Moving forward here we need to plan out the work needed for CAM v2.0 and outline what that entails and rough schedule.
Level setting here - the original charter for the Content Assembly Mechanism (CAM) was obviously developing means to express information exchange structures assembled from component definitions.
In CAM v1 specification work we chose to focus on structure definition and content validation. There were a number of pragmatic reasons for that - and overall that approach was successful and has brought us to today.
Now for V2 providing the actual assembly mechanism and associated dictionary of core components is the focus.
Over the past few months we've made a start on drafting these underpinning specification pieces, describing the mechanisms, and building out working examples:
Also introducing these to others TCs including RegRep, SET, Emergency, EMIX and EML TCs to both test this out and make sure the approach and details align - for example RegRep slot storage mechanisms work with CAM dictionary XML and control file mechanisms. Externally we have also shown how the dictionary format aligns to the UN/CEFACT CCTS v3 work and their XML4CCTS schema.
Particularly important has been the work with
NIEM.gov and developing NIEM dictionaries, and the use by US government agencies of CAM for supporting the
NIEM.gov approach.
In the CAM v1.1 specification much of the dictionary work was left as non-normative extension guidelines. Now for CAM v2 we can formally specify the new dictionary mechanisms and associated XML.
The expectation is that over the next couple of months we can begin to develop the CAM v2 specification as a TC draft and then aim to move that to formal OASIS member specification during 2011 - bearing in mind also that we will need 5 OASIS member verifications.
Obviously we will need everyones support in making this happen. We have accomplished much over the past 4 years. The recent successes for CAM have vindicated the support that you all have given to our work here. Over 20,000 downloads from Sourceforge of our reference open source implementation, including production use by IBM for a major automotive industry application, and then use of CAM by the
NIEM.gov community.
Next we have delivering on the CAM v2 specification and having OASIS able to develop XML canonical dictionaries of components as part of the normal OASIS TC schema development process.
Thanks, DW