be used to interchange or store Topic Map Information, and to compare the ways in which each syntax reflects the inherent character of the underlying model of Topic Map Information. In order to rigorously define and constrain the interpretation of each syntax, it is desirable to describe how instances of each syntax can be transformed into instances of the common underlying model, and how instances of the underlying model can be transformed into instances of each syntax. It is important to recognize that information that has the character of Topic Map Information is ordinarily expressed in many different notations. It is highly desirable to be able to federate all kinds of 'finding information', not just the finding information that happens to be expressed in one of only two syntaxes. The underlying layered model of Topic Map Information is applicable to any number of notations, although the ISO 13250 standard uses it only to constrain the interpretation of only two syntaxes -- the syntaxes that it happens to provide. Conformance to the underlying layered model will enable topic map applications to become omnivorous with respect to syntax..." In this connection, see the 2001-12-14 posting from James David Mason (Chairman, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34) to the effect that "... the ballot to amend ISO/IEC 13250 has passed, [so] the XTM 1.0 DTD is now a part of the ISO/IEC standard. That means we shouldn't make distinctions in the future between 'ISO 13250' and 'XTM'... Both the HyTime metaDTD originally published in the standard and the XTM 1.0 DTD are now equally parts of the standard. Each one provides an approved ISO/IEC mechanism for interchange of Topic Maps. To avoid confusion, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 has adopted the practice of calling the original HyTime form 'HyTM', in parallel with 'XTM' for the later form... We expect the relationship between the two notational conventions to be further elucidated by revisions to the standards and by other work in progress in SC34. There is a graphic at http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/sc34/document/0278.ppt (or http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/sc34/document/0278.gif) that will be expanded into a full roadmap for the relationship among the various components of the Topic Map standardization project. We need to keep clear that the transfer serialzations are not the definition of Topic Maps: The standard is the definition. SC34 intends that the supplementary standards will clarify the meaning of Topic Maps without changing their essential nature. (We also recognize that other transfer serializations are possible, outside the standard.) The explanatory text of XTM 1.0 remains as it was, where it was. However, we should remember that this is provisional text and that the definitive interpretation now will be progressed by SC34 as we fill in the roadmap..." See: "(XML) Topic Maps." [cache]

• [December 14, 2001] "Process Modeling for e-Business. Advantages, challenges, caveats, and implications." By Michael C. Rawlins December 13, 2001. Penultimate article #6 in the series ebXML - A Critical Analysis. "Those who haven't been involved in EDI standards development might be surprised to know that process modeling has long been a contentious topic of debate. After having been studied, developed, and promoted for several years, it recently became a key component of UN/CEFACT's work program. ANSI ASC X12 also decided in 2000 to incorporate modeling using CEFACT's methodology, but without the same "must do" mandate that CEFACT has imposed on its constituent work groups. CEFACT carried this modeling emphasis over into ebXML, and business process analysis using modeling techniques and methodologies is a core part of ebXML. However, there are still many people in both CEFACT and X12 who are not particularly enthusiastic about modeling and question its usefulness. There are many reasons for the controversy around this topic, but the primary reason is the tension between two basic facts about the current state of software engineering: (1) Business process analysis is "good" software engineering; (2) Very few organizations place a high priority on "good" software engineering... One of the foundation principles of software engineering is that it is much easier and less costly to correct requirements mistakes in the analysis phase of a project than it is in later phases of design, coding, and testing. Good analysis is of paramount importance in the efficient production of software systems that satisfy user requirements. There has been a great evolution in analysis techniques over the years. Today's prevalent technique, the Unified Modeling Language (UML), is an object oriented approach that incorporates key features of previous techniques (such as data flow diagrams and state charts). To these it adds its own object oriented viewpoint that meshes very well with today's prevalent OO design and programming approaches. Likewise, today's analysis methodologies, such as UN/CEFACT's UMM (the UN/CEFACT Modeling Methodology N090, based on Rational Software's Rational Unified Process), are based on years of experience. Consistency in techniques and methodologies not only forces discipline on analysts and produces better analysis, but also produces analysis in a form that can be more easily validated by subject matter experts and used by software developers... UML, when used as proposed by ebXML and CEFACT, can also be used to develop XML schemas. One can develop and view XSD complex types as object class hierarchies in UML. For many designers this might be more intuitive than trying to bottom-up trace extension from derived types in XML specific tools such as XML Spy. In addition, non-standard extensions to UML may be required for the XML schemas to be generated. Developers who work primarily in an XML environment may find that the overhead of using a UML tool in addition to their XML tools may not be justified. An ebXML BPSS instance document describing a business process can also be generated from a UML model. It is notable, however, that the ebXML BP team didn't want to force people to use UML. They provided a series of worksheets that enable a BPSS document to be created without having to do a full UML model... For CEFACT, the UMM is a big improvement over having practically no formal anlysis process. However, it may be a case of trying to go too far too fast. The bottom line is that even CEFACT work groups, who have a mandate to use the UMM, are probably going to find it hard to use. The benefits are going to come with a fairly high price. Other organizations may find the UMM helpful as a reference and may see benefits in developing some or even most of the components required in the UMM metamodel. But I think it unlikely that any organization outside of CEFACT is going to adopt the UMM in toto..." See next item for UMM.

• [December 14, 2001] "UN/CEFACT's Modelling Methodology (N090)." Release 10. "The document describes UN/CEFACT's Modeling Methodology (UMM) that is being utilized by UN/CEFACT's Working Groups for its business process and information models. UMM is based on the Unified Modeling Language (UML) from the Open Management Group (OMG)." Historically, the definition of information constructs to support information exchange between business and individuals has been tightly tied to the business process they support and the technology syntax used to describe them. This has hampered the migration of existing, working inter-organization information exchanges to new technologies. In the historic methodologies the syntax is so tightly intertwined with the business semantics that it is not easy to retain the semantics (and business knowledge from which they derived) as one attempts to move to new syntaxes such as XML or Objects. To this end, this document describes a method and supporting components to capture business process knowledge, independent of the underlying implemented technology so that the business acumen is retained and usable over generations of implemented technology. Additionally, the UN/CEFACT Modelling Methodology implements processes that help insure predictable results from a software project. ... A primary vision of UN/CEFACT is to capture the business knowledge that enables the development of low cost software components by software vendors to help the small and medium size companies, and emerging economies engage in e-Business practices. By focusing on developing business process and information models in a protocol neutral manner, these UMM provides insurance against obsolescence by allowing recasting of the Open-edi scenarios into new technologies such as Extensible Markup Language (XML), or other technologies that may emerge ten to fifteen years from now. Hence UMM 'future-proofs' Open-edi scenarios against obsolescence by new protocol standards and technologies. The focus of the UMM developed by UN/CEFACT is predominately the technology neutral intersection of the UP phases of Inception and Elaboration and the Software Engineering project workflows of Business Modelling, Requirements, Analysis and Design. This intersection coincided well with the UN/CEFACT TMWG (Techniques and Methodologies Work Group) charter to define a methodology to support the BOV of ISO/IEC IS 14662 standard for the technology neutral definition of Open-edi scenarios..." See also the UN/CEFACT UML to XML Design Rules Project Proposal, the UML to XML Design Rules Project Team, and mailing list archives.

• [December 14, 2001] "Business Object Type Library." Draft Technical Specification. December 07, 2001. Posted by John Yunker to the ['Attached is the latest draft of the BOTL technical specification. Note that this is still at a conceptual level and will be moved more towards the concrete over the next few weeks as we gain agreement on the conceptual basis.'] "The eBTWG Business Object Type Library (BOTL) provides a framework of standardized Business Object Type (BOT) packages. These packages describe behavior, attributes and purpose of persistent business objects that are the subject of business collaborations. For businesses to optimize their execution of supply chain relationships they must align their definitions of the subjects of their collaborations. Often these business objects are the subject of multiple collaborations which occur over time. These business objects usually have persistent existence in the databases of both trading partners, and alignment of these instantiations to a shared definition is critical to achieving alignment between the partners' instances during process execution. The BOT specification provides a Business Operations Map (BOM) and Business Requirements View (BRV) mechanism for identifying and elaborating these objects. eBTWG and UMM context: The Business Object Type Library is intended to provide a resource for: (1) reusable definition of conditions (business object state) used for business collaboration preconditions, postconditions, and transitions; and (2) identification of business semantic for the referenced business object. In the context of the UMM this allows a more formal declaration and elaboration of the guards on start and end states, and the guards on transitions between business transactions in the definition of a complex collaboration. In the context of eBTWG this establishes a mechanism for mapping the collaborations onto an integrated and reusable set of domain definitions instead of the current complex conditionals that reference elements of transitory business messages. eBTWG is providing two primary interfaces for partner interaction: (1) Definition interface for a language for alignment (models, specifications, ontologies); and (2) Execution interface for artifacts of alignment (messages, services). These interfaces facilitate communication between partners..." Context: this is a work product from the Business Information Object Reference Library Project Team, being one of the project teams of the UN/CEFACT Electronic Business Transition Working Group. Other teams are designing a XML Business Document Library and UML to XML Design Rules.

• [December 14, 2001] "Reliable XML Web Services." By Eric Schmidt (Program Manager, XML Core Services Team, Microsoft Corporation). December 11, 2001. "At PDC, I delivered a session on the topic of reliable XML Web services (Web services). This talk spawned from numerous conversations that I have had over the past year. Among the various FAQs about building XML Web services, reliability falls into the top five issues facing developers implementing decentralized Web services. The problem space, when broken down into small pieces, is not that difficult. So, this month I decided to jump off into the extreme area of building reliable XML Web services... One of the most exciting aspects of the Global XML Web services Architecture (GXA) is the ability to extend the architecture with composable processing protocols. These protocols, predominantly implemented through SOAP headers, can provide a wide spectrum of services including security, encryption, routing, and reliability. As you start building GXA-based applications, you will discover that GXA is a messaging architecture at the core. This messaging architecture provides interoperability between systems and services through a standards based encoding technology -- SOAP. The majority of implementation work to date has been focused on SOAP 1.1 and WSDL compliant services so that Web service implementations could interoperate across various languages and operating systems. This is an elegant concept. Any system can talk to any other system as long as they can parse XML and understand the rules of the SOAP specification. However, simple message exchange is not sufficient for sophisticated business applications. Real world applications, regardless of their internal domain architecture, need standardized services like security, licensing, and reliability exposed at the Web services messaging layer. There is tremendous momentum behind the creation and implementation of the Global XML Web service Architecture, specifically SOAP, SOAP modules, and infrastructure protocols. With the introduction of four new specifications this past October (WS-Routing, WS-Referral, WS-Licensing, and WS-Security), we are at the forefront of the next generation of XML Web service implementations. Even with this flood of new specifications, there are two areas that do not yet have public specifications -- transactions and reliable messaging. This is mainly because these infrastructure protocols are reliant upon lower level SOAP modules. For this column, I'm writing about what reliability and reliable messaging means in terms of a GXA environment. Specifically, I want to spend some time drilling down on what it takes to develop a reliability protocol by extending the existing Web service classes in the .NET Framework..." See "Microsoft Releases New XML Web Services Specifications for a Global XML Web Services Architecture" and Global XML Web Services Interoperability Resources.

• [December 14, 2001] "XML Web Services Basics." By Roger Wolter. Microsoft Corporation. December 2001. ['An overview of the value of XML Web services for developers, with introductions to SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI.'] "XML Web services are the fundamental building blocks in the move to distributed computing on the Internet. Open standards and the focus on communication and collaboration among people and applications have created an environment where XML Web services are becoming the platform for application integration. Applications are constructed using multiple XML Web services from various sources that work together regardless of where they reside or how they were implemented. There are probably as many definitions of XML Web Service as there are companies building them, but almost all definitions have these things in common: (1) XML Web Services expose useful functionality to Web users through a standard Web protocol. In most cases, the protocol used is SOAP. (2) XML Web services provide a way to describe their interfaces in enough detail to allow a user to build a client application to talk to them. This description is usually provided in an XML document called a Web Services Description Language (WSDL) document. (3) XML Web services are registered so that potential users can find them easily. This is done with Universal Discovery Description and Integration (UDDI). I'll cover all three of these technologies in this article but first I want to explain why you should care about XML Web services..."

• [December 14, 2001] "Using UDDI at Run Time." By Karsten Januszewski (Microsoft Corporation). December 2001. ['This article walks through using UDDI at run time and discusses how UDDI, both the public registry and UDDI Services available in Microsoft Windows .NET Server, can act as infrastructure for Web services to support client applications.'] "UDDI (Universal Description Discovery and Integration) is often called the 'yellow pages' for Web Services. While the yellow pages analogy is useful, it doesn't convey the complete story of how UDDI can be incorporated into a Web service-based software architecture. The yellow pages analogy only speaks to design-time usage of UDDI -- the ability to discover and consume Web services by searches based on keywords, categories or interfaces. From a design-time perspective, the yellow pages analogy is accurate: just as the yellow pages categorizes and catalogs businesses and their phone numbers, UDDI categorizes and catalogs providers and their Web services. A developer can find WSDL files and access points in UDDI and then incorporate those Web services into client applications. However, UDDI offers more than just design-time support. The yellow pages analogy does not speak to how UDDI offer run-time support. UDDI plays a critical role after the discovery process is complete. The ability to programmatically query UDDI at run time allows UDDI to act as an infrastructure to build reliable, robust Web service applications... UDDI provides important run-time functionality that can be integrated into applications so as to create more robust, dynamic clients. By using UDDI as infrastructure in a Web services architecture, applications can be written to be more reliable..." See: "Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI)."

• [December 13, 2001] "Effective XML processing with DOM and XPath in Java. Analysis of many projects yields advice and suggested code." By Parand Tony Darugar (Chief Software Architect, VelociGen Inc.). From IBM developerWorks XML Zone. December 2001. ['Based on an analysis of several large XML projects, this article examines how to make effective and efficient use of DOM in Java. The DOM offers a flexible and powerful means for creating, processing, and manipulating XML documents, but it can be awkward to use and can lead to brittle and buggy code. Author Parand Tony Daruger provides a set of Java usage patterns and a library of functions to make DOM robust and easy to use.'] "The Document Object Model (DOM), is a recognized W3C standard for platform- and language-neutral dynamic access and update of the content, structure, and style of XML documents. It defines a standard set of interfaces for representing documents, as well as a standard set of methods for accessing and manipulating them. The DOM enjoys significant support and popularity, and it is implemented in a wide variety of languages, including Java, Perl, C, C++, VB, Tcl, and Python. As I'll demonstrate in this article, DOM is an excellent choice for XML handling when stream-based models (such as SAX) are not sufficient. Unfortunately, several aspects of the specification, such as its language-neutral interface and its use of the 'everything-is-a-node' abstraction, make it difficult to use and prone to generating brittle code. This was particularly evident in a recent review of several large DOM projects that were created by a variety of developers over the past year. The common problems, and their remedies, are discussed below... The language-neutral design of the DOM has given it very wide applicability and brought about implementations on a large number of systems and platforms. This has come at the expense of making DOM more difficult and less intuitive than APIs designed specifically for each language. DOM forms a very effective base on which easy-to-use systems can be built by following a few simple principles. Future versions of DOM are being designed with the combined wisdom and experience of a large group of users, and will likely present solutions to some of the problems discussed here. Projects such as JDOM are adapting the API for a more natural Java feel, and techniques such as those described in this article can help make XML manipulation easier, less verbose, and less prone to bugs. Leveraging these projects and following these usage patterns allows DOM to be an excellent platform for XML-based projects." Article also in PDF format. See: "W3C Document Object Model (DOM)."

• [December 13, 2001] "IBM Spills Beans on Xperanto Database Initiative." By Tom Sullivan and Ed Scannell. In InfoWorld (December 13, 2001). "XML has been causing quite a splash in the database world, particularly in the last few weeks, and IBM is the latest vendor to detail plans for the standard. In IBM's research labs, the company is working on a project, code-named Xperanto, which will be a native XML database that acts as a subset of DB2, said Janet Perna, general manager of Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM's data management solutions group. By using XML and relying on the XML query language XQL, Xperanto will be a critical piece of IBM's long-term vision to marry structured and unstructured data. 'The value of this is it's the next step beyond a federated database,' Perna said. That step, Perna added, is information integration. IBM has application integration via its WebSphere products, business process integration from its recent CrossWorlds acquisition, and Xperanto acts as a dedicated server for data or information integration. 'We have a new class of software that really is about information integration,' Perna said. Nelson Mattos, a distinguished engineer and director of information integration at IBM's Silicon Valley Labs, said that the customer pain point Xperanto is aimed at is how to tie together all the systems in an organization... Mattos continued that Xperanto will be the materialization of IBM's work on a number of Web services-related standards, including XQuery, XML Schema, UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration), SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), WSDL (Web Services Description Language) and WSFL (Web Services Flow Language). The end goal of IBM's integration strategy is to be able to combine structured and unstructured data, thereby enabling access to a broader array of data sets within an organization, such as Office files. So organizations would be able to access the content in the Word files that reside on individual employees desktop systems. Both Microsoft and Oracle said they are working to enhance XML support in the database as well as toward the same goal of providing users more insight into all of the intelligence within an organization... Within IBM's strategy, DB2 handles structured data, OLTP (Online Transaction Processing), BI (business intelligence), and Web applications, while the Content Manager software takes care of unstructured information, such as rich media and flat files. Perna said that the widespread adoption of XML has made the idea of combining structured and unstructured data come alive..." See: "XML and Databases."

• [December 13, 2001] "Digital Rights Management: Reviewing XrML 2.0. How well is ContentGuard responding to challenges to its rights description language?" By Bill Rosenblatt (President, GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies). In Seybold Report: Analyzing Publishing Technology [ISSN: 1533-9211] Volume 1, Number 18 (December 17, 2001). ['ContentGuard's second effort at a rights specification language offers more expressive power and now supports non-document content types, but it hasn't cured the complexity problem. Openness and outreach are the challenges that ContentGuard still faces.'] "With Extensible Rights Markup Language (XrML) 2.0 (www.xrml.org), the rights specification language from ContentGuard takes a further evolutionary step away from its roots in the Digital Property Rights Language (DPRL) invented by Dr. Mark Stefik of Xerox PARC in 1996. The first version of XrML moved the language's syntactic basis from its original Lisp to XML, but kept the semantics largely intact. Version 2.0 moves the syntax slightly from XML DTD to XML Schema and alters the semantics -- the power of the language -- significantly. Although the language has existed for a few years, XrML has been slow to be adopted by DRM technology vendors. DRM technologists have criticized it as too complex, making it difficult to implement, especially in post-PC Internet devices with slow processors and small memory footprints. This criticism has had some validity: The language tried to be all-encompassing and to muck around in DRM implementation details, such as levels of security, that DRM technology vendors have found unnecessary... Version 2.0 of the language is well integrated into the web of existing and emerging standards in the XML community, including Schema, namespaces, XPath and digital signature standards; in fact, one must be conversant with many of these to fully understand the language specification and to write good XrML code. ContentGuard is trying to find an existing and respected standards body to take responsibility for the language (IDEAlliance, keeper of both PRISM and ICE, would be a logical candidate). This is an improvement upon its previous intention of forming and managing an authoring group itself. ContentGuard's strategy appears to be to make money by licensing the technology -- whatever some outside body defines it to be. It can do this because its patents cover the idea of a rights language in general, no matter what the specifics of the language are... XrML 1.3 had a few features designed to support some service-oriented business models, such as subscriptions and private currencies (tickets), but the language's conceptions of both rights and consideration required for exercising rights were centered on document-like content. XrML 2.0 fixes this, all the way. The language can support any Internet-based service -- whether it involves 'content' or not. In fact, XrML 2.0 can support fine-grained rights control on individual pieces of data in a database. This feature is bound to generate some controversy among the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other advocates of the balance of interests in copyright law. Currently, individual data items ('facts') are not protected under U.S. copyright law, although there is an effort afoot among online database providers (and others) to make them so. Protecting online database records with a DRM system powered by XrML 2.0 would bypass this issue by doing an end run around the copyright laws..." See (1) "Extensible Rights Markup Language (XrML)"; (2) "XML and Digital Rights Management (DRM)."

• [December 13, 2001] "XrML 2.0 Review." By [Bill Rosenblatt] GiantSteps/Media Technology Strategies 'DRM Watch'. November 26, 2001. ['ContentGuard releases version 2.0 of the Extensible Rights Markup Language (XrML), announces its intention to hand the language over to an as yet unnamed standards body for further stewardship, and submits it for consideration as a part of the MPEG-21 standard under development. ContentGuard restructured its business in July 2001 so that it now focuses exclusively on developing the XrML language, advancing it as a standard, and creating revenue through licensing fees. XrML 2.0 is the first major deliverable from the new ContentGuard, and the emphasis on the language (rather than on ContentGuard's former DRM products and services) is quite apparent nt'] "... Overall, XrML 2.0 is a positive step for ContentGuard, and by extension, for the DRM industry as a whole. But it's not the only rights description language vying for industry-standard status. For example, the aforementioned ODRL is also being submitted to MPEG-21. ContentGuard needs to continue building its momentum in the areas mentioned above to beat out these competitors and finally bring order to the chaotic world of DRM systems." [substantially re-published in the Seybold article, cited above] See (1) "Extensible Rights Markup Language (XrML)"; (2) "XML and Digital Rights Management (DRM)."

• [December 13, 2001] "SAML Basics. A Technical Introduction to the Security Assertion Markup Language." By Eve Maler (XML Standards Architect, XML Technology Center, Sun Microsystems, Inc.). Presentation delivered at the Java in Administration Special Interest Group (JA-SIG) Conference, December 3, 2001. 51 slides. The session was designed to "provide a technical overview of SAML, the XML-based Security Assertion Markup Language being standardized at OASIS. It discusses how SAML enables Single Sign-On and other security scenarios, and provides details about the authentication, attribute, and authorization information that SAML can convey. The presentation also covers the protocol by which security information can be requested from SAML Authorities and the practical realities of how this information can be transported securely across domains... With XML, you often see standards that are simply wire protocols; no API is mandated, and in some cases no binding to some transport mechanism (such as HTTP or SMTP or whatever) is provided. We felt that the latter is definitely needed so that proprietary mechanisms don't creep in. What's needed is (1) A standard XML message format [It's just data traveling on any wire; No particular API mandated; Lots of XML tools available]; (2) A standard message exchange protocol [Need clarity in orchestrating how you ask for and get the information you need]; (3) Rules for how the messages ride 'on' and 'in' transport protocols, for better interoperability. SAML is an XML-based framework for exchanging security information: (1) XML-encoded security 'assertions'; (2) XML-encoded request/response protocol; (3) Rules on using assertions with standard transport and messaging frameworks..." See: "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)."

• [December 13, 2001] "Assertions and Protocol for the OASIS Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)." Reference: draft-sstc-core-21. Interim draft. 10-December-2001. 39 pages. From members of the OASIS XML-Based Security Services Technical Committee (SSTC). Contributors include: Carlisle Adams (Entrust), Nigel Edwards (Hewlett-Packard), Marlena Erdos (Tivoli), Phillip Hallam-Baker (VeriSign, editor), Jeff Hodges (Oblix), Charles Knouse (Oblix), Chris McLaren (Netegrity), Prateek Mishra (Netegrity), RL "Bob" Morgan (University of Washington), Eve Maler (Sun Microsystems, editor), Tim Moses (Entrust), David Orchard (BEA), and Irving Reid (Baltimore). "This specification defines the syntax and semantics for XML-encoded SAML assertions, protocol requests, and protocol responses. These constructs are typically embedded in other structures for transport, such as HTTP form POSTs and XML-encoded SOAP messages. The SAML specification for bindings and profiles provides frameworks for this embedding and transport. Files containing just the SAML assertion schema and protocol schema are available. .. An assertion is a package of information that supplies one or more statements made by an issuer. SAML allows issuers to make three different kinds of assertion statement: (1) Authentication: The specified subject was authenticated by a particular means at a particular time. (2) Authorization decision: A request to allow the specified subject to access the specified object has been granted or denied. (3) Attribute: The specified subject is associated with the supplied attributes. Assertions have a nested structure. A series of inner elements representing authentication statements, authorization decision statements, and attribute statements contains the specifics, while an outer generic assertion element provides information that is common to all the statements..." SSTC WG documents supportive of the Core Assertion Architecture specification inclued (1) SAML Profile of XML Digital Signature; (2) Assertion Schema Discussion; (3) Protocols Schema Discussion; (4) Assertion XML Schema 'draft-sstc-schema-assertion-21.xsd'; (5) Protocol Schema 'draft-sstc-schema-protocol-21.xsd'. Other Committee Drafts from the SAML working group include: Use Cases and Requirements Document, Domain Model, Bindings Model, Sessions, Security Considerations, Conformance Specification, Glossary, and Issues List. See: "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)." [source]

• [December 13, 2001] "Comparing XML Schema Languages." By Eric van der Vlist. From XML.com. December 12, 2001. ['DTDs, W3C XML Schema, RELAX NG: what's the difference? And which is the best tool for the job? There is a healthy ecology in XML schema technologies: ranging from DTDs, through the W3C's XML Schema Definition Language to newer entrants such as RELAX NG and Schematron. In his article, Eric gives us a timeline of XML schema languages, and compares the strengths of each of these technologies. Eric's talk in Orlando "XML Schema Languages" was standing-room only.'] "This article explains what an XML schema language is and which features the different schema languages possess. It also documents the development of the major schema language families -- DTDs, W3C XML Schema, and RELAX NG -- and compares the features of DTDs, W3C XML Schema, RELAX NG, Schematron, and Examplotron... The English language definition of schema does not really apply to XML schema languages. Most of the schema languages are too complex to 'present to the mind' or to a program the instance documents that they describe, and, more importantly and less subjectively, they often focus on defining validation rules more than on modeling a class of documents. All XML schema languages define transformations to apply to a class of instance documents. XML schemas should be thought of as transformations. These transformations take instance documents as input and produce a validation report, which includes at least a return code reporting whether the document is valid and an optional Post Schema Validation Infoset (PSVI), updating the original document's infoset (the information obtained from the XML document by the parser) with additional information (default values, datatypes, etc.) One important consequence of realizing that XML schemas define transformations is that one should consider general purpose transformation languages and APIs as alternatives when choosing a schema language... One of the key strengths of XML, sometimes called 'late binding,' is the decoupling of the writer and the reader of an XML document: this gives the reader the ability to have its own interpretation and understanding of the document. By being more prescriptive about the way to interpret a document, XML schema languages reduce the possibility of erroneous interpretation but also create the possibility of unexpectedly adding 'value' to the document by creating interpretations not apparent from an examination of the document itself. Furthermore, modeling an XML tree is very complex, and the schema languages often make a judgment on 'good' and 'bad' practices in order to limit their complexity and consequent validation processing times. Such limitations also reduce the set of possibilities offered to XML designers. Reducing the set of possibilities offered by a still relatively young technology, that is, premature optimization, is a risk, since these 'good' or 'bad' practices are still ill-defined and rapidly evolving. The many advantages of using and widely distributing XML schemas must be balanced against the risk of narrowing the flexibility and extensibility of XML.There are currently no perfect XML Schema languages. Fortunately, there are a number of good choices, each with strengths and weaknesses, and these choices can be combined. Your job may be as simple as picking the right combination for your application." For XML schema language description and references, see "XML Schemas."

• [December 13, 2001] "Driving XML Standards: Convergence and Interoperability." By Jackson He (Intel Corporation; Chair of the Business Internet Consortium XML Convergence WG). Presentation delivered at the "Electronic Business Interoperability Summit," December 6 - 7, 2001, Orlando, Florida, USA. 29 pages. This is one of eight presentations now available online. "Convergence Principles: (1) The lower the layer, the bigger the impact of deviation and duplication - converge from the bottom up; (2) Divide and conquer, each layer supports all those above it -- identify common functionalities converge layer by layer; (3) Not all layers are converge-able, however, broad agreement at lower layers allows effective diversity at the top layer; (4) If cannot converge, make them interoperable; (5) Continue looking for convergence opportunities, driving toward more converged horizontal standards, while allowing flexibilities to meet diverged business needs; (6) End-to-end solution is the key -- interoperability between multiple standards is needed. Convergence Strategies: (1) Be business requirement-driven, rather than technology driven [End-to-end customer requirements; Focus on what is good for customer, good for e-business, good for small and medium size businesses] (2) Coordination / Collaboration amongst standard bodies [ Division of labor based on a common framework / taxonomy definition, e.g., Interop Summit, Collaboration MOU; Building on-going coordination and collaboration mechanisms, e.g., Interop Summit, Common Taxonomy Registry, etc.; Build joint compliance programs to insure interoperability at all layers]." The document includes a useful final section with "Definition of Terms." See Alan Kotok's summit report (following bibliographic entry). On BIC, see "BIC Workgroup for XML-based eBusiness Standard Convergence." [cache]

• [December 13, 2001] "Interoperate or Evaporate." [Interoperability Summit Report.]" By Alan Kotok. From XML.com. December 12, 2001. ['The week before the XML 2001 conference, an Interoperability Summit took place, the first of a series of meetings to find common ground among XML and e-business standards groups. "The key message from this summit," writes Alan Kotok, "is that the groups received a strong urging from vendors to cooperate and interoperate, or risk losing their support."'] "The Interoperability Summit, held 6-7 December 2001 in Orlando, Florida, was billed as the first of a series of meetings to find common ground among XML and e-business standards groups. The group of 80 participants heard, and in no uncertain terms, that customers are quickly running out of patience and resources to support multiple standards organizations. The participants succeeded in bringing out many of the factors that generate and perpetuate the multiple and overlapping specifications, and agreed on the first steps to start bridging the gaps. But it also exposed fault lines that show the task will not be easy. The meeting was sponsored by five organizations: OASIS, The UN's trade facilitation agency, UN/CEFACT, Object Management Group (OMG), HR-XML, and Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)...From the outset the participants seemed ready for solutions to the problem of overlapping XML vocabularies and frameworks. The group consisted of representatives of industry organizations, solution providers, end-user companies, and government agencies from the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Most of whom spoke of the confusion and frustration in the marketplace caused by the proliferation of specifications developed for individual industries and business functions. Yet many of the participants also wore multiple hats, taking part in the very groups that generate the welter of specifications..." The conference included a brainstorming and facilitation exercise, led by Gary O'Neall of PlaceWare, to identify impediments to collaboration and to agree on steps for overcoming them. A brainstorming session designed to identify impediments to collaboration and to agree on steps for overcoming them generated a list of 42 items that the group boiled down to 13 factors, from which five emerged as the leading issues: (1) Roll your own: reluctance to give up turf, hidden agendas, and lack of trust among standards organizations; (2) Differing scopes and processes: incompatible operating processes, varying scopes of standards, different origins and missions of standards groups; (3) Lack of perspective: failure to see the need for multiple groups contributing to e-business standardization, tunnel vision/inability to see the big picture; (4) Lack of awareness of other groups: lack of knowledge of the existence of other groups, as well as their goals, missions, activities; lack of time and energy to keep up with standards world, lack of basic technical understanding; (5) Lack of common vocabularies: both industry and natural languages, as well as lack of international outlook." Other references: see (1) "Electronic Business Interoperability Summit," December 6 - 7, 2001, Orlando, Florida, USA; (2) the main web site and program, with at least eight (8) now-online presentations.

• [December 13, 2001] "XML and Modern CGI Applications." By Kip Hampton. From XML.com. December 12, 2001. ['Kip Hampton provides us with his monthly installment of XML and Perl, exploring a modern CGI module. Turning his attention to the CGI::XMLApplication Perl module, Kip shows how XML has taken Perl CGI applications one step further. Using examples of an XSLT gateway and a shopping code, Kip offers a practical and useful introduction to this module. CGI::XMLApplication uses XML and XSLT to separate logic and presentation cleanly.'] "Perl owes a fair amount of its widespread adoption to the Web. Early in the Web's history it was discovered that serving static HTML documents was simply not a very interactive environment, and, in fairly short order. the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) was introduced. Perl's raw power and forgiving nature made it a natural for this new environment, and it very quickly became the lingua franca of CGI scripting. CGI is not without its weaknesses, and despite well-funded campaigns from a number of software vendors, CGI is still widely used and shows no signs of going away anytime soon. This month we will be looking at a module that offers a new take on CGI coding, Christian Glahn's CGI::XMLApplication. Borrowing heavily from the Model-View-Controller pattern, CGI::XMLApplication provides a modular, XML-based alternative to traditional CGI scripting. The typical CGI::XMLApplication project consists of three parts: a small executable script that provides access to the application, a logic module that implements various handler methods that are called in response to the current state of the application, and one or more XSLT stylesheets that are used, based on application-state, to transform the data returned by the module into something a browser can display to its user... CGI::XMLApplication offers a clean, modular approach to CGI scripting that encourages a clear division between content and presentation, and that alone makes it worth a look. Perhaps more importantly, though, I found that it just got out of my way while handing enough of the low-level details to let me focus on the task at hand. And that's a sure sign of a good tool. Includes sample code. See: "XML and Perl."

• [December 12, 2001] "Clark Issues Challenges At XML 2001." By [Seybold Staff]. In Seybold Reports: The Bulletin. Seybold News and Views on Electronic Publishing Volume 7, Number 10 (December 12, 2001). "... [James] Clark laid down five challenges that the XML industry faces. First, he urged the community to continue to de