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• [June 30, 2003]   IBM alphaWorks Releases Web Services for DB2 Cube Views.    Web Services for DB2 Cube Views has been released by IBM alphaWorks labs as the latest example of emerging 'alpha code' technologies. Web Services for DB2 Cube Views provides "access to multidimensional data stored in DB2. These Web services allow a client application to read data from the cubes and perform basic online analysis on multidimensional data and metadata through the Web, using XPath and XML. OLAP applications working on top of relational data must generate multipass SQL statements and then do further processing on rows returned. Web Services for DB2 Cube Views is an all-XML solution for querying OLAP metadata and data. It uses IBM DB2 Cube Views to retrieve OLAP metadata. Web Services for DB2 Cube Views can also be viewed as an extension to other XML-based database query processors, such as XML for Tables. While basic XML engines map plain relational tables into XML documents, Web Services for DB2 Cube Views add a multidimensional structure with aggregation hierarchies. The query language is still XML-based. Actually, XPath is reused as a query language for OLAP cubes. The client application, or, more specifically, the programmer of the application, is not required to understand a specialized OLAP query language. The similarity to other XML-based query systems is an important design goal." [Full context]

• [June 30, 2003]   Public Comment Draft for the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP).    A posting from Art Botterell announces the publication of a draft Common Alerting Protocol specification, released for public comment at the recent 13th World Conference on Disaster Management in Toronto. This discussion draft was produced by the OASIS Emergency Management Messages and Notification Subcommittee and is supported by the Partnership for Public Warning (PPW). The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is "an open, non-proprietary standard for the exchange of emergency alerts and public warnings over data networks and computer-controlled warning systems. CAP is a simple but general format that allows a consistent warning message to be disseminated simultaneously over many different warning systems, thus increasing warning effectiveness while simplifying the warning task. It also facilitates the detection of emerging patterns in local warnings of various kinds, such as might indicate an undetected hazard or hostile act. CAP provides a template for effective warning messages based on best practices identified in academic research and real-world experience." [Full context]

• [June 27, 2003]   OASIS Member Companies Host SPML Identity Management Interoperability Event.    OASIS has announced a first public demonstration of the Service Provisioning Markup Language Specification (SPML) Version 1.0 in an interoperability event to be held on July 9, 2003 at the Burton Catalyst Conference in San Francisco. "SPML is an XML-based framework for exchanging and administering user access rights and resource information across heterogeneous environments. Ten members of the OASIS standards consortium will come together at Catalyst to prove the stability of the new specification and demonstrate interoperability between SPML-conformant security software products. SPML lets organizations automate, centralize, and manage the process of provisioning user access to internal and external corporate systems and data. SPML has been designed to work with the World Wide Web Consortium's SOAP, the OASIS Standard SAML, the OASIS WS-Security specification, and other open standards that allow companies to securely leverage Web services. The SPML specification is currently in a public review period which occurs prior to being submitted to the OASIS membership at-large for consideration as an OASIS Standard. SPML is one of several security standards being developed at OASIS. Other standards and specifications include WS-Security for high-level security services, XACML for access control, XCBF for describing biometrics data, and SAML for exchanging authentication and authorization information." [Full context]

• [June 27, 2003]   Six New Internet Drafts from the IETF Geographic Location/Privacy Working Group.    Geopriv Location Object Markup Language and Geopriv Authorization Policies are two of (at least) six new Internet Drafts published in June 2003 as candidate work by members of the IETF Geographic Location/Privacy (GEOPRIV) Working Group. This IETF WG was chartered to "assess the authorization, integrity, and privacy requirements that must be met in order to transfer such information, or authorize the release or representation of such information through an agent. Its goal is to produce a specification that has broad applicablity and will become mandatory to implement for IETF protocols that are location-aware." The draft Geopriv Location Object Markup Language document "presents a foundational version of a markup language suitable for representing the Geopriv Location Object (LO); this language is defined by means of a W3C XML schema." The Authorization Policies draft proposes the use of the XML-based XACML (Extensible Access Control Markup Language) standard to express policies for access to location information. The GEOPRIV Working Group is beginning a new phase of activity to formally define the Geopriv Location Object. [Full context]

• [June 26, 2003]   ebXML Registry Specifications Support Federation and Content Management Services.    The OASIS ebXML Registry Technical Committee has voted to approve the latest versions of its OASIS/ebXML Registry Services Specification v2.5 and OASIS/ebXML Registry Information Model v2.5 as Committee Specifications. The ebXML Registry "provides a set of services that enable sharing of information between interested parties for the purpose of enabling business process integration between such parties based on the ebXML specifications. The shared information is maintained as objects in a repository and managed by the ebXML Registry Services defined in this document. Such information is used to facilitate ebXML-based Business to Business (B2B) partnerships and transactions. Submitted content may be XML schema and documents, process descriptions, ebXML Core Components, context descriptions, UML models, information about parties and even software components. New enhancements and features in the Version 2.5 release include: (1) Content based event subscription and notification; (2) content management services, supporting automatic semantic content validation, automatic content cataloging, and plug-in support for user-defined content management services; (3) a distributed registry based on a federated model. The Distributed Registry includes features for federated query support, linking of content and metadata across registry boundaries, replication of content and metadata among registries, and moving of content and metadata from one registry to another as needed. Access control and authorization is based on the XACML 1.0 standard, and provides for fine-grained, or custom access control and authorization." [Full context]

• [June 25, 2003]   OASIS Members Form Materials Markup Language Technical Committee.    OASIS has announced the formation of a new Materials Markup Language Technical Committee. The published goal of the MML TC is to "enhance the e-business needs of materials producers, designers, fabricators, quality assurance, and failure analysis specialists by developing an XML-based standard markup language for the exchange of all types of materials technical information. In the context of this application, 'materials' includes, but is not necessarily limited to, all materials of construction, including metals, plastics, ceramics, and composites, and all of the elemental components of these materials. The breadth of technical information includes but is not necessarily limited to: compositions, mechanical properties, physical properties, performance characteristics, and micrographic information, all in tabular, graphical, or photographic formats." The MML TC activity will include an evaluation of the existing MatML materials markup language developed at NIST and published as a Version 3.0 Schema specification in March 2003. The developers of MatML intend to contribute this technical work to the new MML TC. The OASIS TC Chair is Brett Johanson (Boeing); the first meeting of the TC will be held as telconference on September 17, 2003. [Full context]

• [June 24, 2003]   IBM Development Team Publishes Updated DITA Toolkit and Language Reference.    An announcement from Don R. Day (IBM) describes the release of an updated version 1.1.2 toolkit for the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), available from IBM's developerWorks XML Zone. This is a stable version of the toolkit, representing "the culmination of the past year's testing and implementation of the DTDs in IBM's internal authoring and production workbench." The new release includes a 198-page formal DITA Language Reference featuring hyperlinked descriptions of DITA elements, attributes, valid contexts, and examples. An entirely new XML Schema instance of the DITA specialization architecture is supplied. Demonstrations are provided to illustrate specializations for 'FAQ' and 'element reference' info-types and for map-driven delivery contexts for aggregated topics and Eclipse helpsets. Updates to the XSLT transform support consistent usage of a shell interface mirroring the DTD structures. Also provided is documentation for processing parameters and transform tweaks. DITA is "an XML-based, end-to-end architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. This architecture consists of a set of design principles for creating information-typed modules at a topic level and for using that content in delivery modes such as online help and product support portals on the Web." [Full context]

• [June 24, 2003]   SOAP Version 1.2 Published as a W3C Recommendation.    The World Wide Web Consortium has released SOAP Version 1.2 as a W3C Recommendation. Final 'Recommendation' is "the equivalent of a Web standard, indicating that this W3C-developed specification is stable, contributes to Web interoperability, and has been reviewed by the W3C Membership, who favor its adoption by the industry. SOAP Version 1.2 is a lightweight protocol intended for exchanging structured information in a decentralized, distributed environment such as the Web. As an XML-based messaging framework for building distributed applications on the Web, SOAP Version 1.2 offers several benefits over SOAP/1.1. It is: (1) Cleaner, providing clear processing and extensibility models, with increased interoperability; (2) More integrated, designed for better integration with XML standards and the architecture of the Web; (3) More versatile, specifying a binding framework that provides protocol independence; (4) Faster, based upon XML Infoset that supports performance optimizations." The W3C Recommendation is published in four parts, including: SOAP Version 1.2 Part 0: Primer, SOAP Version 1.2 Part 1: Messaging Framework, SOAP Version 1.2 Part 2: Adjuncts, and SOAP Version 1.2 Specification Assertions and Test Collection. [Full context]

• [June 19, 2003]   Namespace Routing Language (NRL) Supports Multiple Independent Namespaces.    James Clark has announced the publication of a Namespace Routing Language (NRL) specification. NRL is "an XML language for combining schemas for multiple namespaces; it allow the schemas that it combines to use arbitrary schema languages." The release includes a tutorial and specification document and a sample implementation in the Jing (RELAX NG Validator in Java) distribution. NRL "is the successor to Clark's Modular Namespaces (MNS) language and is intended to be another step on the path towards Document Schema Definition Languages (DSDL) Part 4." The W3C XML Namespaces Recommendation itself "allows an XML document to be composed of elements and attributes from multiple independent namespaces: each of these namespaces may have its own schema and the schemas for different namespaces may be in different schema languages. The problem then arises of how the schemas can be composed in order to allow validation of the complete document." The Namespace Routing Language attempts to solve this problem. Among the features and benefits of NRL: it supports schema language coexistence, allows extension of schemas not designed to be extended, makes authoring of extensible schemas easier supports 'transparent' namespaces, allows contextual control of extension, and allows concurrent validation. "For RELAX NG, it can be used to provide some of the namespace-based modularity features that are built-in to XSD. NRL is designed to allow an implementation to stream, and the sample implementation does so. The sample implementation has a SAX-based plug-in architecture that allows new schema languages to be added dynamically. It comes with support for RELAX NG (both XML and compact syntax), W3C XML Schema (via a wrapper around Xerces-J), Schematron, and (recursively) NRL; it can also use any schema language with an implementation that supports the JARV interface." [Full context]

• [June 19, 2003]   UK Office of Government Commerce and BASDA Conduct eProcurement Assessment Trials.    An announcement from the UK Office of Government Commerce (OGC) and the Business Applications Software Developers Association (BASDA) describes a new testing program designed to discover how different purchasing software packages may best interoperate, based upon common IT standards for eProcurement. BASDA Members taking part in the trial include Agresso, Capita Education Services, Microsoft Business Solutions, Oracle, Sage, and SAP. The project uses an implementation of the BASDA eBIS-XML Data Suite standard which "has already been proved commercially across Europe; it enables software to generate and read the standard XML based documents which cuts costs and eliminates re-keying." The technical objective of the Proof of Concept trials is for a version of eBIS-XML Order and Invoice schemas to become compliant with the eGovernment Interoperability Framework (e-GIF). UK e-GIF sets out the policy and standards for interoperability across the public sector and is effectively the Government's standard system requirement, with which any 'cross government' system would need to comply. The XML Schemas must also conform to OGC's eProcurement Functional Requirements Specification. The goal of the project is to enable easier access to the government marketplace for smaller suppliers (SMEs)." [Full context]

• [June 18, 2003]   Updated Unicode Technical Report Clarifies Characters not Suitable for Use With Markup.    A revised version of Unicode in XML and other Markup Languages has been published as Unicode Technical Report #20, Revision 7 and as W3C Note 13-June-2003. This revision reflects three principal changes: (1) The base version of the Unicode Standard for this document is Unicode Version 4.0, which creates some 1,226 new Unicode character assignments; greater prominence is given to material in a new Section 3, "Characters Not Suitable for Use With Markup"; (3) a new Section 6 clarifies the appropriate uses of 66 non-character code points, or Unicode noncharacters. Section 3 discusses characters "which are unsuitable in the context of markup in XML/HTML and whose use is discouraged for one or more reasons; for exmaple, they are deprecated in the Unicode Standard, they are unsupportable without additional data, they are difficult to handle because they are stateful, they are better handled by markup, or because of conflict with equivalent markup." For the character classes in question, the Technical Report provides a short description of semantics, the reason for inclusion of the characters in Unicode, clarification of the specific problems when used with markup, related areas where problems may occur (e.g., in plain text), what kind of markup to use instead of Unicode characters, and what different classes of software should do if the problematic characters detected in a particular context. [Full context]

• [June 18, 2003]   OASIS Entity Resolution TC Approves XML Catalogs Specification for Public Review.    Members of the OASIS Entity Resolution Technical Committee have voted to approve the latest revision of the XML Catalogs specification as a Committee Specification and to submit the document for public review. The XML Catalogs specification describes an interoperable method for mapping the information in an XML external identifier into a URI reference for the XML external resource. An entity catalog is defined for this purpose, designed to handle "two simple cases: (1) mapping an external entity's public identifier and/or system identifier to a URI reference; (2) mapping the URI reference of a resource (a namespace name, stylesheet, image, etc.) to another URI reference." Three non-normative appendices provide formal definitions for the XML Catalog, including W3C XML Schema, RELAX NG Grammar, and XML DTD. The OASIS TC was chartered in October 2000 to provide an XML syntax for a simple entity catalog format, as envisioned in an earlier OASIS Technical Resolution. A 30-day public review of the XML Catalogs specification will take place from June 18, 2003 through July 18, 2003 in preparation for consideration of the specification as an OASIS Open standard. [Full context]

• [June 17, 2003]   Universal Postal Union Publishes Approved International Address Standard UPU S42-1.    A communiqué from Joe Lubenow describes the publication of International Postal Address Components and Templates by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) as Standard S42-1. The specification had been approved by the UPU Standards Board for further testing in November, 2002. As summarized in Lubenow's overview document, the UPU address standard defines elements, address templates, and rendition instructions. Based upon CEN's "Components of Postal Addresses" specification the UPU standard defines a comprehensive list of name and address elements corresponding to "the smallest meaningful parts of names and addresses. This set of elements has been extended as necessary to cover additional situations, but so far has been sufficient to represent names and addresses in a number of non-European countries, including the US, taking account of some terminological differences." The UPU address templates define "unique combinations and orderings of elements, or in more general terms, address types, within a country. Templates in UPU S42 are described both in natural language and using an XML format known as the Postal Address Template Description Language (PATDL). Rendition instructions govern "the production of addresses on an output medium such as an address label or a computer display screen. Included in the standard is a registry of rendition instructions, which can be formatting rules for final presentation, including abbreviation and prioritization of data elements when there are constraints on available space." An IDEAlliance ADIS work group is developing an implementation of the UPU S42 standard within the broader context of business mail; ADIS allows address data to be described in XML and provides additional user options/extensions, while supporting all the elements of UPU S42 and the PATDL template description language. [Full context]

• [June 16, 2003]   Updated W3C Working Draft for Call Control Extensible Markup Language (CCXML).    The W3C Voice Browser Working Group has released an updated working draft specification for Voice Browser Call Control: CCXML Version 1.0. The CCXML specification defines declarative markup designed "to provide telephony call control support for VoiceXML or other dialog systems. CCXML is an adjunct language intended to complement and integrate with a VoiceXML system. The document contains references to VoiceXML's capabilities and limitations, and provides details on how VoiceXML and CCXML can be integrated. However, the two languages are separate and neither is required for an implementation of the other. CCXML can be integrated with a traditional IVR system, and VoiceXML can interface with other call control systems." The changes in this third working draft are substantial, as identified in the separate changed marked 'diff' version and summarized in Appendix G. The 2003-06-12 release "includes major revisions to the call control and media models to better specify the behavior and includes full details on all call control objects and events; a number of attribute names were updated to make the specification more consistent." [Full context]

• [June 13, 2003]   CSIRO Publishes IETF Internet Draft for Continuous Media Markup Language (CMML).    Researchers at CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences have published an IETF Internet Draft for Specification of the Continuous Media Markup Language (CMML) Version 1.0, serving as a companion to the Specification of the ANNODEX Annotation Format for Time-Continuous Bitstreams Version 1.0. The XML-based ANNODEX Annotation Format and CMML are designed to solve the problem of "dark matter" on the Internet: continuous media files such as audio and video files are typically unsearchable, and thus are not indexed by common text-based search engines. Such multimedia files also represent dead ends in that, "by consuming their content, the hyperlinking functionality of the Web is left behind." The ANNODEX Internet Draft "specifies a file format for interleaving of XML markup with time-continuous data giving ANNODEX(TM) format media. The ANNODEX format, together with the Continuous Media Markup Language (CMML) and the URI standard, extended by temporal URI references, builds the basis technology to enable searching and surfing of time-continuous data via existing Web infrastructure. The ANNODEX format enables encapsulation of any type of streamable time-continuous bitstream format thus being independent of current or future compression formats. The XML tags were chosen to be very similar to XHTML to enable a simple transfer of knowledge for HTML authors. The XML tags required to create ANNODEX format media consist of two types of frames: header and anchor frames." A file extension .anx and a corresponding mime-type application/annodex for ANNODEX format bitstreams are presented. [Full context]

• [June 12, 2003]   Hong Kong CECID Donates ebMail Client Software for ebXML Message Handling.    The University of Hong Kong Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID) has announced the release of its ebMail code base to the ebXML development community under an open source Academic Free License. ebMail is "a desktop e-mail client which helps organizations, small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SME) in particular, to engage in B2B e-commerce activities. This lightweight toolkit enables trading partners to exchange business documents cost-effectively through email, or ebXML Message Service (ebMS) over Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP). ebMail is a trimmed-down ebMS handler which does not require any application server software and dedicated Internet connection to use ebXML. It allows a user to compose electronic documents offline through graphical user interface (GUI), and send and receive documents when the user is connected to the Internet. ebMail employs plug-in modules to provide different graphical user interface (GUI) forms for capturing business data into different schemas of XML documents (e.g., price quotation, purchase order, invoice, etc.) and binary file attachments (e.g., PDF, graphics, etc.). These plug-ins can load, save, and manipulate business data in the local file system, as well as import documents from office applications to the GUI for efficient document handling. ebMail plug-ins can also handle simple business processes that define choreographies of document exchanges." [Full context]

• [June 12, 2003]   W3C Publishes Note Defining an XML Indirection Facility for XLink and XPointer.    W3C has acknowledged receipt of a technical submission from ISOGEN International describing an XML Indirection Facility. As presented in the published W3C Note, XIndirect is "a simple mechanism for using XML to represent indirect addresses in order to augment the core functionality of XLink and XPointer without requiring either of those specifications to themselves require support for indirect addresses. The facilities defined are specifically designed to meet the requirements for systems that support the authoring and management of complex systems of documents. The authors do not expected that XIndirect would be normally be used for final-form delivery of hyperdocuments, although it may have value within the context of single server or small confederation of servers." UML data model diagrams are used to represent the principal objects in the XIndirect data model, which consists of four types: Linker, Pointer, Resource, and Indirector. The document also defines a simple "XML-based representation syntax for indirectors in XML documents. This syntax uses naming conventions already in wide use in other XML specifications; in particular, it uses href as the name of the pointer attribute. An informative Appendix A supplies a sample XIndirect test implementation. This style sheet uses XSLT, the EXSLT function mechanism, and the Saxon-defined evaluate() function to resolve indirectors and produce a 'debug' report showing both the ultimate results of each non-indirect pointer as well as the location paths represented by the indirector elements in the test document set." The document editor (Eliot Kimber) has provided an extended description of XIndirect's design and development, based upon the need for a generalized, optional-use indirection mechanism. [Full context]

• [June 12, 2003]   IBM and Oracle Submit XQuery API for Java (XQJ) Java Specification Request.    A Java Specification Request XQuery API for Java (XQJ) submitted by IBM and Oracle Corporation has been published through the Java Community Process (JCP). The specification design goal is to "develop a common API that allows an application to submit queries conforming to the W3C XQuery 1.0 specification to an XML data source and to process the results of such queries. The design of the API will also take into account precedents established by other JSRs, notably JDBC and JAXP. SQL, developed by INCITS H2 and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC32/WG3, is the query language supported by many relational DBMSs. JDBC is the Java API that allows an application to submit SQL requests to an RDBMS and process the results of the query. The XQuery API for Java (XQJ) specification relates to XQuery in the same way that JDBC relates to SQL. The XQJ specification may provide the ability to submit XPath 2.0 expressions to an XML data source. It may also allow an application to specify queries using XQueryX, the XML representation of XQuery queries. The final XQJ Specification, Reference Implementation, and Technology Compatibility Kit will be made available on a Royalty-Free basis, with commonly-used disclaimers on warranties on the technologies; a reciprocal license will be required as per Section 5C of the Java Specification Participation Agreement (JSPA)." This JSR has received support from BEA, DataDirect Technologies, IBM, Oracle Corporation, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, and X-Hive Corporation. [Full context]

• [June 12, 2003]   W3C Releases Three Web Services Description Language (WSDL) 1.2 Working Drafts.    The W3C Web Services Description Working Group has published an initial public working draft specification for Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 1.2 Part 2: Message Patterns, along with updated WDs for Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 1.2 Part 1: Core Language and Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 1.2 Part 3: Bindings. 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 WSDL Part 2 draft for Message Patterns defines "the sequence, direction, and cardinality of abstract messages sent or received by an operation. WSDL patterns are described in terms of the WSDL component model, specifically the message reference and fault reference components. By design, WSDL message patterns abstract out specific message types; placeholders for messages identified by the pattern are associated with specific message types by the operation using the pattern. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, WSDL message patterns also abstract out binding-specific information like timing between messages, whether the pattern is synchronous or asynchronous, and whether the message are sent over a single or multiple channels." The Part 1 Core Language draft "describes the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 1.2, an XML language for describing Web services; it defines the core language which can be used to describe Web services based on an abstract model of what the service offers." The Part 3 WSDL Version 1.2 Bindings document depends on the WSDL Version 1.2 Core and "describes how to use WSDL in conjunction with SOAP 1.2, HTTP/1.1 GET/POST, and MIME." [Full context]

• [June 11, 2003]   Sun Microsystems Launches Java.net Portal for Java Technology Collaboration.    Partnering with O'Reilly and CollabNet, Sun Microsystems has launched a new Java.net portal designed to "expand the Java technology portfolio of applications, tools, and services by promoting conversation and collaboration around development of practical applications across industry groups." O'Reilly & Associates is the feature editor for java.net and CollabNet provides a collaborative hosting infrastructure using its SourceCast software. "At the foundation of java.net is an infrastructure and philosophy that supports open communication and development among peers. It includes project-support tools such as mailing lists, identities and personalities, reputation, weblogs, and wikis. It provides the tools an open source development project needs to be successful: a CVS source tree, bug-tracking system, forums, and mail lists. It also provides tools for gathering information on what's happening in the industry through RSS newsfeeds." The Java.net portal represents "the realization of a vision of a diverse group of engineers, researchers, technologists, and evangelists at Sun Microsystems, Inc. to provide a common area for interesting conversations and innovative development projects related to Java technology." [Full context]

• [June 10, 2003]   OpenGIS Consortium Adopts Revised Royalty-Free Intellectual Property Rights Policy.    The Open GIS Consortium has announced the adoption of a revised IPR policy which requires all contributors to license technology on a royalty-free basis. OGC is an international industry consortium of 257 companies, government agencies, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geo-processing specifications based upon XML. The OGC's revised IPR policy "takes into account the significant patent policy work undertaken at the W3C, which has emerged as the consortium leader in establishing a pragmatic way to successfully develop royalty-free Web Standards in the current patent environment. The result reflects agreement with the basic goal to preserve a free and open standards-based information infrastructure. At the same time, the new IPR policy respects the patent rights of member organizations and the value their patents represent." OGC members support the IPR policy "because there is a belief that OpenGIS specifications must be royalty free and unencumbered by patents, and therefore freely available to any party -- buyer, commercial developer, government agency, or open source developer -- that wants to implement OpenGIS Specifications in their enterprise." The OGC's revised IPR policy will take effect on July 05, 2003. [Full context]

• [June 10, 2003]   OpenTravel Alliance Releases OTA Specification Version 2003A for Travel Related Services.    The OpenTravel Alliance has announced the publication of its OTA Specification Version 2003A which "provides the travel industry and travel related services the ability to deliver new features and enhanced capabilities to travelers, through enhanced XML transactions." OTA is a non-profit organization of more than 150 members from major airlines, hoteliers, car rental companies, leisure suppliers, travel agencies, global distribution systems (GDS), technology providers and other interested parties, working to create and implement industry-wide, open e-business specifications." The OTA 2003A Specification XML Message Sets package contains 140 XML Schemas corresponding to events and activities in various travel sectors. Sections 2-10 of the principal Open Travel Alliance Schema Descriptions and Examples document describe message sets from several groups and profiles, including the Air Working Group, Car Working Group, Hotel Working Group, Insurance, Package Tours/Holiday Bookings, Travel Itinerary Messages, Rail Messages, Loyalty Messages, and Generic Messages. The Version 2003A specification provides enhancements and introduces three new message pairs: (1) OTA Insurance Plan Search Messages supports a method for insurance agents and third party vendors to obtain a list of available insurance products and perform searches to find insurance products that meet certain requirements, e.g., length of coverage, number of travelers, residence/citizenship restrictions, form insurance company or intermediary; (2) OTA Hotel Request for Proposal (RFP) and Request for Information (RFI) Messages allow for automation of RFP/RFI in the Group/Meeting or Tour/Wholesale business, and for acknowledgement of request receipt; (3) OTA Hotel Reservation Modify Messages accommodates a full overlay of a reservation for the purpose of making a change to an existing confirmed booking. Additional business scenario and instance documents have been supplied to assist companies in implementing the OTA specification. [Full context]

• [June 05, 2003]   Java Web Services Developer Pack V1.2 Supports WS-I, WS-Security, and UBL Applications.    The Version 1.2 release of the Java Web Services Developer Pack (Java WSDP) includes several new features, including: (1) JavaServer Faces technology which simplifies building user interfaces for JavaServer applications; (2) a WS-I Supply Chain Management sample application that uses Web Services endpoints for retailers, manufacturers, warehouses and a logging facility; (3) an early access version of XML and Web services security which provides a framework for the JAX-RPC application developer to digitally sign/verify SOAP messages, based on a draft of the OASIS WS-Security specification and W3C XML Signature; (4) a JAXB 1.0.1 sample which processes a UBL (Universal Business Language) order using JAXB-generated classes and prints a report. JAX-RPC and SAAJ have been extended to add support for the WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 draft. The Java Web Services Developer Pack is a "free integrated toolkit that allows Java developers to build, test and deploying XML applications, Web services, and Web applications with the latest Web services technologies and standards implementations. Java WSDP also includes the Java APIs for XML, Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB), Java API for XML Processing (JAXP), Java API for XML Registries (JAXR), JavaServer Pages Standard Tag Library (JSTL), SOAP with Attachments API for Java (SAAJ), Java WSDP Registry Server, Ant Build Tool, and Apache Tomcat container." [Full context]

• [June 05, 2003]   OASIS TC Releases Committee Specifications for Service Provisioning Markup Language (SPML).    A posting from Darran Rolls (OASIS PSTC Chair) announces the adoption of three documents as a Committee Specification set for the Service Provisioning Markup Language (SPML). "Provisioning" in the context of this TC activity is "the automation of all the steps required to manage (setup, amend, and revoke) user or system access entitlements or data relative to electronically published services." The OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee (PSTC) was chartered to "define an XML-based framework for exchanging user, resource, and service provisioning information. The resulting Committee Specification defines the concepts, operations deployment and XML schema for an XML based request and response protocol for provisioning." The specification set includes Service Provisioning Markup Language (SPML) Version 1.0 (Core), Bindings for the Service Provisioning Markup Language (SPML) Version 1.0, and SPML Core XML Schema. Waveset Technologies, Business Layers, and OpenNetwork Technologies have certified their use of the SPML V1.0 specification. The SPML specification is being advanced for public review under the OASIS process toward approval as an OASIS Open Standard. The public review period for SPML (CS) begins June 05, 2003 and closes July 05, 2003. [Full context]

• [June 04, 2003]   Updated Versions of Web Services Policy (WS-Policy) Specifications.    The three WS-Policy specifications have been updated to version 1.1, superseding the specifications published in December 2002. The Web Services Policy is "an initiative of the industry leaders BEA Systems, IBM, Microsoft, and SAP AG to drive and ensure interoperability for the description and communication of Web service policies. By using the XML, SOAP, and WSDL extensibility models, these WS* specifications are designed to be composed with each other to provide a rich Web services environment. The three WS-Policy specifications do not of themselves "provide a negotiation solution for Web services, [but constitute] building blocks that may be used in conjunction with other Web service and application-specific protocols to accommodate a wide variety of policy exchange models." The new May 28, 2003 version 1.1 WS-Policy documents include Web Services Policy Framework (WS-Policy), Web Services Policy Assertions Language (WS-PolicyAssertions), and Web Services Policy Attachment (WS-PolicyAttachment). An overview communicated by Claus von Riegen (SAP AG) summarizes the V1.1 changes. The Web Service Policy 1.1 authors report their intent "to submit the specifications to a standards organization in the near future." [Full context]

• [June 03, 2003]   Public Review Draft for the Java XML Digital Signature API Specification.    A Public Review Draft was issued for JSR 105 Java XML Digital Signature API Specification on May 29, 2003 under the Java Community Process. The Public Review period closes on June 29, 2003. The purpose of this Java Specification Request is "to define a standard Java API for parsing, generating, and validating XML signatures." The API consists of five packages that support a DOM-independent implementation of XML-Signature Syntax and Processing and related W3C Recommendations. The W3C XML Digital Signature specification defines "XML syntax and processing rules for creating and representing digital signatures. The XML Signature is a method of associating a key with referenced data; it does not normatively specify how keys are associated with persons or institutions, nor the meaning of the data being referenced and signed. While the W3C specification is an important component of secure XML applications, it [of itself] is not sufficient to address all application security/trust concerns, particularly with respect to using signed XML (or other data formats) as a basis of human-to-human communication and agreement. Such an application must specify additional key, algorithm, processing and rendering requirements and developers must give consideration to their application threat models." [Full context]

• [May 30, 2003]   OpenGIS Consortium Publishes Web Map Server Cookbook.    The OpenGIS Consortium (OGC) has released a draft Version 1.0 Web Map Server Cookbook as "the first in a planned series of books detailing the implementation and use of OpenGIS Specifications." This Cookbook covers the XML-based Web Map Server (WMS) interface implementation specification. WMS "defines interfaces for Web-based software to learn about, retrieve, merge and query maps. The Cookbook provides the basic understanding and steps needed for implementing and exploiting the WMS interface and related technologies. Chapter 1 establishes the background and context of the WMS interface implementation specification including a discussion of WMS client and server development technologies (XML, XSL/XSLT, ASP/JSP, etc.). Chapter 2 addresses the design architecture of software systems that implement the WMS interface through use-case scenarios, WMS request examples, and illustrations. DTD/XML documents and XSL/XSLT style sheet examples highlight the role these technologies can play in WMS client and server implementations. Chapter 3 explores implementations of WMS in existing software on both the server and client side. Detailed 'recipes' for implementing WMS in popular commercial, open source and freeware products are provided. The OpenGIS Specifications support interoperable solutions that 'geo-enable' the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT." [Full context]

• [May 30, 2003]   NLM Releases XML Tagset and DTDs for Journal Publishing, Archiving, and Interchange.    An announcement from the US National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) describes the release of a Tagset and two XML DTDs designed to "simplify journal publishing and increase the accuracy of the archiving and exchange of scholarly journal articles. The Journal Publishing DTD and the Archiving and Interchange DTD have been created from the Archiving and Interchange Tagset, a set of XML elements and attributes that can be used to define many other types of documents, including textbooks and online documentation. The Tagset provides a set of XML modules that defines elements and attributes for describing the textual and graphical content of journal articles as well as some nonarticle material such as letters, editorials, and book reviews. The purpose of the Tagset is to preserve the intellectual content of journals independently of the form in which that content was originally created. The Tagset has been written as a set of XML DTD modules, each of which is a separate file. No module is a complete DTD by itself, but these modules can be combined to create any number of new DTDs." The NLM Tagset represents an open specification: the DTDs and the Tagset are in the public domain so that any organization wishing to create its own DTD from the Tagset may do so without permission from NLM. NLM is forming an XML Interchange Structure Advisory Board to assist in development and maintenance of the Tagset. An Archiving and Interchange Tagset Secretariat will collect feedback and will physically maintain the files and documentation. [Full context]

• [May 29, 2003]   IETF Publishes Internet Drafts for XML Configuration Access Protocol (XCAP).    The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has announced the publication of three related Internet Drafts describing an XML Configuration Access Protocol (XCAP). The XCAP drafts have been released by the IETF SIMPLE (SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions) Working Group. XCAP defines "a set of conventions for using HTTP to read, write and modify XML configuration data. XCAP is based heavily on ideas borrowed from the Application Configuration Access Protocol (ACAP), though it is not an extension of it, nor does it have any dependencies on it. Like ACAP, XCAP is meant to support the configuration needs for a multiplicity of applications, rather than just a single one. An XCAP server acts as a repository for collections of XML documents. There will be documents stored for each application. Within each application, there are documents stored for each user. Each user can have a multiplicity of documents for a particular application. To access some component of one of those documents, XCAP defines an algorithm for constructing a URI that can be used to reference that component. Components refer to any subtree of the document, or any attribute for any element within the document. Thus, the HTTP URIs used by XCAP point to pieces of information that are finer grained than the XML document itself." [Full context]

• [May 27, 2003]   OASIS TC Approves Version 1.1 Specifications for Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML).    A posting from RobertPhilpott announces the release of approved Version 1.1 Committee Specifications for the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), produced by the OASIS Security Services TC. The CS level specification is open for 30-day public review beginning May 28, 2003 and ending June 30, 2003; comments from OASIS members and from the general public are invited. The release includes the XML Assertion Schema and XML Protocol Schema, along with prose documentation in five parts: Assertions and Protocol, Bindings and Profiles, Security and Privacy Considerations, Conformance Program Specification, and Glossary. The Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) is "an XML-based framework for exchanging security information. This security information is expressed in the form of assertions about subjects, where a subject is an entity (either human or computer) that has an identity in some security domain. A typical example of a subject is a person, identified by his or her email address in a particular Internet DNS domain. One major design goal for SAML is Single Sign-On (SSO), the ability of a user to authenticate in one domain and use resources in other domains without re-authenticating. However, SAML can be used in various configurations to support additional scenarios as well." SAML Version 1.1 CS includes changes to SAML 1.0 schema, deprecation of some SAML 1.0 elements and URIs, changes to the digital signature guidelines, clarification of processing rules, corrections, and editorial changes. The OASIS SSTC announced a Last Call Period for the SAML V1.1 Committee Specification documents on May 03, 2003; following the May 16, 2003 close of this review, the specicifations have been approved by the TC. [Full context]

• [May 27, 2003]   IBM Announces General Availability of DB2 Information Integrator V8.1.    IBM has announced the general availability of DB2 Information Integrator V8.1 which "provides the foundation for a strategic information integration framework that helps customers to access, manipulate, and integrate diverse and distributed information in real time. The new product enables businesses to abstract a common data model across data and content sources and to access and manipulate them as though they were a single source. IBM's DB2 software helps businesses increase efficiencies by enabling them to centrally manage data, text, images, photos, video and audio files stored in a variety of databases. The new IBM product is most appropriate for projects whose primary data sources are relational data augmented by other XML, Web, or content sources." Core components in the DB2 Information Integrator include a Federated Data Server, a Replication Server for Mixed Relational Databases, and a Local Database Server. The federated data server allows administrators to use integrated graphical tools to configure data source access and define integrated views across diverse and distributed data; XML schema can be automatically mapped into relational schema. "DB2 Information Integrator V8.1 supports the predominantly read-access scenarios common to enterprise-wide reporting, knowledge management, business intelligence, portal infrastructures, and customer relationship management." [Full context]

• [May 23, 2003]   Microsoft and ACORD Use InfoPath for Linking Insurance Forms to XML Web Services.    A joint announcement from Microsoft and the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development (ACORD) describes an effort to create a forms service linking standardized insurance forms to XML Web services. The new information-gathering application based upon InfoPath "will enable insurance agencies to fill out electronic forms once and then link the data with the click of a button to other forms, databases, back-end systems and applications via XML Web Services. Aimed at helping the insurance industry reduce the overhead associated with complex transaction processing and the errors that result from having to re-key data several times, the forms service is expected to standardize the way forms relate to industry-specific XML data standards such as ACORD's, and how the data itself is delivered. InfoPath utilizes XML and XML-based Web services to enable insurance agencies to complete forms once and then link the data to other forms, databases, back-end systems and applications. As part of the forms service, Microsoft .NET Web services can be used to provide additional functionalities, including e-mail, printing and data-routing." A related announcement highlights Microsoft's support of UNeDocs through InfoPath, using a smart client for on-line and off-line processing of XML forms. [Full context]

• [May 23, 2003]   Systinet to Provide UDDI Solution for PSN Global Directory of Digital Photography Services.    The XML-based CPXe interoperability specifications released by the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A) in February 2003 are moving forward with the support of Systinet, recently selected to provide the UDDI registry for PSN's Directory Service, part of the Common Picture eXchange Environment (CPXe) system architecture. The I3A's Picture Services Network helps photographic device and software vendors give their customers easy access to a range of digital photography services through a UDDI-based online registry of photo service providers. The Version 1.0 suite of CPXe materials contains a CPXe Core Implementation API Specification, a CPXe Fulfillment Access Service API Specification, a CPXe Service Locator Service API Specification, a CPXe Web Browser Interaction Service API Specification, and a CPXe Defined tModels and Profiles Specification. Scheduled to launch its Directory Service in June 2003, "PSN will work in concert with the Common Picture eXchange Environment specifications, enabling participating businesses to quickly, easily and dynamically find and transact business with any photo Web service that supports the CPXe interoperability specifications." [Full context]

• [May 20, 2003]   W3C Approves Patent Policy Supporting Development of Royalty-Free Web Standards.    Congratulations to the W3C Patent Policy Working Group, W3C Membership, and W3C leadership for the landmark achievement represented by final approval of the W3C Patent Policy. The policy governs the handling of patents in the process of producing Web standards; its goal is to assure "that Recommendations produced under this policy can be implemented on a Royalty-Free (RF) basis. Subject to the conditions of the policy, W3C will not approve a Recommendation if it is aware that Essential Claims exist which are not available on Royalty-Free terms. To this end, Working Group charters will include a reference to this policy and a requirement that specifications produced by the Working Group will be implementable on an RF basis, to the best ability of the Working Group and the Consortium. The policy also requires patent disclosure by W3C Members when they are aware of patents that may be essential to the implementation of W3C Recommendations." A published statement from W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee notes that the W3C Patent Policy "coincides almost exactly with the tenth anniversary of CERN's decision to provide unencumbered access to the basic Web protocols and software developed there, even before the creation of W3C... The Patent Policy represents what may be the most thorough effort to date in defining a basic patent policy for standard-setting [and] sets the benchmark for the pragmatic way to successfully develop royalty-free Web Standards in the current patent environment." The W3C Patent Policy Working Group (PPWG) "is part of the W3C Technology and Society Domain; its mission is to advise W3C on the means to address the growing challenge that patent claims pose to the development of open standards for the Web." [Full context]

• [May 20, 2003]   UDDI Version 2 Approved as an OASIS Open Standard.    OASIS has approved UDDI version 2 as an OASIS Open Standard. UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) specifies a standard interoperable platform that enables companies and applications to find and use Web services over the Internet. UDDI V2 components include the UDDI Version 2 API Specification, Data Structure, XML Schema, Replication Specification, XML Replication Schema, XML Custody Schema, Operator's Specification, WSDL Service Interface Descriptions, and UDDI tModels. The OASIS UDDI Specification Technical Committee, part of the UDDI.org OASIS Member Section, was been chartered "to continue work on the Web services registry foundations developed and published by UDDI.org. The UDDI specifications form the necessary technical foundation for publication and discovery of Web services implementations both within and between enterprises. The scope of the UDDI Technical Committee is the support of Web services discovery mechanisms in the following areas: (1) Specifications for Web services registries and Web service interfaces to the registries; (2) Replication or synchronization mechanisms across multiple implementations; (3) Security facilities for access or manipulation of the registry and maintaining data integrity. The UDDI specifications will use implementation and language neutral XML formats defined in XML Schema where appropriate." [Full context]

• [May 20, 2003]   AdsML Consortium Creates Electronic Data Exchange Standard for Advertising Industry.    An announcement from the AdsML Consortium describes the development status of an XML-based AdsML 1.0 specification which "will support classified advertising, online advertising, including banner and pop-up advertising, and advertising that is part of the core content of a Web site, ROP advertising in print, inserts, mail advertising, and advertising by SMS, MMS or other mobile technologies." The first public version of AdsML 1.0 will be released at Ifra Expo 2003 in Leipzig, Germany. The AdsML Consortium was organized in the fall of 2002 following Expo 2002 in Barcelona. The AdsML initiative is supported by Ifra, the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) and Nihon Shinbun Kyokai (NSK). "The AdsML specification will define a set of business process models and related documentation that describes the business processes supported by AdsML, and includes a definition of common process models for the workflows of selected advertising classes. It will specify an 'AdsML Envelope' XML message format that enables the efficient packaging, transmission, verification [the process of verifying that transmitted content conforms to a formal or informal agreement between trading partners], validation [the process of validating that transmitted content conforms to the relevant standard], and routing of the advertising content and related metadata required in order to execute the AdsML Business Processes." [Full context]

• [May 16, 2003]   OASIS TC Approves Test Framework Documents for ebXML Messaging Service (ebMS) Version 2.0.    The OASIS ebXML Implementation, Interoperability and Conformance (IIC) Technical Committee has announced the approval of four committee specifications for use in conformance testing with ebXML Messaging Service (ebMS) version 2.0. "The initial ebXML IIC efforts have focused on providing a computable and extensible test framework with ebMS as the first edition of the suite of test specifications. Plans are under consideration for CPP/A (Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement), Business Process Specification Schema (BPSS) and Registry/Repository (Reg/Rep). The Test Framework can be used to support conformance testing and interoperability testing in different configurations, from point-to-point testing between business partners, to centralized configurations involving a test center. eBusiness partners can download necessary components. Tests can be driven either by one of the partners, or by a test center, which can be viewed as a service. Or, for interoperability tests, a test center can be used as a hub, providing monitoring and routing functions, while tests are driven from an end-point. In both cases, the test will be executed in an automated fashion. Test traces and results are generated for a collection of test (test suites) for later review." The approved committee specification documents include ebXML Test Framework Document, Version 1.0, ebXML Messaging 2.0 Basic Interoperability Profile (BIP) Test Suite, version 1.0, ebXML Deployment Guide Template for ebXML Messaging 2.0, Version 1.0, and EAN.UCC (European Article Numbering / Uniform Code Council) Deployment Guide 1.0, an instance of the ebXML Messaging Deployment Template 1.0. [Full context]

• [May 15, 2003]   ACM Publishes CACM Special Issue on Digital Rights Management and Fair Use.    ACM's flagship journal Communications of the ACM dedicated a special issue to the theme "Digital Rights Management and Fair Use by Design." The April 2003 issue of CACM (ISSN: 0001-0782; Volume 46, Number 4) contains seven feature articles on the need to reconcile competing interests in the creation of DRM rules that govern fair use of copyrighted digital works. "Guest editor Deirdre Mulligan, Director of the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley, contends that content owners and policymakers have taken technology firms to task for their inability to enforce rules about access to copyrighted works. She calls on some of the most noted legal voices in the DRM debate to help provide technologists some answers, clarifications, and technical options." The articles document how "the public and its advocates, along with many copyright scholars, are voicing their concern that DRM -- whether legally mandated or privately adopted -- will lock up information in ways that thwart individuals' and institutions' rights to read, lend, resell, mix, and build on copyrighted works. A growing number of technology firms are deeply concerned over the dumbing down and locking up of the desktop computer." [Full context]

• [May 15, 2003]   IETF Internet Open Trading Protocol Working Group Publishes RFC for Voucher Trading System.    IETF has announced the publication of an Informational RFC on Requirements and Design for Voucher Trading System (VTS). Several Internet Drafts and RFCs on a Generic Voucher Language 'XML Voucher' and 'Voucher Trading System (VTS)' have been released through the activities of the IETF Internet Open Trading Protocol Working Group. The VTS requirements document calls for implementation of the Voucher Trading System based upon a Voucher Trading Protocol (VTP), VTS Application Programming Interface (VTS-API), and an XML-based Generic Voucher Language (GVL). These specifications are being designed to interoperate with the Internet Open Trading Protocol (IOTP) and with the Electronic Commerce Modeling Language (ECML) specification, as well as with the XML Recommendation and XML-Signature. The Voucher Trading System addresses the need to credit loyalty points and collect digital coupons or gift certificates, which are "common functions in purchasing and trading transactions. These activities are generalized using the concept of a voucher, which is a digital representation of the right to claim goods or services." [Full context]

• [May 13, 2003]   OASIS Members Form Web Application Security Technical Committee.    A newly formed OASIS Web Application Security Technical Committee will attempt to unite industry consensus and provide standards for classifying and responding to web security vulnerabilities. The specifications are designed to benefit both vendors and users. The TC will leverage and extend the work of the Open Web Application Security (OWASP) VulnXML project that has been established for over a year. The existing VulnXML work is being contributed to OASIS as part of the new TC proposal. According to the proposed charter, the WAS-XML technical committee will produce: (1) a classification scheme for web security vulnerabilities; (2) a model to provide guidance for initial threat, impact and therefore risk ratings; (3) an XML schema to describe web security conditions that can be used by both assessment and protection tools. The TC Chair is Mark Curphey. The first meeting of the technical committee will be held as a conference call on July 03, 2003. [Full context]

• [May 13, 2003]   W3C Index of Translations Showcases RDF and Internationalization Technologies.    W3C has announced a new RDF application which generates static XHTML documents and dynamic views for indexes of translated W3C Technical Reports. "W3C thanks the volunteers who contributed thousands of hours translating W3C publications into more than thirty (30) languages. Showcasing W3C Semantic Web, XML, and internationalization technologies, data for volunteer translations of W3C technical reports and related documents are now maintained in RDF encoded in XML. Combining this metadata with other RDF, the translation index makes extensive use of Unicode. Links from translations to official versions are provided; reports may be viewed according to language or technology." The application generates XHTML and RDF-encoded XML files using Python scripts and the RDFLib module. The Python scripts also have a set of published CGI entry points which facilitate the construction of "query" URIs to obtain specialized views of document subsets; views based upon language and technology can be generated using these CGI entry points. A follow-on project will extend support to include in-progress translation activities. [Full context]

• [May 12, 2003]   FAO's AgMES Project Releases a New Application Profile for Encoding Metadata.    An AgMES Project newsletter reports on the public release of an AgMES-AGRIS Application Profile. The AgMES (Agricultural Metadata Element set) initiative "aims to encompass issues of semantic standards in the domain of agriculture with respect to description, resource discovery, interoperability and data exchange for different types of information resources." The AP documentation includes an XML DTD for use in encoding of the metadata. The design team will evaluate review comments on the specification during 2003 and incorporate feedback into the XML Schema and RDF Schema now under development. AGRIS is an international information system for the agricultural sciences and technology; it was created by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 1974 to facilitate information exchange and to identify world literature dealing with all aspects of agriculture. The new AGRIS Cataloguing Standard AGRIS: Guidelines for the Description of Information Objects in the International Information System on Agricultural Sciences and Technology documents specifications for the metadata set "that should be used as an exchange format for disseminating data through the AGRIS system." The Profile is based upon on the Dublin Core Elements and Qualifiers, the Agricultural Metadata Element Set, and the Australian Government Locator Service Metadata Set. The goal of the AGRIS Application Profile (AGRIS AP) "is to facilitate exposure of the metadata format currently in use to enable linking of various types of information systems in FAO that are presently unlinked, therefore allowing users to perform cross-searches. This approach would also facilitate the harvesting of data from participating countries; with the application of the AGRIS AP model, this harvesting process could be automated. The scope of application includes all forms of electronic publishing: databases, Web pages, national portals on scientific and technical information on Agriculture." [Full context]

• [May 09, 2003]   IBM's Enterprise Privacy Authorization Language (EPAL).    Collaborative research organized by engineers at IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory has led to the publication of an Enterprise Privacy Authorization Language (EPAL) specification. EPAL is "a formal language to specify fine-grained enterprise privacy policies. It concentrates on the core privacy authorization while abstracting from all deployment details such as data model or user-authentication." The IBM EPAL Working Group seeks to "develop a interoperability language for the representation of data handling policies and practices within and between privacy-enabled enterprise tools, which serve to (1) enable organizations to be demonstrably compliant with their stated policies; (2) reduce overhead and the cost of configuring and enforcing data handling policies; and (3) leverage existing standards and technologies. EPAL should provide the ability to encode an enterprise's privacy-related data-handling policies and practices and [constitute] a language that can be imported and enforced by a privacy-enforcement systems. An EPAL policy defines lists of hierarchies of data-categories, data-users, and purposes, and sets of (privacy) actions, obligations, and conditions. Data-users are the entities (users/groups) that use collected data (e.g., travel expense department or tax auditor). Data-categories define different categories of collected data that are handled differently from a privacy perspective (e.g., medical-record vs. contact-data). EPAL 'purposes' model the intended service for which data is used (e.g., processing a travel expense reimbursement or auditing purposes)." Day Three of an upcoming W3C P3P and Enterprise Privacy Policy Workshop 2003 will "will explore various industry use case scenarios and regulatory templates for EPAL policies and enforcement scenarios." [Full context]

• [May 08, 2003]   Energy Companies Demonstrate Automated Electronic Invoicing Using PIDX XML Transaction Standards.    Unocal, Schlumberger Oilfield Services, and Digital Oilfield describe the successful automated electronic exchange of invoicing information as an industry milestone. The test made use of the Petroleum Industry Data Exchange (PIDX) XML Transaction Standards. Unocal received and processed an invoice from Schlumberger through Digital Oilfield's OpenInvoice hosted application. "Schlumberger created an invoice in the PIDX standard format directly from its ERP system. The invoice and corresponding service delivery ticket were then transmitted utilizing the RNIF (RosettaNet Implementation Framework) Transport, and Routing Protocol directly into Digital Oilfield's OpenInvoice application. Unocal then used OpenInvoice's functionality to route, code and approve the invoice. Once approved, the invoice was automatically uploaded to Unocal's financial system for payment." PIDX is the American Petroleum Institute's (API) committee on Electronic Business. Its mission is "to influence the architecture and facilitate implementation of effective standards and processes for electronic business communications within the petroleum industry community. PIDX projects have reengineered entire business processes and operations for greater efficiency and profitability through the implementation of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and emerging Electronic Business technologies such as the Internet and XML." The Business Messages Workgroup under the PIDX Standards and Guidelines Subcommittee "develops and maintains PIDX's business message standards for electronic commerce, encourages the adoption of and use of PIDX's business message standards, and collaborates with other industries in developing standards for the oil and natural gas industry." The group recently published a PIDX ebXML Message Service Specification supporting transport, routing and packaging (TRP); this software specification is compliant with the OASIS ebXML Message Service Specification (ebMS). [Full context]

• [May 07, 2003]   W3C Publishes SOAP Version 1.2 as a Proposed Recommendation.    W3C has advanced SOAP Version 1.2 to Proposed Recommendation status, and the W3C XML Protocol Working Group has issued a request for final review of the four-part specification. SOAP Version 1.2 is "a lightweight protocol for exchanging structured information in a decentralized, distributed environment; it provides a standardized XML-based solution for data transport. The four parts include SOAP Version 1.2 Part 0: Primer, SOAP Version 1.2 Part 1: Messaging Framework SOAP Version 1.2 Part 2: Adjuncts, and SOAP Version 1.2 Specification Assertions and Test Collection. SOAP 1.2 "describes a refined processing model, thus removing ambiguities found in SOAP/1.1, and it includes improved error messages, thus helping developers to write better applications. In addition to fulfilling requirements spelled out in the WG charter, SOAP 1.2 integrates core XML technologies. SOAP 1.2 is designed to work seamlessly with W3C XML schemas, maximizing SOAP's utility with a broad range of XML tools, and paving the way for future work on WSDL. It also makes use of XML Namespaces as a flexible and lightweight mechanism for handling XML language mixing. After the Candidate Recommendation period, the W3C XML Protocol WG tracked seven SOAP 1.2 implementations from W3C Member organizations and independent developers to ensure the viability and interoperability of implementations based on the specification. The WG had already identified and resolved over 400 technical and editorial issues raised in public review of both the previous SOAP/1.1 specification and the resultant SOAP 1.2 specification." The final review period for SOAP Version 1.2 closes on June 07, 2003. [Full context]

• [May 06, 2003]   W3C Releases Ten Working Drafts for XQuery, XSLT, and XPath.    Through collaborative and coordinated effort between W3C's XML Query Working Group and XSL Working Group, a collection of ten updated working draft specifications has been issued for public review and comment. XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model and XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators are in Last Call WD status through June 30, 2003. XPath 2.0, XSLT 2.0, XQuery 1.0, and other specifications are dependent upon the data model, functions, and operators defined in these two WDs. Other working drafts include XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics, XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0, XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.0, XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language, XML Query Use Cases, XML Query (XQuery) Requirements, XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Serialization, and XQuery and XPath Full-Text Requirements. The W3C XSL Working Group "develops and maintains three main specifications: XSL Transformations (XSLT) for transforming XML documents, XSL Formatting Objects (XSL/FO) for formatting XML documents, and, jointly with the XML Query Working Group, XPath 2.0 and associated documents. XPath is used to address, point into, or match portions of XML documents. Since November 2002, the XSL Working Group has been working closely with the XML Query Working Group on XPath 2, the corresponding Data Model, and on XSLT 2.0. The W3C XML Query working group was chartered "to provide flexible query facilities to extract data from real and virtual documents on the Web; the XML Query language should encompass selecting whole documents or components of documents based on specified selection criteria as well as constructing XML documents from selected components. The WG's goal is to produce a formal data model for XML documents with Namespaces (based on the XML Infoset), a set of query operators on that data model (a so-called algebra), and a query language with a concrete canonical syntax based on the proposed operators." Both working groups are part of the W3C XML Activity. [Full context]

• [May 05, 2003]   IRS Modernized e-File Team Releases New XML Schemas for Corporate Income Tax.    A posting from Barr Joan (US IRS Modernized e-File Team) announces the release of new XML schemas governing the e-filing of income tax information for US corporations. The distribution includes some 750 new XML schema files used by tax preparation software developers and tax preparers in automated e-filing and validation of IRS forms data. The schemas cover TY2002 1120 forms, including the Production Release Version 1.0 (53 forms) and Candidate Release Version 2.0 (43 forms). IRS Form 1120 "is used to report the income, gains, losses, deductions and credits, and income tax liability of a corporation. All domestic corporations (including corporations in bankruptcy) must file whether or not they have taxable income. IRS Form 1120S is used to report income, deductions gains, losses, etc., of a domestic corporation that has elected to be an S corporation by filing Form 2553, Election by a Small Business Corporation, and whose election is in effect for the tax year and until terminated. The IRS is vigorously designing an electronic filing process for Forms 1120 and 1120S under the IRS e-file program. The 1120/1120S e-file program is scheduled to begin in January 2004. Upon completion, the 1120 program will have file and pay capability and returns will be processed on a transaction basis rather than in batch mode. Any business taxpayer who files Form 1120/1120S may e-file their return through an Authorized IRS e-file provider." In January 2003 the IRS began accepting XML-based electronic filing for the 94x series, including Form 940 (federal unemployment taxes) and Form 941 (employers' quarterly federal taxes). [Full context]

• [May 05, 2003]   OASIS Forms Business-Centric Methodology Technical Committee.    OASIS has issued a call for participation in a newly formed Business-Centric Methodology Technical Committee. The BCM TC members plan to create a specification which will "provide business managers with a set of clearly defined methods with which to acquire agile and interoperable e-business information systems." The TC proposal calls for taking a minimalist approach, seeking to find the right mix [of solutions] critical to succeed by effectively reaching the target management audience, allowing business people to think in business terms. Crucial to this endeavor is the scope of the TC being focused on agile information interoperability rather than legacy systems integration. BCM also avoids a narrow focus around vendor technology components and instead focuses on the business mechanisms required." The specification design will build upon existing research and technology such as the project work developed at the Department of Defense, Defense Finance and Accounting Service. The BCM TC Co-Chairs are Bruce Peat (eProcess Solutions) and Mike Lubash (DFAS). The first meeting of the BCM Technical Committee will be held on Monday, June 9, 2003 as a teleconference call. [Full context]

• [May 02, 2003]   Commerce One Releases Open Source DocSOAP XML Developer Kit for Document Style SOAP.    As part of its endeavor to foster the adoption of Web services technology for business, Commerce One has announced the release of an Open Source, royalty free Web services and SOAP XML Development Kit. The DocSOAP XML Development Kit (DocSOAP XDK) "is designed to provide developers and businesses with advanced XML and SOAP tools to take advantage of Web services technology, particularly when used to handle the large business documents associated with e-commerce integration and the development of composite applications. The main components of the Conductor DocSOAP XDK are the DocSOAP Framework, the Document Framework, XGen and the UNIParser. Together they deliver a comprehensive set of APIs that can be used to build Web Services and XML applications. Developers may download the complete XDK including Source Code view the online JavaDoc documentation for the APIs. The XML tools and libraries, including XGen, UNIParser and the Document Framework, may be used independently of SOAP to create and manipulate XML documents on their own. One of the expected uses for SOAP is the integration of businesses, systems and partners, which requires efficient handling of potentially large XML and non-XML documents. The DocSOAP XDK is designed specifically to address this type of problem. In initial tests conducted by Commerce One, the DocSOAP XDK processed large-sized XML documents up to twice as fast and using less memory than other available SOAP toolkits." [Full context]

• [April 30, 2003]   Call for Participation in W3C P3P and Enterprise Privacy Policy Workshop.    A call for papers has been issued in connection with the upcoming W3C Workshop on the Long Term Future of P3P and Enterprise Privacy Languages. The Workshop is hosted by the Independent Center for Privacy Protection and will be held in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany on June 18-20, 2003. The organizers have invited position papers that "discuss either technology or policy considerations for the long-term future of P3P; papers may be based on the current P3P specification, but may also go beyond backwards compatibility to P3P 1.0. The results of this workshop will inform W3C's decision making on future P3P strategy, stimulate discussions of new developments and directions for the long-term future of P3P and privacy metadata based solutions in general and facilitate coordination with organizations engaged in related efforts." W3C also wishes to evaluate interest in enterprise privacy policy enforcement languages and to consider the relationship and/or integration of such a language with respect to P3P. The first two days of the workshop will consider any "technical problems with P3P1.0, policy goals that P3P may help address, requirements unmet by P3P1.0, and legal or policy questions that have arisen as a result of P3P implementation with a perspective on the long-term future. On the third day an EPAL session will "explore various industry use case scenarios and regulatory templates for EPAL policies and enforcement scenarios. The goal is to present EPAL capabilities in a public forum and to collect interest and feedback on the idea of a more fine grained Enterprise Privacy Language" such as the Enterprise Privacy Authorization Language developed by IBM. The P3P/Privacy Workshop has been organized under the W3C Technology and Society Domain. [Full context]

• [April 30, 2003]   Corel Smart Graphics Studio Uses SVG for Graphical Applications Development.    Corel has announced the availability of the Corel Smart Graphics Studio development platform, "designed to speed and simplify the creation of SVG-based smart graphics. Smart graphics are a new form of enterprise-class, graphically-rich application built using open standard SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) to transform XML and legacy data into powerful and compelling intranet and extranet applications. Using open standards such as XML, XSLT and SVG, and JavaScript, Corel Smart Graphics Studio is an enterprise-class tool giving application developers control over the design, development, and deployment of their applications. Corel Smart Graphics Studio is composed of four integrated applications: (1) Corel Developer SG provides a design window, template builder, and data mapper for designing client interfaces, creating dynamic objects for data mappings, and specifying connections between the inputs of an SVG template and the data. (2) Corel Process Builder lets application developers build processes for binding multiple data sources including XML, ODBC, Web Services, and legacy data; the data is then combined with graphics and application logic to create a run-time process. Corel Server SG is a high performance platform for the management and transformation of application data and images. (4) Corel SVG Viewer is a Web browser plug-in that lets application developers view and interact with the SVG graphics as they develop the application interface." A free trial version is available from the Corel website. [Full context]

• [April 28, 2003]   Working Draft for Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) Version 2.1.    XBRL International has announced the release of an XBRL version 2.1 Specification Working Draft and a 60-day public review period preliminary to consideration as a final XBRL 2.1 Recommendation. XBRL "provides users with a standard format in which to prepare business reports that can subsequently be presented in a variety of ways. It supports software vendors, programmers, and intermediaries in the preparation and distribution process and end users who adopt it as a specification to enhance the creation, exchange, and comparison of business reporting information. Business reporting includes, but is not limited to, financial statements, financial information, non-financial information, general ledger transactions, and regulatory filings such as annual and quarterly financial statements." The prose portion of the version 2.1 specification has expanded by 54 pages, including "many more usage examples, code fragments from the defining XML schemas, greater detail about pre-existing XBRL 2.0 features, and detailed explanations of the new features. Domain experts and application developers can now define the handling of new relationships not defined by XBRL itself; new relationships allow taxonomy authors to precisely connect taxonomy definitions to authoritative definitions and other supporting documentation. Calculation links have been made more powerful through a mechanism for expressing relationships between items in different contexts, meeting a key request from builders of complex financial reports." [Full context]

• [April 25, 2003]   OASIS Web Services for Remote Portlets Specification Moves Toward Standardization.    The Web Services for Remote Portlets Specification version 1.0 produced jointly by two OASIS technical committees has been approved as a Committee Specification. The specification has also been approved for advancement toward adoption as an OASIS Standard, and enters a 30-day public review period preliminary to its voting phase. The WSRP document has been created by members of the Web Services for Interactive Applications (WSIA) and Web Services for Remote Portals (WSRP) TCs. The goal of the specification "is to enable an application designer or administrator to pick from a rich choice of compliant remote content and application providers, and integrate them with just a few mouse clicks and no programming effort. Typical scenarios include portal servers providing portlets as presentation-oriented web services that can be used by aggregation engines, or portal servers consuming presentation-oriented web services provided by portal or nonportal content providers and integrating them into a portal framework. The design aim is to simplify the integration effort through a standard set of web service interfaces allowing integrating applications to quickly exploit new web services as they become available. The joint authoring of these interfaces by WSRP and WSIA TCs allows maximum reuse of presentation-oriented, interactive web services while allowing the consuming applications to access a much richer set of standardized web services." [Full context]

• [April 25, 2003]   The Holy Grail of Content Reuse: IBM's DITA XML.    Researchers at several IBM labs are collaborating on enhancements to the DITA XML system. The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is "an XML architecture for designing, writing, managing, and publishing technical documentation, whether in print, as online help, or on the Web. It implements the principles of information design, information typing, and information architecture." To the extent that a "topic" is the basic DITA architectural unit, the system has some affinities to Topic Maps; to the extent that it features modular content design and optimizes content reuse, it is similar to information mapping. DITA supports a unique transclusion mechanism that is validated under DTD processing rules. Michael Priestley (IBM Toronto Software Development Laboratory) has collaborated in the creation of a new DITA resource collection which features key articles and presentations, together with references to the DTDs and XSLT transformation specifications. Presentations on DITA will be made by Don Day and Mike Temple at upcoming May 2003 meetings, including the Society for Technical Communication (STC) 50th Annual Conference and the Arbortext User's Group International Conference (AUGI 2003). [Full context]

• [April 22, 2003]   OGC Releases OpenGIS Location Services (OpenLS) Implementation Specification.    The Open GIS Consortium (OGC) has issued a public call for comment on a proposed OpenGIS Location Services (OpenLS) Implementation Specification. "The RFC defines XML for Location Services, which consists of interfaces for a variety of specific services. The primary objective of OpenLS is to define access to the Core Services and Abstract Data Types (ADT) that comprise the GeoMobility Server, an open location services platform. Abstract Data Type information (ADT) is the "basic information construct used by the GeoMobility Server and associated Core Services; it consists of well-known data types and structures for location information and is defined as application schemas that are encoded in XML for Location Services (XLS)." The OpenLS specification includes enhancements and fixes made by the work group following the OpenLS 1/1.1 testbed initiatives of October 2001 - October 2002; these testbed activities "attempted to define and build the core location application services and information framework necessary for interoperable use of mobile devices, services and location-related data." The release includes fifteen (15) supporting XML Schemas and prose specification in two parts. OpenLS: Core Services contains Parts 1-5. Core Services is also known as "the GeoMobility Server (GMS), an open platform for location-based application services. It also outlines the scope and relationship of OpenLS with respect to other specifications and standardization activities. Part 1 (Directory Service) is "a Yellow Pages used to find the nearest or a specific product or service; Part 2 (Gateway Service) fetches the position of a mobile device from the network; Part 3 (Location Utility Service) uses Geocoder/Reverse Geocoder, where Geocoder converts a location, such as a street address to a point with latitude/longitude and Reverse Geocoder transforms a given position into a description of a feature location, such as a street address; Part 4 (Presentation Service) implements map portrayal, and draws a map; Part 5 (Route Service) creates a travel route." OpenLS Part 6 Navigation Service was formerly the Full Profile of the Route Determination Service, which is part of the GeoMobility Server (GMS), an open location services platform. The Navigation Service is potentially not needed by all implementations. Annex A.1 of Core Services supplies a normative Schema (XML/S Profile), while Annex A.2 provides an informative SOAP Profile. The OpenLS implementation specification has been submitted to OGC by Autodesk, ESRI, Image Matters, Intergraph IntelliWhere, MapInfo, Navigation Technologies, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and Webraska. Public comment is invited through May 19, 2003. [Full context]

• [April 21, 2003]   Last Call Working Drafts for W3C XML Key Management Specifications (XKMS).    The W3C XML Key Management Working Group has released Last Call Working Drafts for XML Key Management Specification (XKMS) Version 2.0 and XML Key Management Specification (XKMS) Bindings Version 2.0. The specifications define protocols "for distributing and registering public keys for use with XML Signature and XML Encryption. The XKMS specification contains two parts: the XML Key Information Service Specification (X-KISS) and the XML Key Registration Service Specification (X-KRSS). "These protocols do not require any particular underlying public key infrastructure (such as X.509) but are designed to be compatible with such infrastructures." X-KISS specifies a protocol "to support the delegation by an application to a service of the processing of key information associated with an XML signature, XML encryption, or other usage of the XML Signature <ds:KeyInfo> element." X-KRSS defines a protocol "to support the registration of a key pair by a key pair holder, with the intent that the key pair subsequently be usable in conjunction with the XML Key Information Service Specification or a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) such as X.509 (PKIX). While the specification uses the terms 'trust' and 'policy' informally, it does not define semantics nor processing associated with either. Instead,it defines how a Validate Service returns information that has been validated according to external trust and policy specifications... the benefit of an XKMS Validate Service is that it provides a front end to different security and PKI technologies with their own particular semantics." The WG invites comments on the specifications until May 23, 2003. [Full context]

• [April 16, 2003]   OASIS Forms Web Services Business Process Execution Language TC (WSBPEL).    A new Web Services Business Process Execution Language TC is being formed at OASIS to continue work on the business process language published in the Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) 1.0 specification. "Continuing the approach and design used in BPEL4WS, the work of the BPEL TC will focus on specifying the common concepts for a business process execution language which form the necessary technical foundation for multiple usage patterns including both the process interface descriptions required for business protocols and executable process models. BEA, IBM, Microsoft, SAP and Siebel intend to submit an updated Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) version 1.1 specification at the first meeting of the TC. This revised document is a modularized and updated version of the original specification that clearly identifies the core concepts and required extensions for BPEL4WS. TC activity is not intended to specify bindings to specific hardware/software platforms and other mechanisms required for a complete runtime environment for process implementation." The TC Co-Chairs are Diane Jordan (IBM) and John Evdemon (Microsoft). The first meeting of the WSBPEL TC will be held by phone conference call on May 16, 2003. [Full context]

• [April 15, 2003]   Liberty Alliance Releases Phase 2 Specifications for Federated Network Identity.    The Liberty Alliance Project has published draft versions of its Phase 2 specifications and guidelines for identity-based web services. The technical specification drafts provide three new elements to Liberty Alliance's Federated Network Identity Architecture. The Liberty Identity Federation Framework (ID-FF) version 1.2 now includes protocols for Affiliations and Anonymity. Liberty Identity Web Services Framework (ID-WSF) provides for Permissions-Based Attribute Sharing, Identity Discovery Service, Interaction Service, Security Profiles, and Extended Client Support. An initial service interface specification 'Personal Profile' is part of the Liberty Identity Service Interface Specifications (ID-SIS). "Drafts of security and privacy implementation guidelines as well as a Privacy and Security Best Practices document are also introduced with the Phase 2 draft specifications. These documents highlight global privacy laws and fair information practices, as well as provide implementation guidance for organizations using the Liberty Alliance specifications to build identity-based services. A Liberty Alliance public interoperability event being held at the RSA 2003 conference is bringing together 20 of the industry's leading hardware, software, mobile device and service companies; these companies will showcase how Liberty's Phase 1 specifications for opt-in account linking and simplified sign-on can be used today in numerous business scenarios. Liberty's specifications, which are developed collaboratively by members representing various industries and organizations across the globe, are open and free for anyone to download. The specifications support and include other open industry standards like SAML, SOAP, WAP, WS-Security and XML. This allows businesses to implement Liberty-enabled products and services confidently, knowing they will interoperate with the company's infrastructure and the infrastructure of its customers and business partners." [Full context]

• [April 15, 2003]   Last Call Draft for Mathematical Markup Language V2.0 Second Edition.    The W3C Math Working Group has released a Last Call Working Draft Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 2.0 (2nd Edition). MathML is "an XML application that allows mathematical notation and content to be served, received and processed on the Web." MathML Second Edition introduces an XML Schema which supports checking a MathML fragment in a stricter way than by performing DTD validation. The new release also includes an XHTML+MathML version with inline examples, suitable for viewing with a MathML enabled browser. MathML Version 2.0 Second Edition updates the Recommendation of February 21, 2001 by incorporating errata into the main document and providing additional documentation. The W3C Working Group invites comments during the Last Call period, which ends May 09, 2003. [Full context]

• [April 11, 2003]   Global Justice Publishes Prerelease Version 3 for Justice XML Data Dictionary (JXDD).    The Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative (US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs) has provided new information on the Justice XML Data Model, including a prerelease of the Justice XML Data Dictionary version 3.0. The Justice XML Data Dictionary (JXDD) prerelease version 3 "is intended to solicit review and feedback from the justice and public safety communities. JXDD v3 has been reviewed by the Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative (Global) Infrastructure/Standards Working Group (GISWG). The XSTF development team built upon existing local, state, and federal documented data requirements, gathering source documents including XML schemas, database schemas, data dictionaries, code tables, and other documented data requirements. From these source documents approximately 16,000 data elements, types, and attributes were identified. These were analyzed and reduced to 2,000 unique data elements that were then incorporated in around 300 data objects or reusable components. The GISWG committee's XML Structure Task Force (XSTF) that developed the JXDD v3 would now like to open review to a wider audience of government and industry persons, with technical and practical expertise in the justice and public safety domain, until mid-June 2003. The XSTF will review all feedback and decide which modifications to incorporate into future prereleases." The JXDD XML Schemas depend upon twenty-some external schemas, code lists, specifications, and publications created by other groups and organizations. The JXDD release provides annotated versions of these XML Schemas. JXDD v3 is available for commercial use and does not require prior permission for its use; however, the JXDD prerelease is subject to change. [Full context]

• [April 10, 2003]   IBM alphaWorks Releases XML Forms Package.    The XML development team at IBM alphaWorks labs has released an 'XML Forms Package' as one of several new technologies. The XML Forms Package is a toolkit consisting of software components designed to showcase the possibilities presented by W3C XForms. XForms is W3C's next generation of web forms defined in a Candidate Recommendation specification. The IBM XML Forms Package "consists of two main components: the data model component and the client component. The data model component provides a set of Java APIs for creating, accessing, and modifying XForms data models. This package also includes a JSP tag library that provides a set of tags for use inside JSPs. The tag library interfaces with the XForms data model component APIs, thus providing JSP authors a means of accessing these APIs from within their JSPs. A detailed description of the data model APIs and the tag library, as well as their use, can be found in the documentation for the XML Forms data model. The client component includes two technologies: An XForms processor control and a Java XForms compiler. The XML Forms Package allows developers to deploy XForms applications without any client-side technologies, using the Java XForms compiler. It also includes an Internet Explorer process control with several useful extensions including local persistence, UI control extensions, and Web Services integration. The data model component allows JSP programmers to take advantage of XForms model constraints and validation without leaving their familiar programming environment and tools." [Full context]

• [April 07, 2003]   AIIM Publishes Draft XML Standard for Interchange of Document Images and Related Metadata.    The Association of Information and Image Management (AIIM) has announced the ballot results for a draft specification Extensible Markup Language (XML) for the Interchange of Document Images and Related Metadata. The draft standard "specifies methods for using XML for the interchange of metadata about image files, and the image files themselves. The standard is designed for use when an image is transferred between users, either within an organization or between organizations; the standardization of metadata permits the interchange to operate independently of the usage and storage on either side. XML is used to wrap the document content together with metadata that describes the package and the semantics of the contained image. If accepted by the AIIM working group, it will be proposed as the seed for an International Standard project within ISO TC171. This initial standard does not address XML for text files or any vertical industry XML definitions; it is be limited to document image files and will not address digital still images." Sections 10 and 11 of the draft present the XML DTD and Schema. [Full context]

• [April 07, 2003]   Adobe Announces XML Architecture for Document Creation, Collaboration, and Process Management.    As part of its Adobe Acrobat 6.0 product line rollout, Adobe Systems has announced a new XML architecture which enables intelligent documents to extend the value of enterprise systems. This comprehensive XML architecture supports end-to-end document processes -- document creation, collaboration, and process management across the enterprise. The new XML architecture provides an open framework for extending the value of business processes inside and outside the firewall. Now, businesses can bring people and processes together via XML, while retaining the inherent presentation, security, and interactivity of documents in the Portable Document Format (PDF). Key components include intelligent forms, process automation, data integration, security and publishing for archiving and printing. The architecture will be supported across Adobe's client and server solutions and will integrate Adobe PDF. It will take full advantage of XML for integration and bring continuity to business processes by presenting XML data in PDF for reliably sharing, viewing and interacting through Acrobat 6.0 software or Adobe Reader. All standard XML tools work directly with Adobe's XML architecture and it builds upon W3C XML standards including Namespaces, XSLT, XPath, XML Schema and XML Digital Signatures for full compatibility with existing applications and XML data streams. Over the coming months, Adobe will deliver a new tool for designing XML and PDF templates and forms; make the XML architecture specification publicly available and deliver an XML toolkit for developers to provide easy access to PDF file content from common scripting languages and Java." [Full context]

• [April 04, 2003]   OASIS Forms Electronic Procurement Standardization Technical Committee.    OASIS members have created a new Electronic Procurement Standardization (EPS) Technical Committee to guide the coordinated development of global e-procurement standards and processes. The TC will seek to "establish broad global representation from a cross section of governments and industries to enable the most credible and effective representation in the development of EP standards and processes. EPS TC work will focus on: (1) Developing requirements and a comprehensive framework for electronic procurement standards, (2) dentifying existing and in-development standards within this framework, (3) Coordinating liaison activity with other groups developing these components, (4) Identifying new activities to be pursued. (5) Performing a gap analysis to highlight where major electronic procurement standards are required to fulfill market needs and prioritize those with the most promising results." The first meeting of the EPS TC will be held as a teleconference on May 19, 2003. [Full context]

• [April 04, 2003]   W3C Web Ontology Working Group Publishes Last Call Working Drafts.    W3C has announced the release of five Last Call Working Draft specifications for the OWL Web Ontology Language Version 1.0, together with an updated Test Cases document. OWL "is used to publish and share sets of terms called ontologies, providing advanced Web search, software agents and knowledge management. It is intended to provide a language that can be used to describe the classes and relations between them that are inherent in Web documents and applications. The Web Ontology Language OWL is a semantic markup language for publishing and sharing ontologies on the World Wide Web. OWL is developed as a vocabulary extension of RDF (the Resource Description Framework) and is derived from the DAML+OIL Web Ontology Language." According to WG Co-Chair Jim Hendler, the W3C working group has made a best effort attempt to address all comments received to date, and now seeks confirmation that the comments have been addressed to the satisfaction of the user community, allowing the WG to move forward with Proposed Recommendations following the Last Call process. Comments are due by May 9, 2003. [Full context]<