Marty Sachs

Nov. 21, 2001

Attendees: Marty Sachs, Neelakantan Kartha, Malu Pallavi, Peter Ogden, Dale Moberg, Heiko Ludwig, Kevin Liu, Jamie Clark.

Marty introduced Heiko Ludwig, IBM Research, who is joining our subteam.

Marty proposed that we try to complete a requirements document concurrently with the work on CPPA V. 1.1, and start building a specification after the V 1.1 TC review, which is scheduled to begin at the end of January, 2002.

Dale started a discussion of whether partner discovery is in scope. He suggested starting with two CPPs or a CPA template and not get into the discovery process itself. Kevin noted that we might discover requirements that would have to be submitted to the ebXML Registry or UDDI team. The consensus was not to include discovery in the initial specification.

Dale brought up the bootstrap process for setting up the endpoints for negotiation without negotiation how to negotiate. He suggested that the bootstrap could be based on WSDL and SOAP. Kartha suggested that we start by deciding what will be negotiated and worry about the bootstrap later. Dale replied that we also need to take automation into account. Marty pointed out that WSDL and SOAP are an existience proof that the negotiation process is bootstrappable. The team agreed that the negotiation process has to be bootstrappable and automatable but there is no need to get into bootstrap issues at this time.

We began a paragraph by paragraph review of the negotiation white paper (Nov. 6, 2001 version) as the means of identifying requirements for Version 1.

We started with Section 1.

Marty noted that Section 1 (preceding 1.1) should be viewed as high-level, long-term goals and is not directly translatable into detailed Version 1 requirements.

Paragraph 1 (line 27ff): The consensus was that this paragraph represents our overall goals.

Paragraph 2 (line 31ff): This was accepted as an overall goal. A statement about being bootstrappable and automatable will be added either to this paragraph or directly following it.

Paragraph 3 (line 37ff): There was some discussion about what this paragraph means. The consensus was that it relates to simplification (and hence cost reduction) of the management of large numbers of trading partners, both for setting up CPAs and for renewing and modifying them.

Paragraph 4 (line 41). There was extensive discussion of how and when to offer to contribute negotiation to Web services. Marty pointed out that contributing on negotiation to Web Services was discussed at the May, 2000 ebXML meeting and is part of our OASIS charter. Dale suggested that we produce a tModel for a CPP and show how it fits into Web services. Heiko pointed out that while our goal is to negotiate a CPA, there doesn't seem to be anything equivalent in Web Services. Dale suggested developing contributions to W3C. Marty said that first, Web Services has to discover that it needs agreements, which are absent today. The consensus is that contributing a negotiation approach to Web Services is an important long-range goal but Version 1 of our specification is too soon.

Paragraph 5 (line 44ff): Jamie suggested that we keep the goal of extension to higher level (e.g. business matters) aspects of an agreement in mind while we develop CPA negotiation. Heiko and Dale noted that negotiation of the higher level functions are less amenable to automation than negotiation of the CPA's technical parameters and that parametrization of business terms and conditions is probably far beyond where we are now. Marty observed that this paragraph is a long-range goal that has nothing to do with version 1 except to keep it in mind, as Jamie said.

Paragraph 6 (line 47): This paragraph needs to be relocated. Marty suggested moving both paragraph 4 and paragraph 6 into paragraph 1 and reorganizing it.

Paragraph 7 (line 49ff): The consensus is that we are producing a specification, not just a technical report. The members recognize that there can be alternative negotiation procedures and our specification should not be viewed as the only way to negotiate a CPA. (Paragraph will be deleted and the specification point added to paragraph 1).

Jamie reminded the team that RosettaNet is working on a Trading Partner Agreement (legal document) specification and will widely distribute a draft for comment soon. Members of the CPA team should review it. Dale stated that CPPA V 1.1 would include a pointer to a TPA. Jamie observed that people tend to put a lot of things into TPAs that are hard to automate.

Dale will investigate setting up a separate listserver for this subteam.

The consensus is to have conference calls once a week in order to complete our requirements by the end of January. The calls will continue on Wednesdays at 3 pm - 4 pm US Eastern time.

Marty suggested planning a negotiation face to face meeting on the day before or the day after the next CPPA face to face meeting, which will probably be in January according to Dale.

Respectfully submitted,

Marty Sachs

Please notify the team of any corrections needed in the minutes.