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• [March 31, 2001]   Revised Online Validator for XML Schema (XSV) and XML Schema Update Tool (XSU).    Henry S. Thompson (HCRC Language Technology Group, University of Edinburgh) has announced a revised 'beta test' release of his XSV 'Validator for XML Schema' service and corresponding XSU update tool for XML Schema CR -> PR. This version of XSV supports checking XML schema documents with the namespace URI http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema, corresponding to the W3C Proposed Recommendation for XML Schema. XSV is an open source "GPLed work-in-progress attempt at a conformant schema-aware processor." The online XSV interface provides two forms for W3C XML schema checking: "(1) one for checking a schema which is accessible via the Web, and/or schema-validating an instance with a schema of your own; (2) another form for use if you are behind a firewall or have a schema to check which is not accessible via the Web." In addition to source code distributions (Python), the latest version of XSV is available in a self-installing package for Win32 platforms. The XSU transformation tool provides for automated update of XML Schema documents from the XML Schema 20000922 version to the Proposed Recommendation (20010316) version. It is a service in 'beta test' which "attempts to convert valid XML schema documents with the namespace URI http://www.w3.org/2000/10/XMLSchema to valid schema documents with the namespace URI http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" using a transform sheet. In this connection, the XSU developers request sample XML schemas to provide a testing pool: they ask that users grant permission to W3C to retain input of tested XML schemas (just tick the checkbox). [Full context]

• [March 30, 2001]   Unicode Technical Committee Publishes Final Version of The Unicode Standard, Version 3.1.    Mark Davis, President of the Unicode Board of Directors, announced the 'final version' release of The Unicode Standard, Version 3.1. The primary feature of Unicode 3.1 is the addition of 44,946 new encoded characters. Together with the 49,194 already existing characters in Unicode 3.0, that comes to a grand total of 94,140 encoded characters in Unicode 3.1. The new characters cover several historic scripts, several sets of symbols, and a very large collection of additional CJK ideographs. Unicode 3.1 also features new character properties, and assignments of property values for the much expanded repertoire of characters. All errata and corrigenda to Unicode 3.0 and Unicode 3.0.1 are included in this specification, together with significant enhancements of the Unicode conformance clauses and additions to other sections of the standard. The base documentation for Unicode 3.1 can be found online at the Unicode web site." [Full context]

• [March 30, 2001]   W3C Publishes XML Key Management Specification (XKMS).    The W3C has acknowledged receipt of a submission from VeriSign, Microsoft, webMethods, Baltimore Technologies, Citigroup, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, IONA Technologies, PureEdge, and Reuters Limited for the XML Key Management Specification (XKMS). The document "specifies protocols for distributing and registering public keys, suitable for use in conjunction with the proposed standard for XML Signature developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and an anticipated companion standard for XML encryption. The XML Key Management Specification (XKMS) comprises two parts -- the XML Key Information Service Specification (X-KISS) and the XML Key Registration Service Specification (X-KRSS). The X-KISS specification defines a protocol for a Trust service that resolves public key information contained in XML-SIG elements. The X-KISS protocol allows a client of such a service to delegate part or all of the tasks required to process <ds:KeyInfo> elements. A key objective of the protocol design is to minimize the complexity of application implementations by allowing them to become clients and thereby shielded from the complexity and syntax of the underlying PKI used to establish trust relationships. These may be based upon a different specification such as X.509/PKIX, SPKI or PGP. The X-KRSS specification defines a protocol for a web service that accepts registration of public key information. Once registered, the public key may be used in conjunction with other web services including X-KISS. Both protocols are defined in terms of structures expressed in the XML Schema Language, protocols employing the Simple Object Application Protocol (SOAP) v1.1 and relationships among messages defined by the Web services Definition Language v1.0 (WDSL)." [Full context]

• [March 30, 2001]   RDF Bindings for IMS Metadata.    A posting from Mikael Nilsson and Dan Brickley reports on design activity now underway toward the creation of an IMS-RDF binding specification. Researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, Sweden) and Universität Hannover (Germany) have begun work on an RDF binding for IMS metadata, and early attempts at an RDF Schema for this are available online. The IMS Metadata Specification is part of a suite of open specifications for "facilitating online distributed learning activities such as locating and using educational content, tracking learner progress, reporting learner performance, and exchanging student records between administrative systems." The XML bindings with supporting XML DTDs have been available for some time, and have been implemented. Draft resources for the proposed RDF binding are available from the Swedish [KTH] Competence Centre for User-Oriented IT Design, including (1) Document on issues with the IMS 1.1 information model and XML binding. (2) Document on issues with the IMS 1.2 draft XML DTD and XML Schema definition. (3) A suggestion for an IMS metadata 1.2 RDF binding, with draft RDF schema (4) A Java interface for IMS metadata editing. The design team encourages participation from all interested parties. [Full context]

• [March 29, 2001]   OASIS Technical Committee Formed for Election and Voter Services.    An announcement from OASIS describes the proposal for a new OASIS Technical Committee on Election and Voter Services. The TC has been proposed by Gregg McGilvray (election.com, chair), Oliver Bell (Microsoft), and Ed McLaughlin (Accenture). The purpose of the committee is to "develop a standard for the structured interchange of data among hardware, software, and service providers who engage in any aspect of providing election or voter services to public or private organizations. The services performed for such elections include but are not limited to voter role/membership maintenance (new voter registration, membership and dues collection, change of address tracking, etc.), citizen/membership credentialing, redistricting, requests for absentee/expatriate ballots, election calendaring, logistics management (polling place management), election notification, ballot delivery and tabulation, election results reporting and demographics. The standard under development by election.com, Inc. will be made available for review and revision and can be expanded upon as necessary." Election Services in this context is defined to mean "any components needed to conduct a private or public election. Private elections are conducted for publicly traded corporations, trade associations, labor unions, pension funds, credit unions, not-for-profit organizations, etc. Public elections are conducted domestically and internationally for municipalities, governments, jurisdictions, special districts and any other group wishing to solicit public opinion. The services performed for all such elections include but are not limited to voter role/membership maintenance (new voter registration, membership and dues collection, change of address tracking, etc.), citizen/membership credentialing, redistricting, requests for absentee/expatriate ballots, election calendaring, logistics management (polling place management), election notification, ballot delivery and tabulation, election results reporting and demographics." [Full context]

• [March 28, 2001]   W3C and NIST Coordinate to Develop the DOM Conformance Test Suites.    A posting from Philippe Le Hégaret (W3C DOM Activity Lead) announces the intention of the W3C DOM Working Group and NIST to jointly develop the DOM Conformance Test Suites. He writes: "This development will be entirely public. It will produce a DOM Level 1 Test Suite (based on the NIST DOM Test Suite) and a DOM Level 2 Test Suite. The DOM Level 3 Test Suite will be addressed after the publication of the DOM Level 3 Candidate Recommendation. Dimitris Dimitriadis will be the contact for the W3C DOM Working Group, and Mary Brady will be the contact for NIST. Both will participate in the Workshop on Quality Assurance at W3C. We welcome the participation of interested parties in developing the DOM Conformance Test Suites." A public DOM TS mailing list for the development of the test suite was created on February 23, 2001, and is open for subscription; its archives are also public. Note that a document DOM Conformance Test Suites Process Document edited by Dimitris Dimitriadis is available from W3C. [Full context]

• [March 28, 2001]   ebXML Specifications Completed and Submitted for Quality Review Process.    A recent announcement from UN/CEFACT and OASIS reports that "all ebXML specifications have been submitted to the ebXML initiative's quality review process. These specifications are the result of more than a year's work by organizations and standards bodies around the world, which have come together to advance a common framework for global electronic business. The complete body of ebXML specifications defining business process methodology, core components, messaging, registry/repository, security, technical architecture and trading partner agreements are expected to be ratified in plenary May 2001. The ebXML Messaging Services Specification integrating SOAP is among the new specifications submitted to the ebXML review process. The effort to integrate SOAP into ebXML was started just five weeks ago. The ebXML announcement followed a proof-of-concept ebXML demonstration provided by vendors at the XML One Conference in London last week. Twenty-some companies collaborated to simulate a global, electronic business trading network using publicly available ebXML specifications. Many of these companies also issued public statements regarding their intentions to implement ebXML-compliant products in the near future." Specifications recently posted for QR include: (1) ebXML Registry Information Model Version 0.60, (2) ebXML Registry Services Specification Version 0.88, (3) ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement Specification Version 0.93, and (4) ebXML Message Service Specification: Transport, Routing & Packaging Version 0.98b. [Full context]

• [March 28, 2001]   Transentric Publishes XEDI/XML 'TranXML Principles'.    A communiqué from Fred Domke (Chief Technology Officer, Transentric) reports on the availablity of XML schemas for TranXML, now scheduled for a first public release in mid-April, 2001. TranXML was announced earlier this month as "a new Extensible Markup Language (XML) solution being proposed as the new industry standard for e-commerce related activities between shippers and carriers. TranXML was created specifically for the procurement and delivery of transportation and logistics services required for supply chain execution. The work to introduce TranXML to the market was accomplished by Transentric, based on the X.12 and XMLSolutions meta data repository. Corporations without EDI infrastructure will be able to form new trading partners communities using TranXML. Initial TranXML schemas will be available for motor and rail carrier bill of lading, as well as tracing and status event reporting. Subsequent releases of TranXML will include schemas to support an open standard for Internet-enabled applications including load tendering, delivery, freight billing, reconciliation, scheduling/forecasting and equipment ordering." Transentric has produced a background document on TranXML Principles which identifies major obstacles to data exchange as "the lack of common semantic structures and repositories supporting the flow of data to and from disparate applications (e.g. different roles an entity may play in a supply chain -- whether a 'Buyer' could be considered as a 'Consignee' and a 'Seller' could be considered as a 'Shipper', depending on whether the information is coming from a purchasing or logistics system). TranXML is an attempt to transform the foundation of knowledge contained in XEDI into a more approachable format. Toward that goal, TranXML applies business rules for the transformation of XEDI data into interoperable structures that can be used by many disparate applications. Transentric's experience in Logistics will be used as a basis for the creation of the transformation rules. The new structures will create a neutral, common XML data dictionary that can be used for both internal and external applications." The design document explains why XML Schemas are being used instead of XML DTDs, and how the TranXML data dictionary is being designed to support interoperable solutions. Transentric is drawing upon work of other standards bodies such as ChemXML, RosettaNet, and EbXML; it also follows the design of logistics messages developed through CIDX and Bolero. [Full context]

• [March 28, 2001]   TIFF Helper Creates XML-enhanced TIFF Images.    Eric Lease Morgan has created a collection of XML-enhanced TIFF images based on his water collection, 'automagically' creating a set of browsable HTML files allowing you to view the images and their descriptions in your Web browser. He says: "XML data was extracted from the description tags of TIFF files and converted into HTML through XSLT, the TIFF files were converted into thumbnail images, and the whole thing was brought together by creating a simple browsable list. The process begins with TIFF Helper, a rudimentary web-based application allowing people to write XML data to the description tag of TIFF files. The primary goal of TIFF Helper is to provide a means for 'marrying' the description of an image file with the image itself and not having to rely on an second application (say a database) to save and manage this information. Embedding descriptive information about images in the image files themselves provides a means for image archiving and distribution that is standards-based as well as operating system- and application-independent. If TIFF files were enhanced with XML data, then the descriptions of those files could be directly associated with their images. Water.pl demonstrates one way of extracting that XML data and making sets of TIFF images available on the Web." The production code and XSLT stylesheets are available for download. Emerging graphics standards do use XML in similar ways, of course (e.g., MPEG-7 XML-based Description Definition Language, SVG, DIG35). [Full context]

• [March 28, 2001]   Updated DAML+OIL Language Specification Supports W3C XML Schema Data Types.    A posting from Mike Dean (Chair, Joint US/EU ad hoc Agent Markup Language Committee) announces the release of a new DAML+OIL 'semantic [ontology] markup language' specification which includes support for XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes and provides enhanced documentation. The DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) "is being developed as an extension to XML and the Resource Description Framework (RDF). The latest release of the language (DAML+OIL) provides a rich set of constructs with which to create ontologies and to mark up information so that it is machine readable and understandable." The reference description document characterizes DAML+OIL as "a semantic markup language for Web resources. It builds on earlier W3C standards such as RDF and RDF Schema, and extends these languages with richer modelling primitives. DAML+OIL provides modelling primitives commonly found in frame-based languages. The language has a clean and well defined semantics. A DAML+OIL knowledge base is a collection of RDF triples. DAML+OIL prescribes a specific meaning for triples that use the DAML+OIL vocabulary. The model-theoretic semantics specifies exactly which triples are assigned a specific meaning, and what this meaning is. DAML+OIL only provides a semantic interpretation for those parts of an RDF graph that instantiate the schema defined in daml+oil.daml. Any additional RDF statements, resulting in additional RDF triples are perfectly allowed, but DAML+OIL is silent on the semantic consequences (or lack thereof) of such additional triples." The new '(March 2001)' version of DAML+OIL support documents include the revised language specification, a revised example ontology, the W3C "XSD" datatype definitions set used in the above example, an annotated version of the example ontology, systematic reference description of all the language elements, an explanation of the changes from DAML+OIL (December 2000), revised Model-Theoretic Semantics, and a revised Axiomatic Semantics. [Full context]

• [March 27, 2001]   Zope Parsed XML Project Releases ParsedXML Version 1.0.    Karl Anderson (Digital Creations) has announced the 'stable' version 1.0 release of 'Parsed XML' which "allows you to use XML objects in the Zope environment. You can create XML documents in Zope and leverage Zope to format, query, and manipulate XML. Parsed XML consists of a DOM storage, a builder that uses PyExpat to parse XML into the DOM, and a management proxy product that provides Zope management features for a DOM tree... The Parsed XML product parses XML into a Zopish DOM tree. The elements of this tree support persistence, acquisition, etc. The document and subnodes are editable and manageable through management proxy objects, and the underlying DOM tree can be directly manipulated via DTML, Python, etc. The DOM tree created by Zope aims to comply with the DOM level 2 standard. This allows you to access your XML in DTML or External Methods using a standard and powerful API. We are currently supporting the DOM level 2 Core and Traversal specifications..." Zope is an open source toolkit consisting of "a number components which work together to provide a complete yet flexible application server package. Zope includes an internet server, a transactional object database, a search engine, a web page templating system, a through the web development and management tool, and comprehensive extension support. Zope's open support for web standards such as XML-RPC, DOM, and WebDAV allows unparalleled flexibility and interoperability." [Full context]

• [March 27, 2001]   Microsoft to '.Net' UK E-Government.    A Microsoft company announcement from a UK conference reports on "how the British government is using Microsoft's enterprise software to revolutionize the way its citizens and businesses experience and interact with government institutions via the Internet. Dubbed 'the Government Gateway,' the new Microsoft .NET Enterprise Server solution is an XML-based portal that acts as the centralized registration service for all e-government services in the United Kingdom. The government portal, part of Blair's new e-government initiative of having 100 percent of government transactions online by 2005, is designed to connect the 200 central and 482 local government institutions with the United Kingdom's 60 million citizens and 3 million businesses. This complex integration solution required an infrastructure that could utilize legacy IT investments and integrate and XML-enable a broad array of disparate applications and platforms while having the reliability and scalability to meet the growing demand of its users... The largest BizTalk Server solution to date, the Government Gateway project is a classic integration challenge, but on a massive scale. BizTalk Server 2000 acts as the primary integration hub for the legions of legacy back-end data and applications found within one of the world's largest government institutions. The flexible architecture provided by the BizTalk business process orchestration capabilities will allow government developers to quickly add or change applications, platforms or agencies as the system grows. The first phase of the Government Gateway project, which is live now, delivers three primary transactions: (1) End of year submissions for the Inland Revenue PAYE (Pay As You Earn). This system is similar to how the U.S. federal government withholds taxes from employee paychecks. (2) Customs and Excise VAT (Value Added Tax) return. This transaction is similar to how businesses submit their sales tax revenue in the United States. (3) Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, farmers' EU subsidy claims. This system enables U.K. farmers to submit claims for subsidy payments via the gateway. In the future, British citizens will experience government interactions much more seamlessly. For example, the purchase of an international plane ticket from a travel agency could automatically update an expired passport or submit an application for a travel visa in the destination country without the citizen ever having to explicitly interact with the government. Other examples of future online transactions include registering newborn children, applying for passports and visas, and registering automobiles." [Full context]

• [March 27, 2001]   DISA Hosts ebXML-compliant Registry and Repository for E-Business Standards.    A recent announcment from the Data Interchange Standards Association (DISA) describes plans to create an ebXML-compliant Registry and Repository for e-business standards and related content. ebXML, as a joint initiative of the United Nations (UN/CEFACT) and OASIS, is now completing development of set of specifications that together enable a modular electronic business framework. The initial content for the DISA Registry and Repository "will include all ASC X12 EDI standards, the XML specifications being developed by DISA Affiliates, and related content. As the Secretariat to the American National Standards Institute Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12, DISA has provided a neutral forum for e-business standards development for almost 15 years, for a total of 15 annual releases and 30 subreleases. ASC X12 and the UN/EDIFACT Working Group (EWG) recently launched a joint initiative to enhance business-to-business communications by defining and validating a set of protocol-neutral e-business objects valid within ebXML specifications, UN/EDIFACT messages and X12 standards. This single set of business objects (core components) will serve as the foundation for future developments in Extensible Markup Language (XML) and any other incarnation of electronic data interchange (EDI) and XML. As part of its concurrent educational initiatives, which have long included seminars and training on EDI and XML, DISA is also launching a training program on UN/CEFACT Modeling Methodology and Unified Modeling Language (UML)." [Full context]

• [March 27, 2001]   MISMO Releases Version 1.1 XML DTDs for Real Estate Finance Transactions.    The MISMO (Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization) coalition of mortgage industry groups led by the Mortgage Bankers Association of America has recently published version 1.1 of the MISMO XML Data Standards. The specifiations cover secondary pooling and delivery transactions and credit, underwriting, mortgage insurance application, and real estate service request processes. Specifications provided for the six process areas (Credit Reporting, MI LoanBoarding, MI Application, Secondary, Service Ordering, Underwriting) include in each case a supporting data dictionary and two versions of the XML DTD. The new standards "will allow real estate finance companies to more easily share data over the Internet. MISMO is continuing the process of collecting, normalizing, and defining all of the data elements necessary for effectively conducting business in the various real estate finance process areas, and will issue additional standards in the coming months. The data dictionaries and document-type definition files for several process areas, including servicing-servicing transfer, mortgage application, flood, title, and real estate appraisal, are now in draft status. MISMO was formed in January 2000 to address electronic commerce issues in the mortgage industry, and is comprised of MBA members, technology companies, and key industry players such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae." [Full context]

• [March 27, 2001]   IBM Releases TSpaces Services Suite.    IBM alphaWorks has announced the release of the TSpaces Services Suite which offers a development toolkit "to assist the creation, discovery, and integration of Web services. TSpaces Services Suite is an architecture that enhances TSpaces programming capabilities towards the development of service-based applications and is based in standards for discovery (UDDI), description (WSDL), and invocation (SOAP) of Web services. Development tools provided in the first version of the package include: (1) UDDI broker: a tool for the registration and discovery of Web services based on the UDDI specification; (2) TSpaces service API: a tool for the creation of Web services -- it generates a WSDL description for all the described services, and allow the invocation of services through the TSpaces and SOAP communication mechanisms; (3) Universal printing solution: a sample printing service that enables printing from any computer to any printer, regardless of the host computers (workstations, PCs, handheld devices), operating systems, or file format. The TSpaces Service API (TSSAPI) is a framework that simplifies the creation, composition, deployment, discovery, and invocation of services based on TSpaces or one of the other emerging service infrastructures such as SOAP. Enterprise TSpaces, available from alphaworks in Fall 2001, is a further development of the stand-alone version of TSpaces that provides TSpaces with enterprise required facilities such as fault-tolerance and scalability." Note in this connection that IBM has developed a Web Services Theme Page with resources supporting the 'web services model' of creating dynamic distributed applications across the Web. [Full context]

• [March 26, 2001]   COMTEX News Network Adopts NewsML Standard.    COMTEX News Network, Inc. recently announced support for the XML-based NewsML standard, which supports multimedia news creation, storage and delivery. "NewsML can be used by news providers to combine their pictures, video, text, graphics and audio files in news output for multiple display platforms or devices, including Web sites, mobile phones, high end desktops, and interactive television. The technology also enables news to be transmitted in several different languages. The common infrastructure allows news providers to combine their content from various sources with little effort, helping publishers create information packages targeted to specific audiences, improving delivery of personalized news to the end-user. Individual searches and filter systems will be able to process information from a wider range of sources, as information from multiple publishers will be in a single format. In addition to creating a single format, NewsML offers an accurate, objective set of descriptive tools that make searching more precise. COMTEX News Network, Inc. is a full service, business-to-business infomediary, aggregates and redistributes diverse, real-time global news and information to resellers in the Internet, Wall Street and corporate markets; COMTEX gathers nearly 20,000 stories a day from over 10,000 diverse, global sources." [Full context]

• [March 26, 2001]   New Java Specification Requests for XML Digital Signature and XML Digital Encryption APIs.    Two new JSRs (Java Specification Requests) have been published relating to Java APIs for XML digital signature and encryption, proposed for work under the Java Community Process. The Specification Leads are Anthony Nadalin (IBM) and Sean Mullan (Sun). JSR-000105 for XML Digital Signature APIs will "define a standard set of APIs for XML digital signatures services. The XML Digital Signature specification is defined by the W3C; this proposal is to define and incorporate the high level implementation independent Java APIs." JSR-000106 for XML Digital Encryption APIs will "define a standard set of APIs for XML digital encryption services. XML Encryption can be used to perform fine-grained, element-based encryption of fragments within an XML Document as well as encrypt arbitrary binary data and include this within an XML document. Today there is no standard set of APIs for XML digital encryption services." [Full context]

• [March 26, 2001]   RIXML.org Announces Release of RIXML Specification for Public Comment.    An announcement from RIXML.org reports that version 1.0 of the RIXML specification is now available for public comment. RIXML.org is a "consortium of buy- and sell-side financial industry leaders who joined forces to develop an open, global standard for the tagging and delivery of investment research" and has created a schema for the Research Information Exchange Markup Language. The primary goal of the Version 1.0 release of the RIXML specification is to improve the process of categorizing, aggregating, comparing, sorting, and distributing global financial research; it will provide extensive capabilities to tag any piece of research content, in any form or media, with enough meta-data information for consumers to search, sort and filter through publisher research, and quickly provide highly relevant information to their decision makers. The W3C XML Schema for RIXML defines the relationships and components as defined by the object model; it is available online, together with a supporting User Guide. The RIXML User Guide describes the design approach taken in creating the RIXML standard, and explains some fundamental concepts such as XML, object modeling, schemas, etc. It includes diagrams of the RIXML object model which serve as definitions for the elements and attributes. The RIXML version 1.0 specification will be available for public comment over the next 30 days and feedback can be provided through the new RIXML.org website. [Full context]

• [March 24, 2001]   Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML) Specification Level 1.    A communiqué from Michael Hucka of the Caltech ERATO team reports on the publication of the Final Level 1 specification for the Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML). The ERATO Systems Biology Workbench Development Team has developed an XML Schema for SBML, "a description language for simulations in systems biology. SBML is oriented towards representing biochemical networks common in research on a number of topics, including cell signaling pathways, metabolic pathways, biochemical reactions, gene regulation, and many others. The motivations for developing SBML stem from the current inability to exchange models between simulation/analysis tools. SBML Level 1 is meant to support non-spatial biochemical models and the kinds of operations that are possible in existing analysis/simulation tools. The primary specification document uses a simple UML-based notation to describe the data structures and presents a first-pass XML Schema; a secondary supporting document explains the 'SCHUCS' UML-based notation. SBML Level 1 is the result of merging modeling-language features from the following simulation systems: BioSpice, DBSolve, E-Cell, Gepasi, Jarnac, StochSim, and Virtual Cell. SBML was developed with the help of the authors of these packages; as a result of being based on actual working simulation software, it is a practical and functional description language. The team's goal in creating SBML has been to provide an open standard that will enable simulation software to exchange models." [Full context]

• [March 24, 2001]   W3C Publishes Revised XML Protocol (XMLP) Requirements.    The W3C XML Protocol Working Group has released a revised working draft document for the XML Protocol (XMLP) Requirements. This WD updates the previous version of 2000-12-19, and "describes the W3C XML Protocol Working Group's requirements for the XML Protocol (XMLP) specification." XMLP "allows two or more peers to communicate in a distributed environment using XML as its encapsulation language. The XMLP framework can accommodate an open-ended set of XMLP modules defining a large variety of functions and services. Typical functions and services defined by XMLP modules can range from generic mechanisms for handling security, caching, routing, and eventing to specific functions like submitting a purchase order. While XMLP itself is intended to be as simple and lightweight as possible, XMLP modules can be designed and composed to perform arbitrarily complex operations allowing the core protocol to remain simple." The working draft articulates external requirements from XForms and P3P in addition to the general requirements and related requirements areas (simplicity and stability; data encapsulation and evolvability; intermediaries; data representation; protocol bindings; convention for RPC). A Glossary in the document overviews the general protocol concepts, data encapsulation concepts, message sender and receiver concepts, and data representation concepts. The draft also specifies usage scenarios, intended to provide representative examples of situations where XMLP might be applicable. [Full context]

• [March 23, 2001]   ArchStudio Software Development Environment Uses xADL DTD for XML-based Integration Stategy.    The ArchStudio project under development in the Department of Information and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine has created xADL as for its "enabling architecture-centric tool integration with XML." ArchStudio 2.0 is "an extensible, integrated software architecture development environment that uses an XML-based representation for the underlying architecture. It brings together several UCI developed systems for architecture-based development, including Argo/C2, ArchShell, and DRADEL. The basis for integration in ArchStudio 2.0 is an XML-based abstract model of the system architecture (ArchADT). In the view of the design team, architectures are best represented as hypertext rather than as monolithic specification files. This requires decoupling the description of separable components across hypertext links; and integrating such information with existing hypermedia formats -- both facilities unique to XML. Software designers also benefit from the wide variety of existing tools for visualizing and manipulating XML models. The team has defined an XML DTD called xADL for representing architectural models that can support a wide range of architecture description languages (ADLs). A language, xC2, adds further tags, attributes, and semantics appropriate for representing C2-style architectures. This factoring holds promise for mapping other ADLs on to the basic xADL core." [Full context]

• [March 23, 2001]   IBM's XSLerator Tool for XSLT Script Generation.    The Java Application Development at IBM alphaWorks laboratory has released an XSLerator (XSL accelerator) tool which "generates XSLT scripts from mappings defined using a visual interface. The tool supports mappings with extended conversion functions including iterations, conditions, joins, variables, and XPATH functions. Only minimal knowledge of XSLT is required. XSLerator can be used in e-business solutions development including B2B, B2C, and web services. For example, it can be used to integrate and correlate diverse data sources to one unified data, or it can be used to transform data from one business' format to another business' format. XSLerator can be also used by content providers to provide content in different formats for different modalities and users. Using the tool, you provide the sources and the targets which can be retrieved from XML files or from databases. Then, you define mappings; each mapping is a selection of a target field, a conversion function and sources fields. Mappings can be edited, deleted or persisted for later use. After defining the mappings, you generate the XSLT script and may test it to confirm it created the desired output. Once the XSLT script was generated, you may use it with an XSLT engine, such as Apache Xalan, to combine and transform any XML documents that conforms to the sources to an XML document that conforms to the target. XSLerator is provided with samples and a tutorial." [Full context]

• [March 23, 2001]   X-Smiles: A Java-based Open Source XML Browser.    A communiqué from Mikko Honkala announces the version 0.31 'prototype ' release of X-Smiles, an Open Source Java-based XML Browser for exotic devices. X-Smiles has been produced as part of a non-profit project started by the Telecommunications Software and Multimedia Laboratory at Helsinki University of Technology. Mikko writes: "X-Smiles is a pure Java XML browser intended for both desktop use and embedded network devices and to support multimedia services. It is capable of displaying documents written in various XML languages. Currently supported languages include: (1) Extensible Markup Language - XML; (2) XSL Transformations - XSLT; (3) XSL Formatting Objects - XSL FO; (4) Synchronised Multimedia Integration Language 1.0 - SMIL; (5) XML Forms - XForms; (6) Scalable Vector Graphics - SVG. Some of these XML standards are supported by integrated free third party libraries while others are delivered in the X-Smiles project. Other supported features include ECMAScript, multimedia content in SMIL through Java Media Framework (JMF), and various GUIs. The main advantage of the X-Smiles browser is that it supports several XML related specifications and is still suitable for embedded devices supporting the Java environment. X-Smiles should be suitable for small embedded devices supporting Java; this goal includes porting X-Smiles to Kaffe VM. Currently Kaffe supports Java 1.1, while some X-Smiles features are based on Java 1.2." [Full context]

• [March 22, 2001]   W3C Public Working Draft for Modularization of XHTML in XML Schema.    The W3C HTML Working Group has released a first public Working Draft for Modularization of XHTML in XML Schema. The draft document "provides a complete set of XML Schema modules for XHTML, and describes a methodology for the modularization of XHTML using XML Schema. Modularization of XHTML allows document authors to modify and extend XHTML in a conformant way." XHTML modularization works for XML Schema modules in a fashion similar to XML DTDs, but there are some significant differences; these are articulated in the chapter "Schema Modularization Framework." The design goals for the modularization framework for XHTML are: (1) to create coherent sets of semantically related modules within the XHTML namespace using XML Schema; (2) to support the creation of subsets and supersets of XHTML for specific purposes such as handheld devices and special-purpose appliances; (3) to facilitate future development by allowing modules to be upgraded or replaced independently of other modules; and (4) to encourage and facilitate the reuse of common modules by developers." [Full context]

• [March 22, 2001]   jTME: A Java Topic Map Engine.    Jack Park announced the availability of binaries for his Java Topic Map engine, jTME. jTME is a "persistent XTM [XML Topic Maps] engine which is capable of importing XTM 1.0 files based upon the December 4, 2000 XTM 1.0 DTD. It allows also construction of new XTM documents. Installation and operation are documented in a preliminary jTME User's Guide. The implementation is persistent in a relational database; the GUI just gives us a nice playground to experiment with persistent XTM. PersistentXTM is being used in my implementation of (my version of) Douglas Engelbart's OHS, called jpOHS... jTME uses my Java package xtm, the classes of which behave in a manner similar to Enterprise Java Beans: each class, for example, XTMTopic, performs its own persistent operations. The project is to be discussed in a forthcoming book XML Topic Maps:Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web, to be published by Addison Wesley later in 2001." [Full context]

• [March 21, 2001]   W3C/IETF Canonical XML Specification Published as a W3C Recommendation.    W3C has announced the release of Canonical XML Version 1.0 as the first W3C Recommendation produced jointly by the W3C/IETF XML Signature Working Group. The Canonical XML specification "adds another critical piece to the Extensible Markup Language (XML) family of technologies under development at W3C, which began with the XML 1.0 Recommendation." The new specification "defines a method for serializing XML documents such that it eliminates incidental variances in their syntax as permitted by XML 1.0. This functionality is necessary to XML Signatures which requires documents to be consistently serialized for digital signature processing, so that these incidental variances do not invalidate the signature... Digital signatures provide integrity, signature assurance and non-repudiatability over Web data. Such features are especially important for documents that represent commitments such as contracts, price lists, and manifests. XML Signatures have the potential to provide reliable XML-based signature technology. However, various processors may introduce incidental changes into a document over the course of its processing. Canonical XML 1.0 provides a method of serializing an XML document into its canonical form. If two documents have the same canonical form, then the two documents are logically equivalent within the context of this specification. This relationship combined with XML Signature is critical for electronic commerce because it ensures the integrity of documents and protocol messages that travel between multiple XML processors." By publishing Canonical XML as a W3C Recommendation, the W3C consortium and its Director certify that the specification "is stable, contributes to Web interoperability, and has been reviewed by the W3C Membership, who are in favor of supporting its adoption by academic, industry, and research communities." [Full context]

• [March 21, 2001]   Technical Submissions Facilitate Renewed Development of DSML Version 2.0.    James Tauber recently reported that the OASIS DSML Technical Committee had received two new technical submissions from participating companies that will "re-energize" committee work on DSML version 2.0. Directory Services Markup Language (DSML) is an XML markup lanuage which enables applications to "capture the scalability, replication, security and management strengths of directory services." Novell has decided to donate its DirXML work to the DSML TC, and the 'DirXML NDS DTD' is available for review. DirXML is based on NDS eDirectory, Novell's "secure directory service which can publish information to -- or accept information from -- any application or directory for which it has a specific driver. DirXML includes drivers for the Lotus Notes, Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange, NDS, and Netscape LDAP." Access360 has also developed a "Directory Access Markup Language" XML DTD relevant to DSML. The iPlanet's XMLDAP Gateway tool which now supports DSML is available online, and Microsoft is expected to contribute a proposal for the design of DSML 2.0. [Full context]

• [March 21, 2001]   W3C Publishes XML Schema Formalization.    A communiqué from Matthew Fuchs (Commerce One) highlights the technical significance of W3C's recent XML Schema formalization, published in a W3C Working Draft as XML Schema: Formal Description. The document supplies formal a description of XML types and validity as specified by the recently-issued Proposed Recommendation XML Schema Part 1: Structures. From the Introduction: "This formalization is a formal, declarative system for describing and naming XML Schema information, specifying XML instance type information, and validating instances against schemas. The goals of the formalization are to: (1) Provide a semantic framework for software systems that use the W3C XML Schema specification, such as the W3C XML Query Algebra; (2) Specify names for all components of an XML Schema, so that they can be uniquely identified by URIs. Such unique identifiers may be useful to XML Query, RDF, and topic maps, among others; (3) Formally define validation at a declarative level; (4) Define the mapping from the current XML Schema syntax onto the structures described here, as well as the mapping between the XML Schema component mode and our component model. Many potential applications of XML Schema may benefit from the definition of a formal model. We have focused on the material in Part I (Structures), as this is the most complex; a basic understanding of first-order predicate logic, which is part of most computer science curricula, is adequate to understand this document." [Full context]

• [March 21, 2001]   Topicmaps.net Informative Web Site.    Michel Biezunski (InfoLoom) has announced Topicmaps.net as a new 'informative Topic Maps web site' that he is now maintaining, together with Steve Newcomb (Coolheads Consulting). Biezunski says: "This web site is devoted to our work in progress on topic maps. We have published a draft of the processing model for topic maps which we are working on, now called the 'Topicmaps.net Processing Model'. This document will be updated and completed." The editors also intend to use this web site to publish information on the convergence between RDF and Topic Maps; they will publish links from the web site to any application, or development of interest in the area of Topic Maps processing models, RDF/Topic Maps convergence, etc. Interested parties are invited to supply the editors with URLs for relevant resources. [Full context]

• [March 20, 2001]   IBM alphaWorks Laboratory Releases XMI Framework.    XML software developers at IBM alphaWorks Laboratory have released the XMI Framework, which is "a simple Java API for saving and loading XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) files and creating XMI DTDs. Its purpose is to help users learn XMI. XMI Framework supports XMI version 1.0 and version 1.1. You can use the framework object model to represent your data and models, or you can use your own classes. You can also generate Java code from framework models and UML XMI files. Any XML parser that supports the JAXP 1.0 interface may be used." The related IBM XMI Toolkit is a Java component "that converts UML information between Rational Rose Models and XMI-standard XML files. The Toolkit can also generate DTDs directly from UML models; a Reference Implementation of XMI, with source code is included. IBM alphaWorks provides early adopter developers direct access to IBM's emerging 'alpha-code' technologies. The software design teams endeavor to involve developers in the earliest stages, before integration of technologies into products." [Full context]

• [March 20, 2001]   Microsoft Announces 'HailStorm' User-Centric XML Web Services.    On March 19, 2001 Microsoft Corporation announced "a set of new technologies designed to advance the Microsoft .NET strategy. The technology, code-named 'HailStorm,' is a set of user-centric XML Web services that enable developers to build solutions that work seamlessly with one another over the Internet to deliver a more personalized and consistent user experience. The HailStorm services are oriented around the individual and allow developers, with the user's consent, to access for example an individual's calendar, contact information or documents, from any application, device or service connected to the Internet. The HailStorm XML-based Web services platform comprises four major pillars: (1) the .NET Framework and the Visual Studio .NET suite of developer tools; (2) the .NET Enterprise Servers, which provide a robust infrastructure for Web services; (3) .NET devices and experiences; and (4) .NET services. The new HailStorm technology is a result of work being done in the .NET Services Group, which is responsible for building XML-based Web services for businesses and consumers and is led by Bob Muglia. HailStorm adheres to an open-access model in which all interactions are conducted via XML-based SOAP protocols. Use of the industry-standard XML and SOAP protocols means any application, device or service connected to the Internet can interact with HailStorm, regardless of the underlying operating system, programming language or online service. No Microsoft software is required on any client or server that accesses HailStorm. Microsoft demonstrated various platforms accessing HailStorm services, including Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh, Pocket PC, Palm and various flavors of UNIX." [Full context]

• [March 20, 2001]   US Conference on Congressional Organizations' Application of XML.    A posting from Owen Ambur (Co-Chair, Federal CIO Council XML Working Group) announces a conference on the use of XML by the US Legislative Branch. This Conference on Congressional Organizations' Application of XML (COAX) is co-sponsored by the LegalXML consortium and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House Administration, and will be held on Tuesday April 24, 2001 at the Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC. "The purpose of the conference is to discuss the current use of XML by the legislative branch and the advantages of using of open and standard XML. Congressional organizations, federal agencies, private sector, and non-profit organizations will participate in the conference. The conference will have three panels. Panelists in the first session discussing current XML initiatives are to include representatives from the Library of Congress's Congressional Research Service and the Law Library (GLIN), the Clerk of the House, the Government Printing Office, Office of Legislative Counsel, the Senate, and the House Information Resources. A web site will highlight the activities of the COAX conference and the initiatives currently underway in each of the stakeholder organizations." [Full context]

• [March 19, 2001]   STEPml's XML Specifications Promote STEP on the Web.    The STEPml "library of XML specifications" has been designed as a publication forum and education center for XML-based STEP product data schemas governing process integration, supply chain management, collaborative engineering, analysis, manufacturing, and customer support. STEPml is sponsored by PDES, Inc., an international industry/government consortium. The STEPml initiative is important because it exemplifies the growing interest in mapping STEP/EXPRESS to XML: STEP's EXPRESS schema language has rich facilities for specifying semantic constraints for data modeling purposes, whereas SGML/XML does not. In February 2001, STEPml published the first three in a series of planned resources which combine the "semantically rich, international standard data models from STEP (ISO 10303) with the widespread infrastructure of XML and the Web. STEP is an international standard for the representation of product data; STEP models are documented using EXPRESS, a formal object-flavored language that has a robust constraint definition capability. STEPml takes the data models from STEP and publishes them as XML specifications; the STEPml XML specifications are automatically generated from STEP schemas. Resources published to date include a STEPml XML DTD for the STEP PDM Schema, a STEPml Product Identification and Classification Specification, and a technical overview of the STEP Object Serialization Early Binding (OSEB). STEPml is one of several STEP-XML initiatives now gathering momentum. Several bindings have been designed for the mapping of semantically-rich EXPRESS data models to XML, and are documented in ISO's 306-page Proposed Draft Technical Specification Product Data Representation and Exchange. Implementation Methods: XML Representation of EXPRESS Schemas and Data [ISO TC184/SC4/WG11 N140. ISO/PDTS 10303-28:2000(E)]. The ISO/SC4 10303-25 project is also developing an EXPRESS to OMG XMI binding. [Full context]

• [March 19, 2001]   Turing Machine Markup Language (TMML).    Robert C. Lyons of Unidex Inc. has created an XML-based Turing Machine Markup Language (TMML) for describing Turing machines. "Just for fun," he says in the XML-DEV announcement... "I created TMML and the Universal Turing Machine stylesheet to have some fun and to learn more about the XSLT language; I designed this site to share what I learned about Turing machines and XSLT. A language is Turing complete if it is powerful enough to implement any Turing machine. It is widely believed that Turing machines are powerful enough to perform any calculation that can be performed by a modern computer program." Lyons' TMML web site "provides sample TMML documents and an XSLT 1.0 stylesheet that interprets (i.e., executes) the Turing machine that is described in a TMML document. This XSLT stylesheet, which is a Universal Turning Machine, is an existence proof that XSLT 1.0 is Turing complete. The stylesheet, which is available in HTML format and as an XSLT document, has been run with SAXON and Xalan. It does not use any extension functions or proprietary features. The stylesheet does use the xsl:key instruction and the XPath key() function." [Full context]

• [March 19, 2001]   PyTREX Version 0.6.0 Released.    James Tauber (Bowstreet) announced the release of PyTREX version 0.6.0, now available for download. This second release of PyTREX implements the majority of TREX. PyTREX is "an open source clean-room implementation of Tree Regular Expressions for XML (TREX) written in Python. The version 0.6.0 release implements the concepts introduced in sections 1 through 10 of the tutorial" written by James Clark. PyTREX development takes place on SourceForge. Principal discussion of the TREX 'language for validating XML documents' is hosted on the OASIS TREX Technical Committee mailing list. [Full context]

• [March 16, 2001]   W3C Publishes XML Schema as a Proposed Recommendation.    The W3C XML Schema specification has advanced to the 'Proposed Recommendation' stage, indicating that "the specification is stable and that implementation experience has been gathered, showing that each feature of the specification can be implemented." The three-part document has been produced as part of the W3C XML Activity. This PR version replaces the Candidate Recommendation of October 24, 2000. The deadline for review of the PR specification is Monday April 16, 2001. Review comments may be sent to the publicly archived 'xmlschema-dev' mailing list at www-xml-schema-comments@w3.org. As with the Candidate Recommendation, "the XML Schema PR specification consists of three parts. One part defines a set of simple datatypes, which can be associated with XML element types and attributes; this allows XML software to do a better job of managing dates, numbers, and other special forms of information. The second part of the specification proposes methods for describing the structure and constraining the contents of XML documents, and defines the rules governing schema-validation of documents. The third part is a primer, which explains what schemas are, how they differ from DTDs, and how someone builds a schema." [Full context]

• [March 16, 2001]   UPS OnLine Toolbox Supports XML for Tracking Shipments to Your Office.    United Parcel Service recently announced "significant enhancements" to the UPS OnLine Tools, which "offer advanced shipping and logistics applications that allow businesses to seamlessly link their intranets and Internet Web sites with UPS. The tools enable customers to calculate shipping costs, select and compare shipping services, and track packages from the point of order entry to delivery. UPS is adding two new tools, enhancing two others, making all six tools available in XML and providing customers with a list of approved service providers who can help with integration. In conjunction with the tool enhancements, UPS is offering an XML version of all UPS OnLine Tools. UPS was instrumental in the development of XML protocol standards for the transportation industry through its membership in Rosettanet, a consortium of major information technology, electronic components and semiconductor manufacturing companies working to create and implement industry-wide, open e-business process standards. Two new UPS OnLine Tools which support XML are 'UPS Tracking' (provides up-to-the-minute shipment status, from origin to delivery) and 'UPS Rates & Service Selection' (lets online shoppers compare, price and select shipping services that best fit their needs and budgets). The XML tools support structured, self-descriptive, and extensible formatting of the data. XML documents have tags naming each data element allowing optional elements to be omitted and unexpected or uninteresting elements to be ignored. More than 60,000 businesses have licensed UPS OnLine Tools since their introduction in April 1999." [Full context]

• [March 16, 2001]   IBM's Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA).    IBM developerWorks has published an article by Don R. Day, Michael Priestley, and Dave A. Schell on IBM's XML-based 'DITA' architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. DITA DTDs, style sheets, and sample documents are available online. The article surveys the development of DITA by a cross-company workgroup representing user assistance teams from IBM, Lotus, and Tivoli, and explains the decision not to simply convert IBMIDDoc, or to use an existing XML DTD such as DocBook, or TEI, or XHTML; after all, 'IBM, with millions of pages of documentation for its products, has its own very complex SGML DTD, IBMIDDoc, which has supported this documentation since the early 1990s'. In DITA, the 'topic' is the basic architectural unit: "a topic is a unit of information that describes a single task or concept or reference item. The information's category (concept, task, reference) is its information type. Typed topics are easily managed within content management systems as reusable, stand-alone units of information. The XML-based Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an end-to-end architecture for creating and delivering modular technical information. The architecture consists of a set of design principles for creating information-typed topic modules, and for using that content in various ways, such as online help and product support portals on the Web. At the heart, the DITA is an XML document type definition (DTD) that expresses many of these design principles. The architecture, however, is the defining part of this proposal for technical information; the DTD, or any schema based on it, is just an instantiation of the design principles of the architecture. The IBM workgroup developed the architecture collaboratively during 2000 through postings to a database and weekly teleconferences; they are offering the architecture on IBM's developerWorks Web site as an alternative XML-based documentation system, designed to exploit XML as its encoding format." [Full context]

• [March 15, 2001]   eBay Inc. and Microsoft Announce SOAP-based XML Web Services for Online E-Commerce.    eBay Inc. and Microsoft Corp. recently announced a strategic alliance which "calls for broad cooperation initially focusing on three key initiatives expected to roll out this year. First, eBay will support Microsoft .NET technologies, and will be one of the first Web sites worldwide to offer its community-based commerce engine to Web developers as an XML-based Web service. Second, Microsoft will integrate eBay's marketplace into a number of its Web properties, including select MSN Internet service sites worldwide, Carpoint, bCentral and WebTV. Finally, eBay will deploy Microsoft technology including Windows 2000 Server and Microsoft Passport." According to the joint announcement, a central feature "is the intersection of key new technology initiatives: eBay's API (application program interface) and Microsoft .NET. eBay's powerful commerce engine, which can be licensed by third-party Web sites through the API, will now be offered as a SOAP-based XML Web service. Microsoft will use eBay's programmable XML-based Web service to integrate the trading services of eBay's online marketplace into a number of its own Internet properties including the MSN network of Internet services, the Carpoint online automotive service and WebTV service. The integration of the services is currently planned to debut later this year and will be available in a number of the thirty-three (33) international markets in which MSN currently has a presence. To support the deployment and operation of its new XML-based Web service, eBay will deploy Windows 2000 Server across all of its front-end Web servers." [Full context]

• [March 15, 2001]   W3C Publishes Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 1.1.    The W3C has acknowledged receipt of a submission for version 1.1 of Web Services Description Language (WSDL). The document is signed by more than a dozen companies, and represents a suggestion for describing services for the W3C XML Activity on XML Protocols. 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." The W3C disposition: "To determine the next steps in the Web Services area, W3C will be holding a Workshop on Web Services. The submitters of WSDL are encouraged to submit a position paper to this Workshop. Moreover, the community is invited to provide feedback on this submission to www-ws@w3.org". [Full context]

• [March 15, 2001]   Infoteria Releases Enhanced iXSLT XML Transformation Tool.    Infoteria Corporation has announced a new release of its iXSLT processor with enhanced functionality for the transformation of XML data into HTML, WML, or other XML files using XSL (W3C Extensible Stylesheet Language). "New performance testing features have been added, so users can test the time it takes to perform a single XSLT transformation or multiple transformations, defined by a 'repeat number.' Additionally, iXSLT 2.0c can load external entities from both XML and XSLT documents. iXSLT adds new extension elements to make transforming data easier than ever before: (1) iXSLT 2.0c supports executing external programs and inserting the results of these programs as the values for an XML element; (2) iXSLT can now output to multiple files; (3) XPATH functionality has been extended, allowing the user to change the result tree fragment node sets and evaluate character strings as functions." [Full context]

• [March 15, 2001]   W3C Releases Jigsaw 2.2.0 Web Server Platform with WebDAV Support.    Jigsaw is W3C's open source "leading-edge Web server platform which provides a sample HTTP 1.1 implementation and a variety of other features on top of an advanced architecture implemented in Java. The server uses an object-oriented approach when it comes to the storage of files and the processing of incoming requests, making it both more efficient and easily extensible." JigXML (the Jigsaw XML format) is used by Jigsaw to store the resources metadata. The version 2.2.0 release of Jigsaw includes enhanced support for WebDAV, and a parser for dates in ISO 8601 format. An updated online tutorial documents how to configure Jigsaw as a WebDAV server, and a package with a specific WebDAV configuration will follow shortly. WebDAV ('Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning') "is a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol which allows users to collaboratively edit and manage files on remote web servers." Other features in 2.2.0 are Servlet 2.2 implementation; new RFC 2616 compliant Cache; image metadata extraction using Content Negotiation; and Digest Authentication and ACL based authentication. [Full context]

• [March 14, 2001]   Internet Protocol Detail Record Organization Demonstrates Implementation of NDM-U Specification.    An announcement from IPDR.org (the Internet Protocol Detail Record Organization) describes a live demonstration of systems interoperability using version 2.0 of the IPDR.org Network Data Management - Usage (NDM-U) Specification. The NDM-U standard defines technical information "that is sufficient for practical implementations of interchange of usage data among service elements participating in the delivery of IP-based services, either within a single enterprise or across multiple enterprises." The NDM-U specification language is given in W3C XML Schema notation; "the XML record structure and service definitions provide a means to begin representing service usage information in a consistent, self-describing, human readable format. These structures allow for the creation of documents by one system in a format that can be easily understood and used by another. The dynamic operation of IDPR document transport has been specified using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). A group of three IPDR.org companies will show how the NDM-U specification can be used to deliver a robust Carrier Grade, Next-Gen BSS/OSS solution. The overall objective of the demonstration is to provide exciting demonstrations using next-generation data services that highlight the effectiveness of the IPDR.org standard. The interoperability demonstration will focus on the Video on Demand (VoD) service, and will show the download and playing of a VoD video displayed on an Internet terminal. From there, the customer will be able to follow the process through to the creation of the final invoice for the content data service." [Full context]

• [March 14, 2001]   IBM Announces WebSphere Technology for Developers.    IBM has announced the availability of 'WebSphere Technology for Developers', described as infrastructure software middleware which "enables companies to develop, deploy and integrate next-generation e-business applications, such as those for business-to-business e-commerce. WebSphere supports business applications from simple Web publishing through enterprise-scale transaction processing. WebSphere Technology for Developers is available at no charge on a limited basis today from IBM sales representatives and business partners." The WebSphere Technology for Developers is presented as "the first software in the industry that supports the variety of open standards necessary to develop and securely deploy Web services, including: (1) Universal Description Discovery and Integration (UDDI), which enables businesses to describe themselves, publish technical specifications on how they want to conduct e-business with other companies and search for other businesses that provide goods and services they need all via online UDDI registries; (2) Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) -- IBM is the first to implement and integrate HTTPS, HTTP Authentication and SOAP security, including digital signatures, enabling end-to-end authentication, integrity and non-repudiation for SOAP messages. (3) Java2 Enterprise Edition J2EE; (4) Web Services Description Language (WSDL), which describes programs accessible via the Internet or other networks; (5) Enhanced integration of leading XML technologies." [Full context]

• [March 13, 2001]   NISO Develops an OpenURL Standard for Bibliographic and Descriptive Metadata.    A recent announcement from NISO (US National Information Standards Organization) describes the formation a committee to develop the OpenURL Standard. The OpenURL is based on the notion that "links should lead a user to appropriate resources: an 'institutional service component' (ISC) describes the context of the user. The OpenURL is designed as a protocol for interoperability between an information resource and a service component that offers localized services in an open linking environment. It is in effect an actionable URL that transports metadata or keys to access metadata for the object for which the OpenURL is provided; the target of the OpenURL is the user's institutional service component (ISC). The remainder of the OpenURL transports the object's metadata. The OpenURL standard may impact the level of basic Internet infrastructure, where resolution of identifiers in a context-sensitive manner is required. A syntax specification of the OpenURL for bibliographic metadata provides examples: a 'LOCAL-IDENTIFIER-ZONE' might be: pid=<author>Smith, Paul ; Klein, Calvin</author>&<yr>98</yr>; the OpenURL encoded format used with HTTP GET would escape the markup as necessary in accordance with URI specifications. [Full context]

• [March 13, 2001]   Adobe Systems Releases Adobe Acrobat 5.0 with Enhanced XML Features.    The new Adobe Acrobat 5.0 from Adobe Systems offers additional XML-based functionality supporting embedded metadata, collaborative authoring, and forms processing: "Acrobat 5.0 offers a number of key benefits that enable business, graphic arts and IT professionals to excel in this new Network Publishing environment where they must work efficiently at Web speed. Tight Web integration based on WebDistributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) and Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC) allows teams to simultaneously share comments on Adobe PDF files from within a browser. Support for the Extensible Markup Language (XML) makes it simple for users to integrate data, such as metadata and forms data in Adobe PDF files, with back-end systems. And stronger integration with enterprise deployment tools enables IT professionals to auto-install and maintain Acrobat 5.0 over a network to thousands of multi-user or lockdown desktop systems." [Full context]

• [March 12, 2001]   Tibco Releases Commercial Version of XML Canon/Developer.    An announcement from TIBCO Software Inc. describes the availability of XML Canon/Developer (XCD) which "enables organizations to build an XML infrastructure that accesses, stores, and integrates the vocabulary from schemas or DTDs in any XML-based application. XCD supports a 'logical schema analysis' approach for creating XML vocabularies and grammars which can then be re-purposed with new semantic meaning." XCD features include support for design-time repository for XML assets (document-level and component-level object control from a centralized repository) and distributed Web-based access to an organization's XML assets repository. The Web-based interface also leverages the Internet for collaboration with suppliers, customers, trading partners and industry groups. XCD "enables the analysis of schemas and DTDs at the component-level by creating a data dictionary or vocabulary of an Enterprise's XML assets; this Enterprise vocabulary can then be browsed, searched, and re-constructed to create an infinite set of new semantically different schemas." [Full context]

• [March 10, 2001]   Amaio Technologies Releases 'Xeddy' Version 1.0 Java XML Editor.    A posting from Pavel Makovec of Amaio Technologies, Inc. announces the release of a pure Java XML editor Xeddy 1.0 with free download and evaluation. A standalone version 'Xeddy 1.0 Standa' and a JBuilder Plug-in version 'Xeddy 1.0 JB' are available. Xeddy is said to provide DTD support: "If an XML DTD is used, the system offers 'Add submenu' (of context menu) with a list of subnodes available to add; if special ordering of nodes is required, Xeddy will recognize this and add the new subnode in the correct position. Xeddy may be configured for use with any XML parser (i.e., any SAX/2 parser that supports the Location feature). For viewing, Xeddy offers a formatted tree structure as well as 'text'; the inspector allows filtering of displayed information: to subnodes only, attributes only or all. Sorting all information is also possible and is easily accessible from the inspector panel. The system supports 'Show in code' function, which selects part of the XML code related to the selected node. The system supports the creation of customized applications with 'business logic' for your XML documents." Not to be confused with Henry Thompson's 'XED: An XML document instance editor'. [Full context]

• [March 09, 2001]   W3C Annotea Project Supports Collaboration on the Web.    W3C's Annotea Project, representing part of the W3C Semantic Web Activity, has been designed to "enhance the W3C collaboration environment with a system of shared annotations. 'Annotations' are external remarks attached to any Web document -- comments, notes, explanations, or other types of external remarks that can be attached to any Web document or a selected part of the document without actually needing to touch the document. When the user gets the document he can also load the annotations attached to it from a selected annotation server or several servers and see what his peer group thinks. The first client implementation of Annotea is W3C's Amaya browser and authoring tool. Annotea is 'open': it uses and helps to advance W3C standards when possible. For instance, the teams use an RDF based annotation schema for describing annotations as metadata and XPointer for locating the annotations in the annotated document." The public is invited to test the server/client tool; for testing purposes W3C offers a public annotation service. [Full context]

• [March 09, 2001]   White Paper Demonstrates 'Modeling XHTML with UML' and XML Schema Generation.    A communiqué from Dave Carlson (Ontogenics Corp., Boulder, Colorado) reports on creation of an XML Schema that covers all of XHTML Basic (this may be the first complete XML Schema for XHTML Basic). Details are given in the white paper Modeling XHTML with UML. Carlson writes: "There are a 3-4 situations where it is a bit lenient in accepting markup that it shouldn't, but overall it seems to work quite well. This model makes very heavy use of inheritance to capture the XHTML concept of content groups, such as Flow, Block, Inline, etc. I have generated two different schemas: one uses extension of complexType definitions, the other employs a copy-down strategy to avoid extension. Both schemas work with the XSV validator... What's interesting about this is that the schema was automatically generated from a UML model. The white paper includes all the UML class diagrams for the XHTML Basic modules. I've written a schema generator that produces schemas from any UML tool that can export an XMI 1.0 document representing the model. This model of XHTML was created using Rational Rose... the generated schema also provides a good stress test case for validation tools." [Full context]

• [March 09, 2001]   XSLT Processor 'jd.xslt' Supports XSLT 1.1 Features.    A posting from Johannes Döbler (Munich, Germany) announces the availability of an XSLT processor which implements the W3C XSLT 1.1 Working Draft of 12-December-2000 and the XPath 1.0 Recommendation. "The XSLT 1.1 features include multiple output documents via the xsl:document element, node-sets as value of variables, and support for the notorious xsl:script element. Supported script languages include Java (native), Javascript, JScript, VBscript, PerlScript, JPython, Jacl, NetReXX, BML (via IBM's Bean Scripting Framework). Performance measurements taken with XSLTMark indicate superior performance compared to other widely used XSLT implementations. The tool is written in Java (requires a JDK version 1.1 or higher) and is available under the Mozilla Public License 1.1." [Full context]

• [March 08, 2001]   Bea Presents Proposed Business Transaction Protocol Version 1.0 to OASIS TC.    BEA Systems, Inc. has submitted a proposed Business Transaction Protocol (BTP) specification to the OASIS Business Transactions Technical Committee. Authored by Sanjay Dalal and Pal Takacsi-Nagy, the 'starting point' specification proposal outlines a protocol "which can be used to orchestrate long running, inter-enterprise business transactions. It addresses the unique requirements of business-to-business transactions. BTP is based on the multi-level transaction model that provides the necessary independence for the participating resource managers -- in this case the B2B servers of companies engaging in business transactions." Document abstract: "Long lasting business transactions spanning multiple enterprises pose a unique challenge to B2B systems. The interdependent workflows among multiple trading partners, which drive business transactions, need to be coordinated to ensure that the outcome of the transaction is reliable. In this document we propose a solution to this problem in the form of a Business Transaction Protocol (BTP). B2B servers participating in business transactions over the Internet are expected to implement BTP to orchestrate multi-enterprise transactions." [Full context]

• [March 08, 2001]   BPMI.org Releases Draft Specification for the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML).    The Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org) has announced the publication of a proposed draft specification for the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML). BPML is "a meta-language for the modeling of business processes,just as XML is a meta-language for the modeling of business data. BPML provides an abstracted execution model for collaborative and transactional business processes that span multiple applications and business partners,behind the firewall and over the Internet,across multiple verticals." Appendix A of the 155-page 'Version 0.4' specification supplies the XML schema for BPML; future working drafts of BPML are expected to track with the W3C XML Schema specification. The BPMI initiative is supported by some 84 members; its mission "is to promote and develop the use of Business Process Management (BPM) through the establishment of standards for process design, deployment, execution, maintenance, and optimization. BPMI.org develops open specifications, assists IT vendors for marketing their implementations, and supports businesses for using Business Process Management technologies." Coordinate with BPML, BPMI.org is developing a specification for The Business Process Query Language (BPQL). BPQL "is a management interface to a business process management infrastructure that includes a process execution facility (Process Server) and a process deployment facility (Process Repository). The BPQL interface to a Process Server enables business analysts to query the state and control the execution of process instances managed by the Process Server. This interface is based on the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)." [Full context]

• [March 07, 2001]   DeltaXML Tools for XML File Comparison and Management.    A communiqué from Robin LaFontaine describes the release of Monsell's new 'Delta XML' standalone tools for comparing XML documents and comparing complex data in XML. The 'DeltaXML' range of products "help identify and monitor changes to XML documents and data files. The software compares XML documents and data files and generates a delta file in XML. The delta file can be displayed directly or using XSL style sheets (examples included in the download), or processed for other purposes using standard XML tools. For those using a specific XML format (DTD), DeltaXML DTD can provide an even more intelligent comparison, based on the actual allowed structure of the files. This will produce smaller and more accurate change files and enable handling of data that is not inherently ordered. Applications of DeltaXML include: (1) regression testing of XML software, (2) XML file updates, (3) displaying changes for review and authorization, (4) checking changes made by hand to XML documents and data." [Full context]

• [March 07, 2001]   PRISM Working Group Publishes Last Call Draft for the PRISM Metadata/Syndication Specification.    A posting from Ron Daniel (Co-chair, PRISM Working Group) announces the public release of a 'last call' version of the PRISM metadata specification. The Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata (PRISM) specification "is a standard for content description, interchange, and reuse in both traditional and electronic publishing contexts. PRISM defines an extensible, RDF-compliant metadata framework, a rich set of descriptive elements, and vocabularies for the values of those elements. The specification is intended to meet the needs of publishers and other organizations who produce and/or disseminate information. The PRISM specification uses XML + namespaces, RDF, and the Dublin Core namespace. It now adds a new namespace containing more detailed elements than those from the Dublin Core, and also adds namespaces for simple representation of controlled vocabularies and for a simple rights & permissions language." The working group plans to deliver Version 1.0 of the PRISM specification on April 9, 2001 in conjunction with the Seybold conference. [Full context]

• [March 07, 2001]   BASDA Leads Initiative to Develop eBuild-XML Standard for House Builders and Suppliers.    An announcement from Causeway Technologies Inc. describes a new effort by forty-some companies to design an XML-based B2B e-commerce system for builders and suppliers. eBuild-XML is "a joint initiative formed by [a core group of] sixteen of the largest UK house builders to aid the development of e-commerce in their sector, to reduce costs, and to improve efficiency. The eBuild-XML initiative is being led by BASDA (the Business Application Software Developers Association). It is helping the house builders and suppliers to develop a B2B e-commerce system that will initially enable them to exchange orders and invoices electronically between their different computer systems. Some forty companies, including most of the major house builders, are working together with suppliers to develop electronic orders and invoices based on BASDA's existing XML message standard. The concept of eBuild-XML is to be a low cost initiative that any supplier or house builder can join. Work has already begun to define message standards to handle the specialist information that is required in the housing industry and a series of pilot schemes to test the message will begin shortly." [Full context]

• [March 07, 2001]   SmarTeam Inc. Announces iXF Format for Product And Plant Information Exchange.    An announcement from Smart Solutions and SmarTeam Inc. describes a new XML-based technology initiative for product and plant information exchange and enterprise application integration. iXF is an "XML-based industry standard for integrating and exchanging product, plant, or project information throughout Discrete and Process manufacturing enterprises and their supply chains. iXF is an open and extensible standard for transferring data, metadata and related files. The iXF format is designed to provide a simple way for OEMs, parts suppliers, and any participant in the product or plant development chain to exchange information electronically, accurately and securely. As the iXF format is based on XML, it is compatible with a wide array of business data exchange conventions, including Microsoft Corporation's BizTalk and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). It enables the transfer of a self-describing collection of objects and associated files between two systems." iXF uses ZIP as a packaging format, W3C XML Schema language as a schema description format, and SOAP as the encoding format. In addition to objects and files, an iXF file can contain delta-based description of previous revisions of the objects, change tracking information, object hierarchies and relationships, and schemas for the contained objects. [Full context]

• [March 06, 2001]   XML Database Discussion List.    A posting from Kimbro Staken (Chief Technology Officer, dbXML Group L.L.C.) announces the formation of a new mailing list for general discussions about XML database technologies. The mailing list is hosted by the XML:DB XML Database initiative. The list is designed as a "vendor neutral open forum and discussion of any topic related to XML database technology and standards is acceptable and encouraged." The forum is not intended for marketing, although announcements are acceptable if the list guidelines are followed. The new list had some 60 subscribers as of February 26, 2001, and is publicly archived. [Full context]

• [March 06, 2001]   ebXML Core Component and Business Process Specifications Available for Review.    ebXML Chair Klaus-Dieter Naujok announced the availability of review specifications for ebXML Core Components and Business Process. The review materials include three Core Components reference documents and the draft Core Components specification in four parts. (1) ebXML Methodology for the Discovery and Analysis of Core Components; (2) ebXML Core Components Dictionary Entry Naming Conventions; (3) The Role of Context in The Re-Usability of Core Components and Business Processes (4) ebXML Specification for the Application of XML Based Assembly and Context Rules. Supporting documentation includes an ebXML White Paper for the eBusiness community, "Core Component and Business Process Document Overview v1.01." Comments may be sent to the CC project editor, James Whittle. The review period for the ebXML draft ends 18-March-2001. ebXML is "a joint initiative of the United Nations (UN/CEFACT) and OASIS, developed with global participation for global usage; its vision is to enable a global electronic marketplace where enterprises of any size and in any geographical location can meet and conduct business with each other through the exchange of XML based messages." [Full context]

• [March 06, 2001]   Cycorp to Release OpenCyc Version of 'Common Sense Knowledge Base' in DAML Format.    A recent announcement from Douglas B. Lenat of Cycorp, Inc. outlines the planned release of an open access ("OpenCyc") format of the expanded version of Cycorp's "Cyc" Common Sense Knowledge Base. "The expanded Cyc ontology will be released in several formats in order to promote the widest adoption of this technology, and to facilitate the seamless integration of new and existing ontologies. One format will be Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Agent Markup Language (DAML), which adds semantic statements on top of XML, and is currently being considered as a standard for the W3C Semantic Web." The Cyc knowledge base is "built upon a core of over 1,000,000 hand-entered assertions (or 'rules') designed to capture a large portion of what we normally consider consensus knowledge about the world." The announcment was made by Lenat in his opening plenary keynote address at the GCA's Knowledge Technologies 2001 Conference. [Full context]

• [March 05, 2001]   OASIS Releases Second Edition of the XML Conformance Test Suite.    A joint announcement from OASIS and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) describes the public availability of the OASIS XML Conformance Test Suite, second edition. The conformance test suite has been updated to be in synchronization with XML 1.0 Second Edition, Recommendation. The test suite has been produced by the OASIS XML Conformance Technical Committee in conjunction with the W3C XML Core Working Group, resulting in the development of "comprehensive testing scenarios which now integrate over 1000 new tests contributed by IBM and modification of the test suite to be consistent with changes to the XML recommendation." [Full context]

• [March 03, 2001]   Reuters Research and Standards Group Releases 800,000 XML-encoded News Stories.    The Reuters Research and Standards Group (RSG) has announced that it will release a free archive of over 800,000 news stories in XML markup for use in research and development of natural-language-processing, information-retrieval or document-understanding systems. The Reuters Corpus "offers researchers a unique body of static information upon which to research, test and benchmark emerging technologies. These include research into language processing, speech synthesis, voice recognition, indexation, search and information retrieval. The archive includes all English language stories produced by Reuters globally between 20-August-1996 and 19-August-1997. The news data is available on two CD-ROMs and formatted in XML to make it easier to use as a research tool. All the news stories are fully referenced using a total of 775 different category codes for topic, geography and industry sector. As part of the research agreement covering use of the archive, researchers will supply Reuters with a copy of any material published using the data. Working with this feedback from research groups, Reuters hopes to bring out other Corpora including multi-lingual versions and volumes covering other date ranges." [Full context]

• [March 03, 2001]   Music and Lyrics Markup Language (4ML).    A communiqué from Leo Montgomery describes current development of 4ML for music representation: "4ML is an XML-compliant Music and Lyrics Markup Language; development is supported on the SourceForge forum 'fourml', which provides a collection of example applications using the 4ML language." The design goal is to create "a single, flexible, platform-independant way to describe music and lyrics that can be used by musicians and programmers alike." 4ML is formally specified in an XML DTD. The developers envision a range of applications that might make use of music encoded in 4ML, for example: "(1) A song could be written on a standard musical staff; (2) The lyrics to a song, with accompanying simplified guitar chords, could be the output; (3) The song could be played over a speaker; (4) A MIDI file could be produced; (5) A song could be written as guitar tablature; (6) The lyrics could be shown on the screen, with a kareoke-syle bouncing ball." The developers welcome reviewer feedback on this XML application. [Full context]

• [March 03, 2001]   Quotation Exchange Language (QEL).    A communiqué from A.M. Kuchling reports on the creation of an XML-based application for managing quotations. The Quotation Exchange Language (QEL) is an XML language for exchanging collections of quotations, and is supported by software tools consisting of Python scripts. Kuchling has prepared sample online quotation collections, including a primary collection with 'over 275K of quotations'. Other collections include quotations from Canadian author Robertson Davies; various quotations from comic books; quotations from director and writer Peter Greenaway; amusing quotes seen in comp.lang.python or about Python; quotations from Tom Baker's autobiography 'Who on Earth is Tom Baker?'; quotations about cryptography and Internet anonymity; and a growing collection of quotes from Doctor Who. These collections "are maintained in XML, and converted into HTML, Unix fortune(1) format, and plain text by qtfmt.py, which provides an interesting small example of processing XML using the Python implementation of SAX (Simple API for XML). The author has prepared a Python 'quotation-tools package' for parsing and formatting QEL quotation collections, and tools for working with QEL files, such as qtgrep for searching them, and qtformat for converting QEL to various formats. [Full context]

• [March 02, 2001]   W3C Publishes XML Binding Language (XBL) Specification.    The W3C has acknowledged receipt of a submission from America Online, Inc. (through mozilla.org) for XBL: XML Binding Language. According to the W3C NOTE, XBL is an XML markup language "for describing bindings that can be attached to elements in other documents. Bindings can be attached to elements using either cascading stylesheets (CSS) or the document object model (DOM). The element that the binding is attached to, called the bound element, acquires the new behavior specified by the binding. Bindings can contain event handlers that are registered on the bound element, an implementation of new methods and properties that become accessible from the bound element, and anonymous content that is inserted underneath the bound element." The XBL submission represents "a further development of two earlier submissions; it combines an XML-based wrapper format with CSS, ECMAScript and the DOM, to define the look and behavior of elements in HTML or XML-based documents (especially form elements). Apart from the XML-based wrapper format, it proposes an extension to CSS and new functions for the DOM." [Full context]

• [March 02, 2001]   AgXML Develops XML-based Business Process Standards for the Grain and Oilseed Industry.    A new web site was recently opened for AgXML, a group of companies committed to the creation of XML-based standards that will bring "the efficiencies of ecommerce to grain- and oilseed-related business processes." Some 34 companies or organizations are currently active in the AgXML work. The group has produced some draft XML schemas for contracts and high-level UML activity diagrams and use cases for contracts; work has begun converting the documentation to UML activity diagrams and use cases. Plans are being made for companies "to create at least two sample XML instance documents reflecting the content of typical and complex contracts, grain certifications, weight certifications, and bill of lading." [Full context]

• [March 02, 2001]   iPlanet XMLDAP Gateway Supports DSML.    Christine Tomlinson (iPlanet Directory Engineering) announced the availability of the iPlanet XMLDAP Gateway Version 1.0 beta among the current Netscape Directory Tools: "our iPlanet XMLDAP Gateway provides some ideas that may well useful to DSML 2.0. We are currently working on a version that will supercede this one and expect to have a draft specification within the next three weeks." According to the published description, The XMLDAP Gateway is "a flexible, standards based solution that is targeted toward web developers that need to present LDAP Directory data in mulitple formats such as XML, HTML, WML, DSML, VXML etc. The XMLDAP Gateway enables developers to use the included XML Tag Library to retrieve data from the directory. Depending on the template, the format of the rendered data from the XSLT translation engine can take the form of HTML, WML, DSML, XML etc. The templates are presented to the application using JAVA." Java 1.1 or above is required. [Full context]

• [March 01, 2001]   ATIS Develops the Telecommunications Markup Language (tML).    The ATIS Technical Subcommittee T1M1 (Internetwork Operations, Administration, Maintenance and Provisioning) is developing a Telecommunications Markup Language (tML) standard which would govern telecommunications network management. This ATIS [Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions] standards work was announced in May 2000, and a "tML Framework Document" released recently outlines a definition for the development of interoperable XML-based interfaces. "The goal for use of the Framework is to guide the development of tML schemas and vocabularies and to provide a common method for the definition of tML data to be exchanged and to provide a mapping to existing standards to promote re-use whenever possible. The scope of the tML Framework consists of: (1) a set of rules and objectives to be applied in developing standardized schemas based on existing models in standards; (2) specification of common tML tags, namespaces, and URIs; (3) transformation of existing definitions in external libraries for use with tML; and (4) requirements for repositories and registries." ATIS is a member company organization that defines standards and operating procedures for the telecommunications industry; its work is suported by some 2,500 experts from 500 telecommunications companies. [Full context]

• [March 01, 2001]   W3C's Modularization of XHTML Specification Advances to Proposed Recommendation.    The W3C specification for the Modularization of XHTML has passed CR review and has been promoted to a W3C Proposed Recommendation. The Proposed Recommendation "specifies an abstract modularization of XHTML and an implementation of the abstraction using XML Document Type Definitions (DTDs). This modularization provides a means for subsetting and extending XHTML, a feature needed for extending XHTML's reach onto emerging platforms... XHTML is the reformulation of HTML 4 as an application of XML. XHTML 1.0 specifies three XML document types that correspond to the three HTML 4 DTDs: Strict, Transitional, and Frameset. XHTML 'Modularization' is a decomposition of XHTML 1.0, and by reference HTML 4, into a collection of abstract modules that provide specific types of functionality; these abstract modules are implemented in the specification using the XML Document Type Definition language, but an implementation using XML Schemas is expected." [Full context]

• [February 28, 2001]   ASN.1 Markup Language (AML).    In the context of a discussion on XML compression, Olivier Dubuisson (France Telecom R&D) has described an XML-based "ASN.1 Markup Language" now under development. According to the documentation, this new form of ASN.1 value notation "was created in Geneva during the January joint meeting of the SG 7 and SC 6 groups, and the format of this value notation is based on XML. This work allows ASN.1 values to be transferred or displayed in a variety of textual of binary formats (PER BER HTML XML plain text, etc.); users can leverage browsers for XML display and still have efficient binary transfer in BER..." ASN.1 is "a formal notation used for describing data transmitted by telecommunications protocols, regardless of language implementation and physical representation of these data." Dubuisson reports that the the ASN.1 Project from ITU-T is actually working jointly with ISO on two initiatives: (1) An XML value notation for ASN.1 types (or 'ASN.1 Markup Language') that allow to write values by way of an XML markup whose tags are derivated from the ASN.1 type names. Such an XML value notation can appear in an ASN.1 module, and can be used to display ASN.1 values with an XML browser. When appended with an XML document header and footer, this value notation turns into what could be called 'XML Encoding Rules for ASN.1'. This will be a standard named 'ITU-T Recommendation X.693 - ISO/IEC 8825-4'. (2) An XML Schema to ASN.1 mapping that keeps all the information contained in an XML Schema and translates it into equivalent ASN.1 types and subtype constraints." [Full context]

• [February 28, 2001]   Draft Version of The Upper Cyc Ontology in XML Topic Map Representation.    Murray Altheim (Sun Microsystems) announced the availability of a draft version of the Upper Cyc Ontology in XTM (XML Topic Map) format. Reference: Sun Microsystems Technical Report 27-February-2001. The Technical Report "documents research and development of an XML Topic Map (XTM) representation of the Upper Cyc Ontology, including a distribution of five XTM topic maps based on features of the ontology. The Technical Report plus any associated software and/or documentation may be submitted to TopicMaps.Org with the goal of promoting XML Topic Maps (XTM) as a suitable ontological framework, as well as a source of XTM Published Subject Indicators (PSIs)." The Upper Cyc Ontology knowledge base stores some 3,000 terms "capturing the most general concepts of human consensus reality; it also represents a vast structure of more specific concepts descending below this upper level: logical axioms (rules and other assertions) which specify constraints on the individual objects and classes found in the real world." [Full context]

• [February 28, 2001]   Geography Markup Language (GML) Version 2.0 Based on