Cover Pages: SGML and XML News. Q3 July

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[September 30, 2000] Microsoft's September 2000 MSXML Beta Release. Microsoft has published an article in the MSDN Web Workshop which outlines new features in the September 2000 MSXML Beta Release. "The September 2000 Microsoft XML Parser (MSXML) Beta Release is an update to the July 2000 MSXML Beta Release. This latest release of MSXML [9/29/2000] represents a step beyond the July 2000 release, providing: (1) Server-safe HTTP access; (2) Complete implementation of XSLT/Xpath; (3) Changes to the SAX2 implementation, including new SAX2 helper classes; (4) A number of bug fixes and performance improvements; (5) Even higher conformance than the July release with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards and the Organization for the Advancement of Structural Information Standards (OASIS) Test Suite. [XSLT/XPath Support]: This release supports every existing XSLT/XPath feature included in the current standards. Most notably that means this release includes the following new XSLT and XPath features: (a) The <xsl:decimal-format> element, (b) The unparsed-entity-uri() and format-number() functions, (c) The namespace axis. [Server-Safe HTTP]: The September 2000 MSXML Beta Release provides server-safe ServerXMLHTTP implementation. This provides similar functionality to the XMLHTTP object, except in a server-safe way. To utilize server-safe HTTP, use the XMLDOMDocument2 setProperty method or SAXXMLReader setFeature method. Alternatively, you can use this new object on its own as a generic server-side HTTP access component. [SAX2 Implementation]: Also, in the September 2000 MSXML Beta Release, there are no longer two separate SAX readers for Microsoft C++ and Microsoft Visual Basic; the same coclass, SAXXMLReader, now implements both sets of interfaces. This means that Visual Basic programs should create SAXXMLReader, not a VBSAXXMLReader class. Another important [SAX2] change is that the parser passes strings to handlers by reference, not by name. This improves performance and avoids extra string copying. It also affects function headers in existing handler implementations. The September release also includes a helper implementation of the XML writer and SAX attributes. The XMLWriter coclass allows you to generate XML documents from a SAX events stream. The SAXAttributes coclass simplifies creation of an Attribute object, if you need one for SAX-based XML processing. [Namespace Support]: The IXMLDOMNode functions, selectNodes() and selectSingleNode(), can now use qualified names. The prefixes used for those names should be set by XMLDOMDocument2.setProperty("SelectionNamespaces", ...). The September release installs the MSXML 3.0 parser (msxml3.dll) in side-by-side mode, which means that installing MSXML 3.0 will not cause any previously installed version of MXSML to be replaced. Both the new parser and the old one will reside 'side-by-side' on your computer. However, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, Microsoft Windows NT, and Windows 2000 will continue to use only the older version of the parser until you use the xmlinst.exe installer tool to manually replace the older parser with the newer one. Previous versions of MSXML 3.0 automatically installed xmlinst.exe with the parser as part of the installation process. However, this September release provides the xmlinst.exe utility as a download instead." The September 2000 MSXML Beta Release and the September 2000 MSXML SDK Beta Release are now available for download. See "What's New in the September 2000 Microsoft XML Parser Beta Release."
[September 29, 2000] Web Services Description Language (WSDL). Ariba, IBM, and Microsoft have jointly issued a specification for a 'Web Services Description Language (WSDL)' which defines an XML grammar "for describing network services as collections of communication endpoints capable of exchanging messages." Authors include Erik Christensen (Microsoft), Francisco Curbera (IBM), Greg Meredith (Microsoft), and Sanjiva Weerawarana (IBM). This published WSDL specification "represents the current thinking with regard to descriptions of services within Ariba, IBM and Microsoft, and consolidates concepts found in NASSL, SCL, and SDL (earlier proposals)." Document abstract: "WSDL is an XML format for describing network services as a set of endpoints operating on messages containing either document-oriented or procedure-oriented information. The operations and messages are described abstractly, and then bound to a concrete network protocol and message format to define an endpoint. Related concrete endpoints are combined into abstract endpoints (services). WSDL is extensible to allow description of endpoints and their messages regardless of what message formats or network protocols are used to communicate, however, the only bindings described in this document describe how to use WSDL in conjunction with SOAP 1.1, HTTP GET/POST, and MIME. This version of the WSDL language is a first step that does not include a framework for describing the composition and orchestration of endpoints. A complete framework for describing such contracts will include means for composing services and means for expressing the behavior of services, i.e., the sequencing rules for sending and receiving messages. Composition of services must be type safe but also allow for reference passing with service references being exchanged and bound at runtime. The latter being key for negotiating contracts at runtime and capturing the behavior of referral and brokering services. The authors of the WSDL specification intend to publish revised versions of WSDL and/or additional documents in a timely fashion which will include a (1) framework for composing services and a (2) framework for describing the behavior of services." The WSDL specification is available for review on the IBM and Microsoft web sites. See also "Web Services Description Language (WSDL)."
[September 29, 2000] Harvesting RDF Statements from XLinks. A new W3C Note on XLink and RDF bears the title Harvesting RDF Statements from XLinks. Reference: W3C Note 29-September-2000, edited by Ron Daniel Jr. (Metacode Technologies Inc.). This Note is not a formal product of the W3C XML Linking Working Group, but "is made available by the W3C XML Linking Working Group for the consideration of the XLink and RDF communities in the hopes that it may prove useful." Abstract: "Both XLink and RDF provide a way of asserting relations between resources. RDF is primarily for describing resources and their relations, while XLink is primarily for specifying and traversing hyperlinks. However, the overlap between the two is sufficient that a mapping from XLink links to statements in an RDF model can be defined. Such a mapping allows XLink elements to be harvested as a source of RDF statements. XLink links (hereafter, 'links') thus provide an alternate syntax for RDF information that may be useful in some situations. This Note specifies such a mapping, so that links can be harvested and RDF statements generated. The purpose of this harvesting is to create RDF models that, in some sense, represent the intent of the XML document. The purpose is not to represent the XLink structure in enough detail that a set of links could be round-tripped through an RDF model." [Principles:] "Simple RDF statements are comprised of a subject, a predicate, and an object. The subject and predicate are identified by URI references, and the object may be a URI reference or a literal string. To map an XLink link into an RDF statement, we need to be able to determine the URI references of the subject and predicate. We must also be able to determine the object, be it a URI reference or a literal. The general principle behind the mapping specified here is that each arc in a link gives rise to one RDF statement. The starting resource of the arc is mapped to the subject of the RDF statement. The ending resource of the arc is mapped to the object of the RDF statement. The arc role is mapped to the predicate of the RDF statement. However, a number of corner cases arise, described in [Section] 3, 'Mapping Specification'. RDF statements are typically collected together into 'models.' The details of how models are structured are implementation dependent. This Note assumes that harvested statements are added to 'the current model,' which is the model being constructed when the statement was harvested. But this Note, like RDFSchema, does not specify exactly how models must be structured." See also (1) "XML Linking Language", (2) "Resource Description Framework (RDF)", and (3) "XML and 'The Semantic Web'."
[September 29, 2000] New Release of Redland - An RDF Application Framework. Dave Beckett (Institute for Learning and Research Technology, University of Bristol) announced the release of Redland version 0.9.4 with a new Perl interface and added support for Linux RPM binaries. Redland (An RDF Application Framework) "is a library that provides a high-level interface for RDF allowing the model to be stored, queried and manipulated. Redland implements each of the RDF model concepts in its own class so provides an object based API for them. Some of the classes providing the parsers, storage mechanisms and other elements are built as modules that can be added or removed as required. Redland provides: (1) A modular, object based library written in C; (2) C and Perl APIs for manipulating the RDF Model and parts -- Statements, Resources and Literals; (3) Parsers for importing the model from RDF/XML syntax [both parsers external at present]; (4) Storage for models in memory and on disk via Berkeley DB [SleepyCat]; (5) Query APIs for the model by Statement (triples) or by Nodes and Arcs; (6) Statement Streams for construction, parsing, de/serialisation of models." Beckett has created an eGroups list for the software at http://www.egroups.com/group/redland/ and invites interested parties to join the mailing list and development effort. At present Redland has no built in RDF/XML parser, so if you want to parse RDF/XML, you will have to download an external parser, either the W3C libwww C or the Java API RDF Parser (based on SiRPAC), as described in the installation document. A Python interface for Redland is now being designed, and work has begun on an internal RDF parser. The sources are available for download from main web site or from SourceForge. The code library is free software / open source software released under the LGPL or MPL licenses. See other references in "Resource Description Framework (RDF)."
[September 28, 2000] W3C Releases DOM Level 2 Specification as Proposed Recommendation. Members of the W3C have released an announcement for the promotion of DOM Level 2 specifications to PR (Proposed Recommendation) status. The announcement for DOM Level2 PR has three parts: (1) The DOM Level 2 Proposed Recommendation URIs; (2) A content summary of DOM Level 2; (3) Results of the DOM Level 2 Candidate Recommendation Phase. The DOM Level 2 specification has been published as six (6) separate modules: (1) Document Object Model Level 2 Core; (2) Document Object Model Level 2 Views; (3) Document Object Model Level 2 HTML; (4) Document Object Model Level 2 Style; (5) Document Object Model Level 2 Events; (6) Document Object Model Level 2 Traversal and Range. During the Candidate Recommendation phase, "implementations have been made of every part of the specification, but the interoperability between different implementations has not been as exhaustively tested. However, what interoperability testing has been done has yielded only positive results. A significant number of different implementations from different sources were involved. As other specifications depend on DOM Level 2 (SMIL, SVG, MathML), and as the experience to date has been successful, the Director has approved DOM Level 2 to be presented to the AC for consideration as a Recommendation." The Document Object Model (DOM) "is an application programming interface (API) for valid HTML and well-formed XML documents. It defines the logical structure of documents and the way a document is accessed and manipulated. In the DOM specification, the term 'document' is used in the broad sense -- increasingly, XML is being used as a way of representing many different kinds of information that may be stored in diverse systems, and much of this would traditionally be seen as data rather than as documents. Nevertheless, XML presents this data as documents, and the DOM may be used to manage this data. With the Document Object Model, programmers can build documents, navigate their structure, and add, modify, or delete elements and content. Anything found in an HTML or XML document can be accessed, changed, deleted, or added using the Document Object Model, with a few exceptions - in particular, the DOM interfaces for the XML internal and external subsets have not yet been specified. As a W3C specification, one important objective for the Document Object Model is to provide a standard programming interface that can be used in a wide variety of environments and applications. The DOM is designed to be used with any programming language. In order to provide a precise, language-independent specification of the DOM interfaces, we have chosen to define the specifications in Object Management Group (OMG) IDL, as defined in the CORBA 2.3.1 specification. In addition to the OMG IDL specification, we provide language bindings for Java and ECMAScript (an industry-standard scripting language based on JavaScript and JScript)." See further (1) W3C Document Object Model (DOM) page, (2) the DOM Activity, and (3) "W3C Document Object Model (DOM)." [W3C announcement]
[September 28, 2000] Revised W3C Note on Describing and Retrieving Photos Using RDF and HTTP. An updated version of the W3C Note Describing and Retrieving Photos Using RDF and HTTP has been posted. Reference: W3C Note, 28-September-2000; by Yves Lafon and Bert Bos (W3C). "This note describes a project for describing and retrieving (digitized) photos with (RDF) metadata. It describes the RDF schemas, a data-entry program for quickly entering metadata for large numbers of photos, a way to serve the photos and the metadata over HTTP, and some suggestions for search methods to retrieve photos based on their descriptions. The data-entry program has been implemented in Java, a specific Jigsaw frame has been done to retrieve the RDF from the image through HTTP. The RDF schema uses the Dublin Core schema as well as additional schemas for technical data. We already have a demo site, and, in a few weeks, we have sample source code available for download. The online demo: A sample server has been set up, and some pictures are available. Any request to text version of those pictures will give you the RDF description of the picture. I.e., an HTTP request for MIME type image/jpeg or image/* returns the photo, a request for text/rdf or text/* returns the metadata. Or you can just view the metadata by adding ';textFrdf' at the end of the pictures URI. Note that the index page has been created by a script using the RDF embedded in the pictures for the captions and alt text. The system can be useful for collections of holiday snapshots as well as for more ambitious photo collections. The Jigsaw extension and the JPEG related classes are a available in the Jigsaw 2.0.4 distribution, the metadata editor rdfpic is available from the Jigsaw demo site. Appendix A of the Note supplies three schemas (Dublin Core, technical and content) in the syntax proposed by the RDF schemas draft." See (1) "Resource Description Framework (RDF)" and compare (2) "DIG35: Metadata Standard for Digital Images."
[September 28, 2000] Java XP Package Updated. A communiqué from Tom Harding announces the release of a new version of an 'XP' Java package that implements Extensible Protocol. Extensible Protocol (XP) is "a bidirectional protocol on which XML documents are exchanged between two endpoints. It is similar to BXXP but simpler: the document length is not required, it doesn't define multiplexing, and it uses the XML document encoding instead of MIME. XP will work best for applications that use relatively long-lasting, contextual conversations. XP is extremely simple and lets you build outward from the wire, rather than inward from a complex software interface. XP's only dictate is that everything that crosses the wire is XML. There is no distinction of the representation of control information from that of data. The new version of the com.thinlink.xp package implements XP draft 00 using stream sockets and the Apache Crimson processor. You use an event-listener interface and the Document Object Model to build, send and receive XML documents. XP requires some subtle behavior from the underlying processor; namely, the ability to identify and parse multiple documents from the input stream. Apache Crimson was relatively easy to adapt to this task because it relies mostly on built-in Java I/O." Documentation for XP is available online, and the package may be downloaded.
[September 28, 2000] Web Resource Application Framework. Jonas Liljegren recently announced the first alpha release of (Perl) RDF::Service from the Wraf (SourceForge) project. Wraf (Web Resource Application Framework) implements a RDF API. The purpose is to enable the construction of applications that fully uses the RDF data model in order to realize the Semantic Web. (1) All data is described in RDF (2) The User Interface is defined in RDF. Data presentation will be dependent on the user profile, situation context, and just what information can be found from trusted sources. (3) All functions and program code are named, described and handled as RDF Literals. Running an application can result in method calls to services on other internet servers. New functions could by reference transparently be downladed and executed from trusted sources. The actual code is Perl but the system could be extended to recognize other languages. (4) The development of applications is done in the same system used to run the application. Wraf will be extended and developed from within iteself. Wraf uses interfaces to other sources in order to integrate all data in one enviroment, regardless of storage format. You can read and update information from configuration files, databases, XML files, LDAP, etc. The system will use intelligent caching and optimizations in order to gain in speed without sacrifice any flexibility. A persistant backend service deamon will take requests from clients in mod_perl. Other non-browser interfaces could also use the service. Wraf will be idealy suited for complex, interconnected systems there the addition of new data often breakes the previous format and the exceptions is the rule. It can be used for personalized content generation, topic communities, intranets and more." See: (1) "Resource Description Framework (RDF)" and (2) "XML and 'The Semantic Web'."
[September 27, 2000] Description Logics Markup Language (DLML). An XML language "Description Logic Markup Language (DLML)" is presented in the web site overview thus: "DLML is not a language but rather a system of DTDs that allows to encode many (if not all) description logics in the same framework. So far, it is restricted to TBox encoding. One important motivation to build DTDs for description languages is to be able to embed formal knowledge (in DL) in documents; see the pages of the ESCRIRE action for more information. Another motivation is to experiment with simple representation language transformations for which description logics are well-suited. The DLML structures can be used for storing and communicating terminologies to other systems. But they can also be transformed in the process. [See the XML document manipulations presented on the web site which are achieved easily with XML Stylesheet Language Tranformations (XSLT); 'moreover the transformations are described in a modular way which follows the modular description of the logics themselves.'] . . . The goal of DLML is to encode description logics expressions into XML. For instance, the sentence 'All CSmaster students are bachelor students whose advisor is computer scientist' is phrased in description logics by the expression: CSMasterStudents < (and Bachelor Student (all advisor ComputerScientist)). In this example, CSMasterStudent, Bachelor and Student are called concepts and advisor is called a role. The sentence above is a concept introduction for the concept CSMasterStudents. It is primitive because introduced by the < symbol. This means that if all the CSmaster students are bachelor students whose advisor is computer scientist, the reverse is not supposed to hold. The symbols and and all are called (concept) constructors and used for building complex concept descriptions. The DLML takes advantage of the modularity of description logics in which each operator and introducer can be described independently and a logic assemble these operators. The resources available here are: (1) The encoding of many operators, (2) The definition of logics, and (3) The illustration of many transformations, including some taking advantage of the semantics of the logic. Some current development work: (1) The full semantics description of the logics provided by DLML (this can be used, for instance, in order to check that a particular transformation is valid). (2) A stylesheet for transfoming a logic specification (by providuing its constructors and introducers) into complete DTD and DSD for that logic..." See the project web site for examples and other references. Generally on semantics in XML, see "XML and 'The Semantic Web'."
[September 27, 2000] ParlML Project Update. Peter Pappamikail (Head of Information Resources Management European Parliament) recently posted an announcement updating the EC's ParlML project and its funding. 'ParlML' is a proposed XML-based 'Common Vocabulary for Parliamentary Language'. In the original call for participation, a preliminary study was outlined "to be taken by the interested partners to explore the whole range of XML standards (XML schema, DOM, XML and RDF in particular) with a view to developing a formal language definition." The report reads: "As announced at the ECPRD's ITC working party seminar last week in Paris, I met last night with representatives of the Secretariat General of the European Commission and the IDA Programme (European Commission funded programme promoting the interchange of data between administrations). I am pleased to announce that there is now an agreement in principle to finance the ParlML project and - timing and procedures permitting - to do so over the 2000 and 2001 IDA programme budgets. The project would fund work carried out under contract: (1) to agree a project methodology and terms of reference; (2) to scope the project and assess the level of work under way in this specific field, in particular work that may be aimed at seeking approval for XML tagsets with national standards bodies; (3) to create two XML meta-vocabularies: ParlML, for the markup of parliamentary texts and work; and LexML, for the markup of legislative texts. together with an 'ontology' defining the relationship between semantic elements (entity/element relationships, processes, etc.) and recommendations regarding the standards to use [ISO Topic Maps, RDF, UML, etc.]; (4) agree approval and updating mechanisms for the vocabularies and ontology. It is suggested that a 'governing body' of some description should be established to guide and validate the contractor's work, and approve the standard. Advice on different possibilities and approaches will be sought over the coming weeks. My service (with as much help as I can muster) must now prepare terms of reference and technical requirements for approval by the IDA programme management board, by mid November at the latest. I will be examining in the coming days, together with the rest of Parliament's IT directorate, other EU institutions and bodies, and national parliaments, the best way of proceeding. Whatever approach is agreed, speed is now of the essence if we are to benefit from funding also under the 2000 budget. If your parliament is interested in: being part of the body that would be set up to approve the standard and guide the project work; taking responsibility for one or other aspect of the work; carrying out, directly or indirectly, some aspect of the work (thus freeing project funding for other areas); providing information, support, studies or other work already undertaken in the field of XML tagset definitions; being kept informed of progress in order to be able to use the ParlML/LexML tagsets once approved.... please reply to this message and give full contact details. Such a reply is 'non binding': our concern is to assess which IT services are interested in which aspects of the project. If you have other information, comments, warnings, criticisms, praise, plase feel free to reply also." See (1) "ParlML: A Common Vocabulary for Parliamentary Language" and (2) "Legal XML Working Group."
[September 27, 2000] Update for IBM's XML Parser for Java. IBM alphaWorks Labs recently announced that the XML Parser for Java Version 3.1.0 Release (XML4J-3_1_0) is now publicly available. "This release contains public and stable support of the DOM Level 1, and SAX Level 1 specifications. It also contains implementations of the DOM Level 2, SAX Level 2 implementations, and partial April 7 W3C Schema implementations but these are considered experimental, as the specifications themselves are still subject to change." XML Parser for Java "is a validating XML parser written in 100% pure Java. The package (com.ibm.xml.parser) contains classes and methods for parsing, generating, manipulating, and validating XML documents. XML Parser for Java is believed to be the most robust XML processor currently available and conforms most closely to the XML 1.0 Recommendation. IBM is major contributor to Apache's Xerces-J code base, which is the basis for XML4J version 3."
[September 25, 2000] Release of Unicorn XSLT Processor, Professional Edition. Alexey Gokhberg has announced the availability of Unicorn XSLT Processor, Professional Edition. "As all products of Unicorn XSLT Processor family, the Unicorn XSLT Processor Professional Edition is implemented in C++ and is fast, compact, easy to install and to use. The final W3C XSLT Recommendation is supported. The product design is focused on achieving the interoperability between XSLT and other information processing technologies, in order to dramatically extend the scope of applications which can be efficiently addressed using the XSLT approach. The powerful Unicorn ECMAScript Interpreter (UESI) engine is now an integral part of the product. It implements the vendor-independent object-oriented programming language ECMAScript, as well as the rich set of language extensions specially designed to facilitate XML data processing. The poineer object-based XSLT extension technology (http://www.unicorn-enterprises.com/xslobj.htm) is employed to support integration between XSLT and ECMAScript. The unique set of database access XSLT extensions (http://www.unicorn-enterprises.com/xslsql.htm) is supported as well. With these extensions, XSLT technology can be used to handle a wide range of XML transformation algorithms that involve data stored in the traditional relational databases. Several other facilities that extend XSLT are also available. Report generation extensions (http://www.unicorn-enterprises.com/xslrpt.htm) allow dynamic split/group processing. Text input extensions (http://www.unicorn-enterprises.com/xsltxt.htm) are designed to process source data represented in a text format. The Unicorn XSLT Processor software is free, and runs on Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 95. Note that Unicorn Formatting Objects (UFO) was also released recently. "UFO implements the substantial subset of the Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) Version 1.0 specification (W3C Working Draft 27-March-2000). This product is optimized for composition of business-style documents (e.g., catalogs, orders, invoices, banking statements, etc). The extensive support is provided for various features (for instance, collapsing border model in tables), which are not yet supported by few existing XSL implementations." The Unicorn XML Processor is also available: this is "a stand-alone ECMAScript interpreter that supports a rich set of built-in extension objects. These objects implement various XML-related features: (1) representation of XML documents using DOM (Document Object Model) (2) non-validating XML parser (3) XML writer supporting XML, HTML and text output methods." For related tools, see "XSL/XSLT Software Support."
[September 25, 2000] XML-DBMS for Perl Released. Ronald Bourret recently announced the release of XML-DBMS. "XML-DBMS (Perl) is a port of the Java version of XML-DBMS. XML-DBMS is middleware for transferring data between XML documents and relational databases. It views the XML document as a tree of data-specific objects in which element types are generally viewed as classes and attributes and PCDATA as properties of those classes. It then uses an object-relational mapping to map these objects to the database. An XML-based mapping language is used to define the view and map it to the database." XML-DBMS (Perl) has been developed by Nick Semenov and Ronald Bourret; it is issued under GPL license. For references on XML databases, see "XML and Databases."
[September 23, 2000] Petri Net Markup Language (PNML). A research team at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin has developed a proposal for an interchange format 'Petri Net Markup Language' in support of software tool interoperability. This research represents one part of a larger collaborative effort by scientists in several countries to create an XML-based standardized interchange format for Petri nets. Following a meeting in June 2000 ("Meeting on XML/SGML based Interchange Formats for Petri Nets" - 21st International Conference on Application and Theory of Petri Nets Aarhus, Denmark, June 26-30, 2000), a mailing list was formed to manage the discussion. Resulting from the ICATPN 2000 meeting, seven "position papers" (some with accompanying slides) and four "detailed proposals" for descriptive markup encoding are now available online. It is hoped that a standardization effort for XML notation will be approved by October 2000, and that a preliminary interchange format can be drafted by the end of 2000; the format should be compatible with ISO/IEC 15909. The Petri Net Markup Language (PNML) is "a preliminary proposal of an XML-based interchange format for Petri nets. Originally, the PNML was intended to serve as a file format for the Java version of the Petri Net Kernel. It turned out that currently several other groups are developing an XML-based interchange format too. So, the PNML is only one contribution to the ongoing discussion and to the standardization efforts of an XML-based format. The specific feature of the PNML is its openness: It distinguishes between general features of all types of Petri nets and specific features of a specific Petri net type. The specific features are defined in a separate Petri Net Type Definition (PNTD) for each Petri net type. In its current version, the PNML demonstrates that an XML-based interchange format can be defined in a generic way. What features are considered to be so general such that they must be included in the PNML, and what features are considered to be specific to a particular net type is subject to further discussion..." The project web site supplies description of PNML, an XML schema, several PNTD for different Petri net types, and some examples. See further description and references in "Petri Net Markup Language (PNML)." In this connection, note also the "Exchangeable Routing Language (XRL)", which uses XML-based Petri net representation for workflows. On XML and Petri Nets in general: "XML and Petri Nets."
[September 22, 2000] W3C XML Schema Working Group Releases Updated XML Schema Working Drafts. The W3C XML Schema Working Group has published an updated version of the XML Schema specification. The most important set of changes is found in the Part 1: Structures document. Editorial notes are provided in Henry Thompson's announcement 'New Pre-CR Public Working Drafts of XML Schema Released'. (1) XML Schema Part 1: Structures. Reference: W3C Working Draft 22-September-2000, edited by Henry S. Thompson (University of Edinburgh), David Beech (Oracle Corp.), Murray Maloney (for Commerce One), and Noah Mendelsohn (Lotus Development Corporation). "XML Schema: Structures specifies the XML Schema definition language, which offers facilities for describing the structure and constraining the contents of XML 1.0 documents. The schema language, which is itself represented in XML 1.0, provides a superset of the capabilities found in XML 1.0 document type definitions (DTDs). This specification depends on XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes. Status of Structures: "This working draft incorporates most Working Group decisions through 2000-09-19. It has been reviewed by the XML Schema Working Group, and the Working Group has agreed to its publication as a working draft, which includes our proposed resolution of most issues raised during Last Call. The Working Group intends to submit this specification for publication as a Candidate Recommendation very soon, but is issuing this interim public draft as it sets out a number of changes to the XML Representation of XML Schemas, and we wished to make these available as quickly as possible. Readers may find Description of changes (non-normative) in Appendix H helpful in identifying the major changes since the last Public Working Draft. Note that this revision incorporates several backwards-incompatible changes to the XML representation of schemas. Accordingly, the XML Schema namespace URI has changed to http://www.w3.org/2000/10/XMLSchema." Henry Thompson's note indicates that "the XML Schema WG will shortly release an XSLT stylesheet to forward-convert XML Schema documents which conformed to the older syntax to the new syntax." The non-normative 'Appendix H' in the Structures document supplies a "Description of changes" to the working draft since the previous public version of 07-April-2000. Some eighteen (18) changes are identified here. For example: [H1] "'Equivalence classes' have been renamed 'substitution groups', to reflect the fact that their semantics is not symmetrical; [H2] "The content model of the complexType element has been significantly changed, allowing for tighter content models and a better fit between the abstract component and its XML Representation"; [H3] "Empty content models are now signalled by an explicit empty content particle, mixed content by specifying the value true for the mixed attribute on complexType or complexContent; [H6] "A new form of schema composition operation, similar to that provided by include but allowing constrained redefinition of the included components has been added, using a redefine element"; [H8] "The defaulting for the minOccurs and maxOccurs attributes of element has been simplified: it is now 1 in both cases, with no interdependencies"; [H9] "The content model for the group element when it occurs at the top level has been tightened, to allow only a single all, choice, group, or sequence child"; [H13] "Abstract types in element declarations are now allowed." Etc. (2) XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes. Reference: W3C Working Draft 22-September-2000, edited by Paul V. Biron (Kaiser Permanente, for Health Level Seven) and Ashok Malhotra (IBM). "XML Schema: Datatypes is part 2 of a two-part draft of the specification for the XML Schema definition language. This document proposes facilities for defining datatypes to be used in XML Schemas as well as other XML specifications. The datatype language, which is itself represented in XML 1.0, provides a superset of the capabilities found in XML 1.0 document type definitions (DTDs) for specifying datatypes on elements and attributes." (3) XML Schema Part 0: Primer. Reference: W3C Working Draft, 22-September-2000, edited by David C. Fallside (IBM). XML Schema Part 0: Primer is a non-normative document intended to provide an easily readable description of the XML Schema facilities and is oriented towards quickly understanding how to create schemas using the XML Schema language. XML Schema Part 1: Structures and XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes provide the complete normative description of the XML Schema definition language, and the primer describes the language features through numerous examples which are complemented by extensive references to the normative texts." For XML Schema background and references, see: (1) the W3C XML Schema page; (2) mailing lists for comments on the W3C specifications and for public discussion; (3) XSV Validator for XML Schema; (4) comprehensive references in "XML Schemas."
[September 22, 2000] FRODO RDFSViz RDF Schema Visualization Tool. Michael Sintek announced the release of an RDF Schema visualization tool named 'FRODO RDFSViz'. The FRODO RDFSViz tool "provides a visualization service for ontologies represented in RDF Schema. It uses the Java RDF API implementation (from Sergey Melnik) and the Graphviz graph drawing program (from AT&T and Lucent Bell Labs). The tool creates simple class diagrams where classes become vertices and rdfs:subClassOf relations become edges. Optionally, properties with rdfs:Class-valued domains and ranges are also visualized as (labeled) edges. Future extensions are planned, e.g., to show properties with range rdfs:Literal or to support the strawman syntax. If you want to visualize general RDF models, you may use the RDF graph visualization tool Rudolf RDFViz (from Dan Brickley). The FRODO RDFSViz tool was implemented in the FRODO project (A Framework for Distributed Organizational Memories) at DFKI Kaiserslautern (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence)." An online demo (which uses a Java servlet) and the download distribution (binary and source, command line and servlet versions) are available via the project web site. Online examples of tool output include: (1) The newspaper ontology from the Protégé-2000 tool which has experimental support for editing RDF schemas and instance data; (2) Searchable Internet services example from the RDF Schema specification. The developers (Michael Sintek and Andreas Lauer) welcome user comments, bug reports, and ideas for improvements. On RDF, see "Resource Description Framework (RDF)."
[September 22, 2000] Global Uniform Interoperable Data Exchange (GUIDE Business Transaction Markup). GUIDE (Global Uniform Interoperable Data Exchange), recently announced by David RR Webber, is "an open interoperable XML markup specification for business information exchanges. The intention is to develop a vendor neutral, non-proprietary and open public set of XML markup methods within the context of ebXML, the XML/edi Group and the W3C XML syntax specifications work. Businesses and industries are adopting XML based information exchanges today and require a robust interoperable system for using XML syntax interoperably. Having DTD and Schema definitions is not enough by itself. Consistent software methods for the payload formats and the supporting repository definitions of the semantic rule definitions in those payloads and associated business processes are essential. GUIDE provides these mechanisms by leveraging simple XML syntax today, and also allowing the phased adoption of more advanced schema technologies as they mature in the future. GUIDE is specifically designed to be easy to understand, use and implement. GUIDE works with your existing XML parsers today so builds on your product base investment. The GUIDE specification has been formally submitted to the ebXML initiative and as such is open and public within the auspicies of ebXML. . . GUIDE is a XML format for describing business information interchanges between a set of endpoints exchanging transactions. GUIDE has a layered approach, so that each aspect of the GUIDE syntax is expressed as a separate markup layer. Separation into layers is a fundamental requirement in order to meet the ability to deploy the semantic web as opposed to the content-based web of today. The objective of GUIDE is to provide a simple open business interchange system for the consistent exchange of transactions." The current [2000-09-22] GUIDE draft specification "represents the blending of current practical work in a variety of areas with XML, including the latest W3C Schema and Datatyping drafts, MSL typing markup, SOAP based interchanges, ISO11179, tpaML and ebXML related work. It is not the intention that GUIDE replace all these other initiatives, but rather that GUIDE provide a consistent way to harmonize these more complex syntaxes into a format that ordinary businesses can use reliably and consistently for basic day-to-day information interchanges. This will also allow developers to create base implementations of XML parsers and tools that are simply GUIDE compatible, that can later be extended to also support more complex syntaxes as business needs dictate." The project is supported by a GUIDE implementors' mailing list; the technical specification is available in PDF and HTML formats, together with sample GUIDE Schema formats. See also: "Global Uniform Interoperable Data Exchange (GUIDE)."
[September 22, 2000] Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL 2.0) Specification in Last Call Review. As part of the W3C Synchronized Multimedia Activity, the W3C SYMM Working Group has published a last-call public working draft of the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL 2.0) Specification. Reference: W3C Working Draft 21-September-2000, edited by Jeff Ayars, Dick Bulterman, Aaron Cohen, et al. The last-call review period ends 20-October-2000, after which the Working Group 'intends to submit this specification for publication as a Candidate Recommendation.' The new WD updates Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) Boston Specification [W3C Working Draft 22-June-2000]; accordingly, 'SMIL-Boston' (code name) is now renamed SMIL20. The WD document "specifies the second version of the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL, pronounced 'smile'). SMIL 2.0 has the following two design goals: (1) Define an XML-based language that allows authors to write interactive multimedia presentations. Using SMIL 2.0, an author can describe the temporal behavior of a multimedia presentation, associate hyperlinks with media objects and describe the layout of the presentation on a screen. (2) Allow reusing of SMIL syntax and semantics in other XML-based languages, in particular those who need to represent timing and synchronization. For example, SMIL 2.0 components are used for integrating timing into XHTML and into SVG. SMIL 2.0 is defined as a set of markup modules, which define the semantics and an XML syntax for certain areas of SMIL functionality. Appendix A of the working draft contains the SMIL 2.0 XML DTDs [cache]. See also the SMIL mailing list archives and the public working draft of HTML+SMIL Language Profile (modules supporting animation, content control, linking, media objects, timing an synchronization, and transition effects; not currently ready for last-call review). In order to help evaluate the SMIL 2.0 Last Call specification, Oratrix is making versions of its GRiNS for SMIL-2.0 player available for general testing and evaluation. For earlier references, see: "Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL)."
[September 21, 2000] Jabber XML Protocol Gains Popularity. A recent announcement from Jabber.org notes that the Jabber extensible instant messaging platform has "surpassed 10,000 server downloads with more than 1,000 of these servers now actively deployed on the Internet, marking a 100-percent increase in the number of downloaded servers in the last two months and an increase of more than ten times the number of servers in active deployment in the same period." Jabber, specified in the Jabber XML Protocol, is characterized as an "open source, XML-based instant messaging platform. . . key features of Jabber include: Distributed Server Architecture; ISP-level service, similar to most other Internet services; XML based messaging transport protocol; Simplistic in function, allowing simple and pervasive clients; Embeddable and Extensible in every way' Back-end compatibility with all other IM systems -- you can communicate with AIM and ICQ users, as well as users of future IM systems." The IETF Internet Draft specification formalizes the Jabber data types in a Jabber Protocol DTD and an XML Streams DTD. Description: "At the core, Jabber is an API to provide instant messaging and presence functionality independent of data exchanged between entities. The primary use of Jabber is to give existing applications instant connectivity through messaging and presence features, contact list capabilities, and back-end services that transparently enrich the available functionality. Essentially, Jabber defines an abstraction layer utilizing XML to encode the common essential data types. This abstraction layer is managed by an intelligent server which routes data between the client APIs and the backend services that translate data from remote networks or protocols. By using this compatible abstraction layer, Jabber can provide many aspects of an Instant Messaging (IM) and/or Presence service in a simplified and uniform way. XML is used in Jabber to define the common basic data types: message and presence. Essentially, XML is the core enabling technology within the abstraction layer, providing a common language with which everything can communicate. XML allows for painless growth and expansion of the basic data types and almost infinite customization and extensibility anywhere within the data. Many solutions already exist for handling and parsing XML, and the XML Industry has invested significant time in understanding the technology and ensuring full internationalization. XML Namespaces are used within all Jabber XML to create strict boundaries of data ownership. The basic function of namespaces is to separate different vocabularies of XML elements that are structurally mixed together. By ensuring that Jabber's XML is namespace-aware, it allows any XML defined by anyone to be structurally mixed with any data element within the protocol. This feature is relied upon frequently within the protocol to separate the XML that is processed by different components." See other references in "Jabber XML Protocol."
[September 21, 2000] Extracting and Reifying RDF Statements from XML. Jonathan Borden (of The Open Healthcare Group) posted an announcement for an XSLT-based RDF extractor for XML. "In my investigations of simplfied XML syntax for RDF, and extracting RDF from arbitrary or colloqial XML, I have now come to the conclusion that the essence of TimBL's strawman, in which rdf:parseTyle='Resource' is the default, provides the best option for extracting RDF statements from XML. I have incorporated Jason Diamond's rdf.xsl into a new implementation of an XSLT based RDF extractor for XML. This extractor outputs rdf:Statements. Interestingly, when the result of a transform is itself transformed, the statements are reified, hence I call this rdfExtractify.xsl. A brief list of its features: (1) It implements XLink2RDF, now for extended XLinks as well; (2) It extracts RDF statements from plain 'ole XML; (3) It extracts RDF statements from RDF with defaultParseType='Resource' -- this is a param; (4) It handles collections, aboutEach and bagID; the syntax for collections is loosened so that any child element can be a member (need not only be <rdf:li>) (5) It implements QNameToURI -- see http://www.openhealth.org/RDF/QNameToURI.htm -- which converts namespace qualified names to URIs; (6) It implements nodeIdentifier which produces an XPointer fragment identifier e.g., #xpointer(/foo[1]) or ChildSeq identifier e.g., #/1/2 (see the XPointer spec), the type of XPointer produced is set in the explicitPathIndices = 'ChildSeq' (default) param. See now the updated: Extracting and reifying RDF from XML with the sources and online forms-based 'extractifier'. On RDF, see "Resource Description Framework (RDF)."
[September 21, 2000] First MathML Conference at UIUC: 'MathML and Math on the Web'. Apropos of XML and mathematics: an announcement "Wolfram Research To Host First MathML Conference" says in part: "Wolfram Research, Inc. is the host of the first MathML and Math on the Web conference, to be held October 20-21, 2000, on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This conference brings together those interested or involved in the future of math on the web. The conference is sponsored by Wolfram Research, the AMS (American Mathematical Society), Compaq, IBM, Netscape, the University of Illinois Grainger Engineering Library, Waterloo Maple, and the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). This conference provides a forum for presenting and discussing current research and applications involving MathML, an XML application for describing mathematical notation and capturing both its structure and its content. MathML is the W3C-endorsed standard for displaying math on the web. The conference embraces all areas of MathML technologies, including rendering, authoring, converting, and archiving. Scheduled events include an opening video address by Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web and director of the W3C, as well as keynote addresses by Robert Sutor, IBM Program Director for XML Technology ["XML: From Math to SOAP"], and Stephen Wolfram, founder of Wolfram Research and creator of Mathematica ["Mathematical Notation: Past and Future"]. More information about the conference, including the schedule of events and presentation abstracts, is available on the MathML conference web site at http://www.mathmlconference.org." See also the W3C MathML web site and "Mathematical Markup Language (MathML)."
[September 21, 2000] IPTC Releases NITF Version 2.5 for XML-Based News. A recent announcement from the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) describes the availability of the Version 2.5 release of the NITF XML DTD. "NITF is an XML-based DTD designed for the markup and delivery of news content in a variety of ways, including print, wireless devices and the Web. It was developed by the International Press Telecommunications Council, an international consortium of news providers, and the Newspaper Association of America, Reston, Va. The standards groups first released NITF in spring 1999, and an NITF Maintenance Committee has made a number of improvements since then. Both the NITF and the NewsML wrapper can be stand alone but may also be used in a complimentary manner as NITF objects can be moved within and managed by NewsML in a multimedia environment. NewsML Version final is expected to be released next month. 'This Version 2.5 of NITF incorporates several changes sought by news organizations that have been putting the standard to work,' said Tony Rentschler, senior software engineer at Associated Press in New York, and chairman of the Maintenance Committee. 'It's a cleaner, more workable DTD both for news providers and their customers.' Among the changes in version 2.5: (1) Clarification of language and time elements (2) Deprecation or removal of several unneeded HTML elements (3) Addition of an alternate code element (<alt-code>), for reference to an internal or external controlled vocabulary as a way of identifying a company, organization or person, among other things. Alan Karben, vice president of product development at ScreamingMedia Inc. in New York, is editor of the DTD and maintains a list of suggested changes from those who are implementing NITF. The new NITF website contains extensive material on the revised DTD, including a tutorial, dynamic documentation, links to discussion forums and of course the DTD itself (with or without documentation). Also posted is a link to the IPTC Subject Reference System for identifying the content of news material in any media." See other description and references in "News Industry Text Format (NITF)."
[September 21, 2000] W3C Sponsors XML-Encryption Workshop. Joseph Reagle Jr. (W3C Policy Analyst, IETF/W3C XML-Signature Co-Chair) issued an announcement for a W3C XML-Encryption Workshop. The workshop is hosted by XCert and will be held Thursday, November 2, 2000 in Lafayette/San Francisco, CA. Workshop participants need not belong to W3C member organizations. Rationale: "If XML is to become the language of trusted Web applications (e.g., electronic commerce) it needs standard mechanisms for digitally signing and encrypting XML entities. Furthermore, this mechanism must be fully functional in environments where only XML tools are available. While the joint IETF-W3C Working Group is completing a XML Digital Signatures specification, its charter expressly precludes work on encryption. Consequently, this Workshop will focus on (1) the requirements for XML encryption, (2) the proposals being discussed on the public XML Encryption list as potential starting points for a specification and (3) the structure of a possible W3C activity to advance such a specification to Recommendation." Topics appropriate for the workshop include: "(1) Scope of encryption: should the scope apply to elements only, or any Information Set Item? How should the scope of encryption be described/identified: should the data model be based on on a simple ad-hoc representation or the complete Information Set? (2) Should the data model be represented via URIs or an XML instance using RDF Schema or XSet? (3) KeyInfo: Given that encryption keys might encrypt content or other keys, in what way must the Signature KeyInfo be extended to handle the common Encryption applications? (4) Digital Signature 'awareness' and syntax alignment: to what degree can XML-Encryption use use similar syntax and algorithm identifiers? (5) Schema design: how will encryption portions of an XML instances affect that instances XML schema validity? (6) Algorithm, modes, and formats: which algorithms and formats MUST be supported? (7) Parser impact: will parser have to either post-process or be 'callback equipped' to avoid re-parsing of an entire document after a portion has been decrypted? (8) What rat holes can be identified as out of scope?..." See further the draft agenda and "XML and Encryption."
[September 21, 2000] Energy Trading Standards Group (ETSG). Caminus Corporation and HoustonStreet Exchange have led a group of energy exchanges and trading partners in the formation of a new consortium, the Energy Trading Standards Group (ETSG). According to a recent announcement: "The energy trading industry's leading exchanges and technology companies have announced the formation of the Energy Trading Standards Group (ETSG), an open consortium that will develop standards to automate the sale of wholesale energy and improve information sharing between energy trading companies. Consortium members to date include ABB Energy Information Systems, Automated Power Exchange (APX), Caminus Corporation, HoustonStreet Exchange, Open Link Energy, RedMeteor.com, Inc., Triple Point Technology Inc., GFInet, and Sapient. The consortium, initiated by Caminus and HoustonStreet, is open to all interested industry participants. ETSG will develop open standards based upon XML (Extensible Markup Language) technology, the lingua franca of business-to-business Internet commerce. The companies will initially create standards for exchanging data between online trading platforms and transaction/risk management systems used by wholesale electricity and natural gas trading companies. 'XML is rapidly becoming the key data interchange standard for time-critical, high-volume information sharing on the Web, and is a step towards improving operational efficiency in trading systems,' said Amin Rawji, vice president, TransCanada Energy, a company active in the energy markets. 'The ETSG consortium is to be commended for taking the initiative in effectively administering the XML standard for Internet-based B-to-B transactions and applications interoperability in the energy trading industry.' The ETSG consortium will streamline the deal capture process by creating open standards to automate the internal data exchange between frontline traders and their company's mid- and back-office transaction management systems. This automation will save energy trading companies time and expense by eliminating the errors associated with trade ticket generation and data entry, providing real-time access to trade data and eliminating the cost of building and managing proprietary systems and connectors. The consortium intends to develop standards to improve the often-fragmented external exchange of transaction and related data among energy trading partners. Open information exchange standards will allow wholesale energy buyers and sellers to benefit from nearly instantaneous electronic trade confirmations and 'down-stream' scheduling. The ETSG consortium will freely publish the standards so that energy companies can apply them to their own business processes. The consortium will develop XML-enabled connectors to allow energy trading companies to easily integrate their systems with service providers adopting these standards..." See also "Energy Trading Standards Group (ETSG)."
[September 21, 2000] W3C/IETF Working Draft for XML-Signature Syntax and Processing. A last-call working draft for XML-Signature Syntax and Processing has been issued by the joint W3C/IETF XML Signature Working Group. Reference: W3C Working Draft 18-September-2000, edited by Donald Eastlake, Joseph Reagle, and David Solo. Also published as 'draft-ietf-xmldsig-core-09.txt'. This second last call WD ends on November 5, 2000; "barring substantive comment, the WG will request Candidate recommendation status as soon as possible, following the Canonical XML request." The WD document "specifies XML digital signature processing rules and syntax. XML Signatures provide integrity, message authentication, and/or signer authentication services for data of any type, whether located within the XML that includes the signature or elsewhere. . . XML Signatures can be applied to any digital content (data object), including XML. An XML Signature may be applied to the content of one or more resources. Enveloped or enveloping signatures are over data within the same XML document as the signature; detached signatures are over data external to the signature element. More specifically, this specification defines an XML signature element type and an XML signature application; conformance requirements for each are specified by way of schema definitions and prose respectively. This specification also includes other useful types that identify methods for referencing collections of resources, algorithms, and keying and management information. The XML Signature is a method of associating a key with referenced data (octets); it does not normatively specify how keys are associated with persons or institutions, nor the meaning of the data being referenced and signed. Consequently, while this specification is an important component of secure XML applications, it itself is not sufficient to address all application security/trust concerns, particularly with respect to using signed XML (or other data formats) as a basis of human-to-human communication and agreement. Such an application must specify additional key, algorithm, processing and rendering requirements." Formal models are provided by the XML schema and XML DTD; see also RDF Data Model. See further information in (1) the IETF/W3C XML Digital Signature Working Group mailing list archives and (2) in "XML Digital Signature (Signed XML - IETF/W3C)."
[September 20, 2000] Object Management Group Publishes CORBA/SOAP Interworking Request For Proposal. An announcement from the Object Management Group summarizes a recent OMG Technical Meeting in which the Platform Technology Committee (PTC) "initiated work on a standard that will integrate the new protocol SOAP with OMG's CORBA architecture. SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) transmits business data expressed in the Extensible Markup Language (XML) over the widely-used web protocol HTTP. In order to take full advantage of this new protocol, enterprises need to integrate it with their existing computing infrastructure. When complete less than a year from now, the new standard will enable this integration by allowing SOAP clients to invoke CORBA servers, and CORBA clients and servers to interoperate using SOAP. Also in the infrastructure arena, the PTC initiated efforts to standardize methods to transmit CORBA network packets through firewalls, and to adapt Real-Time Object Request Brokers to emit alternative protocols needed for, e.g., telecommunications or other Real-Time applications. The PTC also initiated efforts to standardize a mapping from OMG IDL (Interface Definition Language) to WMLscript, a scripting language based on the Wireless Markup Language, and to standardize an activation framework for persistent CORBA servers." The new RFP is published as CORBA/SOAP Interworking Request For Proposal. Reference: OMG Document 'orbos/00-09-07'; submissions due February 5, 2001. "The RFP solicits proposals for (1) support of CORBA semantics over SOAP (2) enabling native SOAP clients to access CORBA services." Description and scope: "CORBA is a widely deployed distributed systems infrastructure that is currently used as an enabling technology for web integration (intranet, internet, and extranet). SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is an evolving specification being developed under the auspices of the W3C. It is anticipated that SOAP will be widely deployed in the future for use in B2B interactions. It is important that there be a seamless integration between the CORBA and SOAP infrastructures which would enable CORBA invocations to be carried using SOAP. The scope of proposals shall be limited to defining a protocol (marshaling format and message exchange state machine) and the limited object model mappings implicit in the mandatory requirements. Mappings between object models, the definition of a 'service description language', and mappings between SOAP infrastructure services and CORBA services, such as Naming, are out of scope of this RFP. Proposals are expected to track and take into account ongoing work within the W3C, e.g., the proposed XML-PC Working Group. [Specifically:] proposals shall: (a) support the full set of IDL types defined in CORBA 2.4; (b) support the semantics of CORBA invocations, including service contexts; (c) use the SOAP extensibility framework (without changing the SOAP protocol) and track ongoing W3C work; (d) define an IOR profile for SOAP; (e) provide an interoperability solution that permits native SOAP clients to make invocations that are processed by CORBA servers; that is, present a SOAP view, (as defined in CORBA 2.4 section 17.2.3) of a CORBA service to a CORBA unaware SOAP client..." See also in connection with this new RFP: (1) the paper Proposed CORBA SOAP RFP, by Jeff Mischkinsky (Persistence Software), and (2) A Discussion Paper: Simple CORBA Object Access Protocol (SCOAP) (with slides). By BEA Systems, Inc., Financial Toolsmiths AB, Hewlett Packard Company, International Business Machines Corporation, Iona Technologies, Inc., Object Oriented Concepts, Inc., Persistence Software, Inc., Rogue Wave Software, Inc., and Sun Microsystems, Inc. Reference: OMG TC Document 'orbos/00-09-03'. 78 pages. Chapter 3, 'IDL-to-XMLSchema Mapping' describes the XML Schema that is used to describe IDL types; Chapter 8, 'Mapping XML Schema Types to IDL' describes how to.map certain XML Schema datatypes to IDL. "This work was undertaken as a 'proof of concept' (to ourselves and others) that there exists at least one reasonable and viable way to integrate CORBA and SOAP. In addition, its purpose is to spark discussions and debate about this and other approaches to the problem space..." For related resources, see "XML and CORBA" and "Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)."
[September 20, 2000] Java Interface for RDF Database 'rdfDB'. Eric van der Vlist (Dyomedea) recently announced the availability of a Java interface for rdfDB (a RDF open source database) which can be used within an XT/XSLT transformation. The Java interface, as described on the 4xt.org web site, allows one to "get the results back in plain Java and/or from a a XT/XSLT transformation. RdfDB is a simple, scalable, open-source database for RDF developed by R.V. Guha. rdfDB uses a high level SQLish query language. The data is modelled as a directed labelled graph (RDF), where nodes in graph can be resources, integers, or strings. The new Java interface allows querying the database using its query language and to get the results back row by row and column by column in plain Java and/or as a result tree fragment in a XT/XSLT transformation. It is currently used on the web site XMLfr, where a full site summary has been loaded into rdfDB as three RSS 1.0 channels using the DC and taxonomy modules. . . One of the examples provided in the download section (2rss) shows how specific RSS channels for a topic can easily be generated using the interface, allowing to close the loop: the rdfDB fed by RSS channels can generate RSS channels." See "Resource Description Framework (RDF)."
[September 19, 2000] ComDais.com Announces cdXML Standard and cdXML.org for B2B Applications. A recent announcement from ComDais.com (ComDais) describes the formation of cdXML.org as an independent users group to govern the future direction of a proposed 'cdXML' standard specifying an API for building advanced market place applications. According to the announcement: "cdXML allows software developers to interact with a single interface for both buy-side and sell-side functionality across multiple commerce platforms, rather than using a blend of standards and various proprietary interfaces used today to gain the full set of operations required to build today's advanced B2B market places. cdXML is an API industry standard, like cXML but is focused on the buyer/market maker side. cdXML combined with cXML gives the market place application developer a comprehensive independent API set on which to base their projects. This enables market makers to avoid costly and time consuming reengineering with each upgrade of their platform. cXML is the basis for supplier interfaces to the Ariba Supplier network. cdXML extends the ease of XML based standards to market place platforms. The combination of these specifications provides the full spectrum of functionality required by market place administrators and application developers. ComDais provides a complete portable implementation of both these standards. The product is called e.InterfaceNow. e.InterfaceNow supports the full cXML 1.1 and cdXML 1.0 specifications and is available today for the Ariba Marketplace platform. e.InterfaceNow provides both the buyer and supplier functionality that allows software development teams to access the full power of the underlying platforms. This includes: User session management Enhanced product search Punchout and Punchin capability User administration and workflow Requisition management Product and catalog management Purchase order management Shipping and product delivery management. ComDais is making this standard available for free to the industry, like Ariba has done with cXML. Jess Jessop (ComDais.com CEO and CTO) said: 'We are building high-end production market place applications, right now; today and could not wait for a stable XML based API which would eliminate the necessity for our partners to constantly rework their applications with every update to the platform. So we created the cdXML specification and implemented it and cXML over Ariba's Marketplace platform, addressing the real-life needs for developers who have to get market places up and running today'." For other details, see (1) the draft XML DTDs and (2) the text of the announcement, "ComDais.com Gives cdXML to The Industry. cdXML a Complete Buyer / Market Maker XML API for Building Advanced Market Place Applications."
[September 16, 2000] Ontology Interchange Language (OIL). OIL (Ontology Interchange Language) proposes a "a joint standard for integrating ontologies with exisiting and arising web standards. OIL is a Web-based representation and inference layer for ontologies, which combines the widely used modelling primitives from frame-based languages with the formal semantics and reasoning services provided by description logics. Furthermore, OIL is the first ontology representation language that is properly grounded in W3C standards such as RDF/RDF-Schema and XML/XML-Schema. OIL is based on existing proposals such as OKBC, XOL and RDF and enrich them with necessary features for expressing rich ontologies. XML can be used as a serial syntax for OIL. Such a syntax is very useful because it puts OIL in the mainstream of tools that are currently being developed for supporting XML-based documents. Validation and rendering techniques developed for XML can directly be used for ontologies specified in OIL. Therefore, the appendix of this paper provides the definition of a DTD that defines constraints on valid documents in OIL. . . The relationship between OIL and RDF/RDFS is much closer than that between OIL and XML Schemas. This is not surprising, since XML-schema was meant to generalize the way of defining the structure of valid XML-documents and RDF/RDFS was meant to capture meaning in the manner of semantic nets. In the same way as RDF-Schema is used to define itself it can also be used to define other ontology languages. We have therefore defined a syntax for OIL by giving an RDF-schema for the core of OIL, and proposing related RDF-schemas that could complement this core by covering further aspects. To ensure maximal compatibility with existing RDF/RDFS-applications and vocabularies, the integration of OIL with the resources defined in RDF-schema has been a main focus in designing the RDF-model for OIL." As described in the white paper: "OIL unifies three important aspects: Formal semantics and efficient reasoning support as provided by Description Logics, epistemological rich modeling primitives as provided by Frame languages, and a standard proposal for syntactical exchange notations as provided by the Web community. (1) Description Logics describe knowledge in terms of concepts and role restrictions that are used to automatically derive classification taxonomies. They provide theories and systems for expressing structured knowledge, for accessing it and reason-ing with it in a principled way. (2) Frame-based systems provide as central modeling primitive classes (i.e., frames) with certain properties called attributes. These attributes do not have a global scope but are only applicable to the classes they are defined for. A frame provides a certain context for modeling one aspect of a domain. (3) Web standards: XML and RDF. Given the current dominance and importance of the WWW, a syntax of an ontology language must be formulated using existing web standards for information representation. The XML schema syntax of OIL was mainly defined as an extension of XOL. OIL is also defined on top of the Resource Description Framework RDF and RDF schema." OIL's machine readable syntax is defined as an XML DTD, an XML Schema definition, and an RDF Schema definition. The formal definition of this human-readable syntax can be found at http://www.ontoknowledge.org/oil/syntax. The development of OIL is governed by a Steering Commitee and an Advisory Board; the project is sponsored by the European Community via the IST projects Ibrow and On-to-knowledge. For related work on ontologies and semantic models for the 'Semantic Web', see (1) SemanticWeb.org - 'Towards a Web Of Meaning...', maintained by Stefan Decker (Stanford University). SemanticWeb.org is operated by three research groups: The Onto-Agents and Scalable Knowledge Composition (SKC) Research Group at Stanford University, The Ontobroker-Group at the University of Karlsruhe, and The Protégé Research Group at Stanford University. (2) the list of 'semantic web' initiatives referenced on the OIL web site. For other OIL description and references, see (1) the project web site and (2) "Ontology Interchange Language (OIL)." Generally: see "XML and 'The Semantic Web'."
[September 16, 2000] Schematron Open Source Project on SourceForge. Rick Jelliffe (Academia Sinica Computing Center, Taipei) recently announced the creation of a open source Schematron project on the SourceForge website. SourceForge is 'a free service to Open Source developers offering easy access to the best in CVS, mailing lists, bug tracking, message boards/forums, task management, site hosting, permanent file archival, full backups, and total web-based administration.' Rick writes: "I am happy to announce the start of a project on the Source Forge website for Schematron. The two main facilities we are making use of are: (1) a mail list for anyone interested in Schematron, alternative schema languages and automated, external inference of assertions about structured data; I don't think it will be a high volume site, but I hope it will be interesting; (2) a central public site for adding implementations and schemas. To register for the mail-list, go to webpage http://lists.sourceforge.com/mailman/listinfo/schematron-love-in; to see the project (which will be loaded over the next few weeks), go to the project page." The Schematron is 'An XML Structure Validation Language using Patterns in Trees'. It is an assertion language for XML based on matching combinations of XPath expressions. It can be used both as a schema language and for automatically generating external markup (such as RDF, XLinks and Topic Maps) to annotate XML documents. "The Schematron differs in basic concept from other schema languages in that it not based on grammars but on finding tree patterns in the parsed document. This approach allows many kinds of structures to be represented which are inconvenient and difficult in grammar-based schema languages. If you know XPath or the XSLT expression language, you can start to use The Schematron immediately. The Schematron can be useful in conjunction with many grammar-based structure-validation languages: DTDs, XML Schemas, DCD, SOX, XDR. The Schematron allows you to develop and mix two kinds of schemas: (1) Report elements allow you to diagnose which variant of a language you are dealing with. Many languages have these kind of variants: HTML 2, 3.2., Strict HTML 4, Transitional HTML 4, Frameset HTML 4, ISO HTML, etc. (2) Assert elements allow you to confirm that the document conforms to a particular schema. The Schematron is based on a simple action: First, find a context nodes in the document (typically an element) based on XPath path criteria; Then, check to see if some other XPath expressions are true, for each of those nodes." For an overview of the Schematron, see (1) "Introducing the Schematron. A fresh approach to XML validation and reporting," by Uche Ogbuji and (2) the Zvon Schematron tutorial by Nic Miloslav. For XML schemas in general, see "XML Schemas."
[September 16, 2000] Outline Processor Markup Language (OPML). Dave Winer (UserLand Software) posted an announcement for a new XML-based format "Outline Processor Markup Language", or OPML, 1.0. "The purpose of this OPML format is to provide a way to exchange information between outliners and Internet services that can be browsed or controlled through an outliner. An 'outline' [in this case] is a tree, where each node contains a set of named attributes with string values. The OPML design goal is to have a transparently simple, self-documenting, extensible and human readable format that's capable of representing a wide variety of data that's easily browsed and edited. As the format evolves this goal will be preserved. It should be possible for a reasonably technical person to fully understand the format with a quick read of a single Web page. OPML 1.0 is the native file format of Radio UserLand, a product in development at UserLand. The specification may be tweaked in response to comments or questions." Background and rationale: "Outlines have been a popular way to organize information on computers for a long time. While the history of outlining software is unclear, a rough timeline is possible. Probably the first outliner was developed by Doug Engelbart, as part of the Augment system in the 1960s. Living Videotext, 1981-87, developed several popular outliners for personal computers. They are archived on a UserLand website, outliners.com. Frontier, first shipped in 1992, is built around outlining. The text, menu and script editors in Frontier are outliners, as is the object database browser. XML 1.0, the format that OPML is based on, is a recommendation of the W3C. Radio UserLand, first shipped in 2000, is an outliner whose native file format is OPML. Outlines can be used for specifications, legal briefs, product plans, presentations, screenplays, directories, diaries, discussion groups, chat systems and stories. Outliners are programs that allow you to read, edit and reorganize outlines. [Online] examples of OPML documents: play list, specification, presentation." See: "Outline Processor Markup Language (OPML)."
[September 15, 2000] dbXML Source Code Release for Open Source Native XML Database Application Server. Kimbro Staken (Chief Technology Officer, dbXML Group L.L.C) recently posted an announcement for the dbXML Group's version 0.2 release of the dbXML Core Edition. "dbXML is the industry's first Open Source Native XML Database Application Server. It has been designed from the ground up as a complete solution to enterprise-wide XML integration and application provisioning. The dbXML Core Edition is a data management system designed specifically for collections of XML documents. It is easily embedded into existing applications, highly configurable, and openly extensible. Between Versions 0.1 and 0.2, we have completely rewritten dbXML in Java. Because of the rewrite, we essentially started over from scratch about a month and a half ago. We've made incredible progress in that short amount of time, but there's still a bit left to do. Don't be fooled though, there's more than enough to digest, and the product is in a sufficient state that real-world applications can be developed with it. I didn't say production applications, just real-world. Production quality will come later. There are a few major system modules that need to be written. These include a simple Query Mechanism for XPath expressions, a Query Engine that understands an industry-standard DDL and DML (which has yet to be identified), an Access Control system, and the dbXML Traversable, Compressed DOM. So, as you can see, there's a bit left to do, but in the past 1.5 months, the four of us have performed a minor miracle in getting dbXML into the shape that it's in. The dbXML Core Edition is being released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). If you'd like to download the source code, you are welcome to visit the Core project's web page. If you'd like to contribute to the project, we invite you to visit our SourceForge project page at http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/dbxml-core. . . The dbXML Group focuses on next-generation web application development tools and services specifically in the realm of XML-related technologies. The dbXML Group started operating in August of 1999 in order to produce an enterprise-scale XML Database Application Server."
[September 15, 2000] Preliminary Technical Release of XLink Generator 'xlinkit.com' ['consistencycheck.com']. A communiqué from Anthony Finkelstein (University College London, Department of Computer Science) describes the "preliminary technical release" of an XLink generator which the developers characterize as "a completely new class of internet technology." The tool 'xlinkit.com' [earlier: 'consistencycheck.com'] is a lightweight application service which provides rule-based link generation and checks the consistency of distributed documents and web content. You simply tell 'xlinkit.com' the information you want to link and rules that relate the information. 'xlinkit.com' will generate the links that you can then use for navigation. It will also diagnose inconsistent information (in other words make sure that you are not saying one thing in one place and another completely different thing in another place) and, if you want, provide you links directly to the inconsistent items of information. 'xlinkit.com' will eliminate the work required to directly author links and keep them up to date as well as simplifying the management of the consistency of distributed documents and web content. 'xlinkit.com' can link and diagnose any information expressed in XML and generates XLinks; both are open, non-proprietary internet standards. xlinkit.com is both scalable and highly customisable, you can handle large document sets and build rules of arbitrary complexity using our simple set-based rule language." 'xlinkit.com' can be applied "anywhere that you want to establish links between documents -- or more generally web-content -- where those links reflect relationships between document types. Examples: Customer Relationship Management, Product Catalogues, B2B Service-level Agreements, Requirements Management, Software Development, Software Development, Network Management Policy, Product Data Management." To use the tool one must write rules, and assemble rule-sets and document-sets; all such information is structured in XML. The web site provides the XML DTD for the rule language, together with an XSL stylesheet for visualising the rules. There is also an XML DTD for the rule-set language and a DTD for the document-set language. 'xlinkit.com' is based on an approach that builds on a substantial research background developed by the Software Systems Engineering Group at University College London. This research has been based on the problems of coordinating and managing consistency in distributed software engineering teams. See the publications page of Anthony Finkelstein for pointers. Example documents appropriate for 'xlinkit.com' are provided for anyone wishing to experiment with the application. The XLink generator tool is free and open for use for demo or trial application; it is accessible online. For other XLink software (mostly experimental), see "XML Linking Software."
[September 15, 2000] New Working Draft for the Platform for Privacy Preferences 1.0 (P3P1.0) Specification. As part of the W3C P3P Activity, the P3P Specification Working Group has issued a revised working draft for the The Platform for Privacy Preferences 1.0 (P3P1.0) Specification. Reference: W3C Working Draft 15-September-2000, edited by (Massimo Marchiori (W3C/MIT/UNIVE); by [authors} Lorrie Cranor (AT&T), Marc Langheinrich (ETH Zurich), Massimo Marchiori (W3C/MIT/UNIVE), Martin Presler-Marshall (IBM), Joseph Reagle (W3C/MIT). "The Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) enables Web sites to express their privacy practices in a standard format that can be retrieved automatically and interpreted easily by user agents. P3P user agents will allow users to be informed of site practices (in both machine- and human-readable formats) and to automate decision-making based on these practices when appropriate. Thus users need not read the privacy policies at every site they visit. The P3P1.0 specification defines the syntax and semantics of P3P privacy policies, and the mechanisms for associating policies with Web resources. P3P policies consist of statements made using the P3P vocabulary for expressing privacy practices. P3P policies also reference elements of the P3P base data schema -- a standard set of data elements that all P3P user agents should be aware of. The P3P specification includes a mechanism for defining new data elements and data sets, and a simple mechanism that allows for extensions to the P3P vocabulary. P3P version 1.0 is a protocol designed to inform Web users of the data-collection practices of Web sites. It provides a way for a Web site to encode its data-collection and data-use practices in a machine-readable XML format known as a P3P policy. The P3P specification defines: (1) A standard schema for data a Web site may wish to collect, known as the 'P3P base data schema'; (2) A standard set of uses, recipients, data categories, and other privacy disclosures; (3) An XML format for expressing a privacy policy; (4) A means of associating privacy policies with Web pages or sites; (5) A mechanism for transporting P3P policies over HTTP. The goal of P3P version 1.0 is twofold. First, it allows Web sites to present their data-collection practices in a standardized, machine-readable, easy-to-locate manner. Second, it enables Web users to understand what data will be collected by sites they visit, how that data will be used, and what data/uses they may 'opt-out' of or 'opt-in' to." Contained also in separate files are (1) Appendix 4: XML Schema Definition (Normative) ['This appendix contains the XML Schema, both for P3P policy reference files, for P3P policy documents, and for P3P dataschema documents. An XML Schema may be used to validate the structure and datastruct values used in an instance of the schema given as an XML document. P3P policy and dataschema documents are XML documents that MUST conform to this schema'] and (2) Appendix 5: XML DTD Definition (Normative). See: "Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) Project."
[September 14, 2000] Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol Framework. An IETF Internet Draft written by Marshall T. Rose (Invisible Worlds, Inc.) outlines The Blocks eXtensible eXchange Protocol Framework and represents the latest in a series of IETF drafts on BXXP/BEEP. Reference: 'draft-ietf-beep-framework-01'. 58 pages. September 11, 2000. "This memo describes a generic application protocol framework for connection-oriented, asynchronous interactions. The framework permits simultaneous and independent exchanges within the context of a single application user-identity, supporting both textual and binary messages... At the core of the BXXP framework is a framing mechanism that permits simultaneous and independent exchanges of messages between peers. Messages are arbitrary MIME content, but are usually textual (structured using XML). Frames are exchanged in the context of a 'channel'. Each channel has an associated 'profile' that defines the syntax and semantics of the messages exchanged. Implicit in the operation of BXXP is the notion of channel management. In addition to defining BXXP's channel management profile, this document defines: (1)the TLS transport security profile; and (2) the SASL family of profiles. Other profiles, such as those used for data exchange, are defined by an application protocol designer. A registration template is provided for this purpose... Because BEEP uses XML technology to provide a more efficient application protocol framework, it is ideal for companies that use the Internet or other networking technologies to process enormous amounts of data." See especially: (1) section 2.2.2.2 on "XML-based Profiles", (2) section 6.2 for "BXXP Channel Management DTD", (3) section 6.4 for "TLS Transport Security Profile DTD", and (4) section 6.6 for "SASL Family of Profiles DTD." The Blocks eXtensible eXchange Protocol (BXXP, a.k.a. BEEP) is a protocol framework being developed under IETF rules. "A working group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has been tasked with submitting revised specification to the Internet Engineering Standards Group (IESG) for consideration as a standards-track publication. Using BXXP as a framework for application protocols has these advantages: (1) All of the tips and tricks of experienced protocol designers are freeze-dried into a unified programming framework that can be used over and over again. (2) It is an application protocol framework for connection-oriented, asynchronous request/response interactions. (3) BXXP handles all the dirty work of initiating connections, framing, managing security, and multiplexing multiple channels in a single authenticated connection, freeing developers to work on adding new application features. (4) The protocol is designed for extensibility through the use of profiles that 'snap into' the BXXP framework. (5) Security profiles enable the reuse of security and authentication mechanisms among multiple applications. (6) Data communication profiles make it easy to determine the messages applications must exchange. (7) Profiles can be easily created and customized to quickly develop new Internet applications." For further description and references, see "Blocks eXtensible eXchange Protocol Framework (BEEP)."
[September 14, 2000] W3C Announces XML Protocol Activity. Dan Brickley (W3C) posted an announcement describing the chartering of a new W3C XML Protocol Activity and new Working Group. "With the introduction of XML and Resource Description Framework (RDF) schema languages, and the existing capabilities of object and type modeling languages such as Unified Modeling Language (UML), applications can model data at either a syntactic or a more abstract level. In order to propagate these data models in a distributed environment, it is required that data conforming to a syntactic schema can be transported directly, and that data conforming to an abstract schema can be converted to and from XML for transport. The Working Group should propose a mechanism for serializing data representing non-syntactic data models in a manner that maximizes the interoperability of independently developed Web applications. Furthermore, as data models change, the serialization of such data models may also change. Therefore it is important that the data encapsulation and data representation mechanisms are designed to be orthogonal. Examples of relationships that will have to be serialized include subordinate relationships known from attachments and manifests. Any general mechanism produced by the Working Group for serializing data models must also be able to support this particular case... Particularly relevant to our recent threads about XML and graph data models." David Fallside (IBM) is Chair XML Protocol Working Group; the W3C mailing list xml-dist-app is to be the preferred channel of communication for the Working Group. From the new WG charter: "The initial focus of this Working Group is to create simple protocols that can be ubiquitously deployed and easily programmed through scripting languages, XML tools, interactive Web development tools, etc. The goal is a layered system which will directly meet the needs of applications with simple interfaces (e.g., getStockQuote, validateCreditCard), and which can be incrementally extended to provide the security, scalability, and robustness required for more complex application interfaces. Experience with SOAP, XML-RPC, WebBroker, etc. suggests that simple XML-based messaging and remote procedure call (RPC) systems, layered on standard Web transports such as HTTP and SMTP, can effectively meet these requirements. Specifically, the XML Protocol Working Group is chartered to design the following four components: (1) An envelope for encapsulating XML data to be transferred in an interoperable manner that allows for distributed extensibility and evolvability as well as intermediaries. (2) A convention for the content of the envelope when used for RPC (Remote Procedure Call) applications. The protocol aspects of this should be coordinated closely with the IETF and make an effort to leverage any work they are doing. (3) A mechanism for serializing data representing non-syntactic data models such as object graphs and directed labeled graphs, based on the datatypes of XML Schema. (4) A mechanism for using HTTP transport in the context of an XML Protocol. This does not mean that HTTP is the only transport mechanism that can be used for the technologies developed, nor that support for HTTP transport is mandatory. This component merely addresses the fact that HTTP transport is expected to be widely used, and so should be addressed by this Working Group." For other details, see the XML Protocol Working Group Charter and the W3C XML Protocol publicity document.
[September 13, 2000] Rand Report on Standards for the Digital Economy. Rand's Science and Technology Institute was commissioned by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to prepare a report on the adequacy of today's digital standards. "RAND was also asked to analyze where these standards are taking the industry and whether government intervention will be required to address systemic failures in the standards development process." The published RAND report is now publicly available as: Scaffolding the New Web: Standards and Standards Policy for the Digital Economy. By Martin Libicki, James Schneider, Dave R. Frelinger, and Anna Slomovic. According to the announcement for the report, "the RAND research team conducted case studies that covered existing Web standards, the Extensible Markup Language (XML) [Appendex B, 20 pages], digital library standards, issues related to property and privacy, and transactions between buyers and sellers in electronic commerce. The team concludes that the current standards process 'remains basically healthy' but cautions that 'the success of standards in the marketplace depends on the play of larger forces.' HTML and Java a succeeded in the recent past because they were straightforward and unique ways of doing things, the analysts point out. Today, Web standards development is caught up in the contests between corporations that are trying to do end-runs around each other's proprietary advantages. Meanwhile, the standards governing the other case study areas are being buffeted by the varied interests of such affected groups as authors, librarians, rights holders, consumers, banks, merchants, privacy activities and governments. Government may not have a major role to play, according to the report. Washington might consider allowing researchers to use a fraction of their government research and development funding to work on standards, the authors suggest. But 'perhaps the best help the government can offer is to have the National Institute for Standards and Technology intensify its traditional functions: developing metrologies; broadening the technology base; and constructing, on neutral ground, terrain maps of the various electronic-commerce standards and standards contenders'." See the document summaries in the articles section.
[September 13, 2000] New Release of xslide Emacs Major Mode for Editing XSL Stylesheets. Tony Graham (Mulberry Technologies, Inc.) has announced the release of xslide Revision 0.2 Beta 1. The xslide package provides the implementation of an Emacs major mode for editing XSL stylesheets. Features of xslide revision 0.2b1 include: "(1) XSL customization groups for setting some variables (2) Initial stylesheet inserted into empty XSL buffers; (3) "Template" menu for jumping to template rules in the buffer; (4) xsl-process function that runs an XSL processor and collects the output; (5) Predefined xsl-process command line templates and error regexps for XT and Saxon; (6) Font lock highlighting so that the important information stands out (font lock colours can be customized once xslide is loaded by Emacs); (7) xsl-complete function for inserting element and attribute names; (8) xsl-insert-tag function for inserting matching start- and end-tags; (9) Improved automatic completion of end-tags; (10) Improved automatic indenting of elements; and (11) Comprehensive abbreviations table to further ease typing. xslide is a work in progress. Code contributions and suggestions for improvements are always welcome. Use the xsl-submit-bug-report' function to report bugs." For related software tools, see "XSL/XSLT Software Support."
[September 12, 2000] Praxis Announces Schemantix for XML Schema-Centric Web Application Development. Matthew Gertner (CTO, Praxis) posted an announcement for Schemantix version 0.3. "Schemantix is our contribution to the frequently recurring discussion about where XML, and XML schemas in particular, are actually useful. In essence, it is a Open Source system for developing web application using XML schemas as the core representation of application data structures. This provides a single point of maintenance for these applications and thus solves many of the problems associated with large-scale web applications written in template-based languages like ASP, JSP, PHP and ColdFusion. For much more on Schemantix, see www.schemantix.com. The current version is an alpha release that includes the functionality for generating HTML forms from XML schemas. The only schema language we currently support is SOX, but we will have preliminary XSDL and DTD support integrated over the next couple of weeks, as well as support for generating reports as well as forms. I'll make a followup announcement as new features become available. The entire system is available in full source code compliant with the J2EE platform. We'd be most interested in any feedback you might have, both with regard to the overall philosophy of the system and the specific implementation. This is an Open Source project, so if anyone would like to find out more about contributing, please contact me directly." Background: "As browser-hosted applications become increasingly complex and sophisticated, popular approaches to web development such as Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) and its open-source competitor PHP are reaching their limits. When underlying data structures are changed, each individual template must be checked and modified accordingly -- a maintenance nightmare for larger applications. Schemantix addresses these issues by moving application logic from the individual templates and back-end data sources into a single central location: XML schemas. XML schemas add powerful new facilities supporting object-oriented features such as inheritance, polymorphism and rich datatyping. As such, they represent an ideal repository for storing business and presentation logic that can be reused across an entire web application, from the browser-hosted user interface to the backend data storage engine." For schema description and references, see "XML Schemas."
[September 08, 2000] Graph Exchange Language (GXL). Following a summer ICSE 2000 Workshop on Standard Exchange Formats (WoSEF, June 06, 2000, Limerick, Ireland), some fourteen research groups working in the domain of software reengineering and graph transformation agreed to collaborative future work on the Graph Exchange Language as a potential standard. These development teams from industry and academic areas committed "to refining GXL to be the standard graph exchange format, write GXL filters and tools or use GXL as exchange format in their tools." Graph Exchange Language (GXL) "is designed to be a standard exchange format for graphs. GXL offers an adaptable and flexible means to support interoperability between graph based tools. In particular, the development of GXL tends to enable interoperability between software reengineering tools and components like code extractors (parsers), analyzers and visualizers. GXL enables software reengineers to combine tools especially designed for special reengineering tasks like parsing, source code extraction, architecture recovery, data flow analysis, pointer analysis, program slicing, query techniques, source code visualization, object recovery, restructuring, refactoring, remodularization etc. into a single powerful reengineering workbench. Being a general graph exchange format, GXL can also be applied to other areas of tool interoperability like interchanging models between CASE tools, or exchanging data between graph transformation or graph visualization tools. GXL has also been designed in such a way that extensions are feasible for handling further ki


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