[announce] OASIS Launches XRI

[Carol Geyer <carol.geyer@oasis-open.org>]

OASIS Members Launch Effort to Establish Common Identification Scheme
for Distributed Directory Services

Advanced Micro Devices, DataPower, EDS, Novell, Neustar, NRI Pacific,
OneName, Visa International, and Others Collaborate to Define Extensible
Resource Identifier

Boston, MA, USA; 8 January 2003--Members of the OASIS standards body are
collaborating to address a key challenge in distributed directory
services and data sharing--establishing a common identification scheme
that can be used across all domains, applications, and transport
protocols. The OASIS Extensible Resource Identifier (XRI) Technical
Committee will define a Uniform Resource Identifer (URI) scheme and a
corresponding Uniform Resource (URN) namespace that meet these
requirements, as well as basic mechanisms for resolving XRIs and
exchanging data and metadata associated with XRI-identified resources.

"URIs are one of the three pillars of Web architecture, but most URI
schemes
were developed before the era of XML and Web services," said Bill
Washburn,
President and Managing Director of the XNS Public Trust Organization
(XNSORG), which intends to contribute the Extensible Name Service (XNS)
specifications to seed the work of the OASIS committee. "With its other
initiatives related to XML, security, and directory services, we felt
OASIS was the right forum to develop a URI syntax that meets the demands
of identifying and sharing resources and data persistently across
different organizations and applications."

Drummond Reed of OneName, co-chair of the OASIS XRI Technical Committee
added, "XRI syntax will be fully federated, the way DNS and IP
addressing are today, yet will still address the problem of how to
identify the same logical resource stored in different physical
locations--for example, the same file stored on different file servers,
or the same invoice stored in different accounting systems." The syntax
will allow for identifiers optimized for both human and machine
readability, and will provide for internationalization in the same
manner as XML.

Participation in the OASIS XRI Technical Committee remains open to all
organizations and individuals. OASIS will host an open mail list for
public comment, and completed work will be freely available to the
public without licensing or other fees. Information on joining OASIS can
be found on http://www.oasis-open.org/join.


Industry Support for XRI

"XML-based Web services continue to propagate at a rapid pace and this
is escalating the demand to extend the WWW addressing and linking
capabilities in order that applications can more easily locate necessary
resources for their use," said Eugene Kuznetsov, founder, President and
CTO at DataPower Technology Inc.  "As a active member of OASIS,
DataPower fully supports the Extensible Resource Identifier (XRI)
Technical Committee and their work to define such a URI scheme and URN
namespace to meet these requirements."

"Rationalizing the relationship between identity and directory
services--whether in the context of users, applications, machines, or
data--holds the key to eliminating many of the obstacles, such as
adequate security, extensibility and effective management, that are
hindering the adoption of Web services," said Winston Bumpus, director
of standards for Novell. "In an effort to better integrate Web services
and identity, Novell is pleased to be working with many of the
industry's leading companies as part of the Extensible Resource
Identifier Technical Committee within OASIS. Novell brings years of
experience in directory services and secure identity management to the
committee, and we look forward to creating a standard that will allow
organizations to more easily and confidently adopt Web services."


About OASIS (http://www.oasis-open.org)

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information
Standards) is a not-for-profit, global consortium that drives the
development, convergence, and adoption of e-business standards. Members
themselves set the OASIS technical agenda, using a lightweight, open
process expressly designed to promote industry consensus and unite
disparate efforts. OASIS produces worldwide standards for security, Web
services, XML conformance, business transactions, electronic publishing,
topic maps and interoperability within and between marketplaces. OASIS
has more than 600 corporate and individual members in 100 countries
around the world.

For more information:

Carol Geyer
Director of Communications
OASIS (www.oasis-open.org)
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org
+1.978.667.5115 x209