[ciq] FW: Use of OASIS Standards namely, xNL,xAL and xCIL by JABBER.ORG

[Ram Kumar <rkumar@msi.com.au>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Theo [mailto:adamtheo@theoretic.com]
Sent: Friday, 16 November 2001 11:01 AM
To: profiles-jig@jabber.org; rkumar@msi.com.au
Subject: re: Use of OASIS Standards namely, xNL, xAL and xCIL


> Hi
>
> I accidentally came across your work on using OASIS standards namely, xNL,
> xAL and xCIL.
> I chair the committee that develops these standards. May I ask you for
what
> purpose these
> standards are used? We are gathering information on who is using these
> standards and for
> what purpose.


Hi, there. I just got back from a 2 week trip, so that's why the long
reply time :-)

we decided to use xAL/xNL/xCIL to "standardize" how a Jabber user's
personal information will be stored in their Jabber account. The Jabber
Profiles system itself allows for any XML structure, but we wanted to
provide *some* sort of stability, at least in this early stage.

it was debated whether to use an existing standrd or try and develop our
own, but for time's sake, we decided to use xCIL after I discovered it
on the OASIS website one day.

i've been very happy overall with xCIL. i'm glad we deided to use it
instead of another spec. it's going to serve our purposes well, i think.
right now xCIL and Profiles are just a working concept. i plan on
re-visiting this work soon, and taking profiles and their use of xCIL to
the next step. so there will be alot of activity coming back to this
list in a few weeks.


>
> My committee will be glad to provide any feedback to you regarding the
> standards. We are also
> keen to keep improving the standards and this is normally done by
receiving
> feedback from people
> who use it. No standard is perfect and it is an evolutionary process. If
you
> feel that we need to add
> some additional stuff to the standards, please feel free to let us know
and
> we will be more than happy
> to consider your input.


excellent! glad to hear it. thank you. we'll definiately be giving feedback.


>
> Please be aware that xNL and xAL standards (xAL, in particular) were
> developed to have a single
> "Global" name and address standard that is application independent (eg.
not
> sticking to postal
> rules of a country as more than 90% of the countries do not have postal
> rules), vendor neutral and open.
> xAL appears to be complex because it is designed to handle address of more
> than 200 countries
> around the world at a detailed level. Addresse with address lines 1,
address
> lines 2, etc. do not make
> sense when you use it for an application that does address validation.
That
> is why we provided an
> option to represent an address at an abstract level or at a very detailed
> level.


yes, at first i was miffed by the complexity and globalness of xAL, but
soon realized why it is like it is. it's well done, i think, considering
what it has to work with.

--
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