Minutes Draft from the OASIS Legal XML Member Section Electronic Contracts Technical Committee Secretary (File id: @@2386)

["Dr. Laurence Leff" <D-Leff@wiu.edu>]

                     Minutes Teleconference of April 27th 2004
     Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards
                                    (OASIS)
                           Legal XML Member Section
                       E-Contracts Technical Committee (TC)

Present

Rolly Chambers
Charles Gilliam
Jason Harrop
Laurence L. Leff, Ph.D.
Zorran Milosovic, Ph.D.
Eddie O'Brien
John McClure
David Marvits

18:01 Eastern Time

The Technical Committee approved the minutes drafts from January
Seventh, February Fourth, and February 17th of 2004.   It was noted
that the minutes draft for April 13th was also available on the
Technical Committee's web site.

Mr. Chambers kicked off the reopening of the discussion that was
started in the meeting of April 13th by mentioning some of the comments
received:

Mr. Peter Meyer raised the issue of what are the advantages
of XML over other technologies now in use for particular users.  He also
raised the issue of answering why standardization would be useful.

Mr. Jason Harrop raised the issue of whether some requirements
should be delayed.

Other members raised other issues:

* Do we compare XML with other formalisms such as Prolog?  Or do we
  compare XML with transferring contracts with Microsoft Word?

* Some other Technical Committees had general statements on the advantages
  of XML.  Perhaps, these statements could be borrowed for our documents.

* It is important to prepare a Requirements Document and approve it shortly
  rather than waiting a few months for certain issues to be ironed out.
  Perhaps, this means that these other issues would be addressed in
  a different document.

* A Scenario is that one potential party to a contract might receive
  it in our XML standard.  They would print it, sign it with a conventional
  pen, and mail it back by conventional mail.  (Headers and footers are an
  issue in this scenario.)

* Are we thus creating XML that represents "an evidentiary contract" and
  what is the importance of XML in this.

* What is necessary to have an "evidentiary" contract and how do Court
  "Rules of Procedure" relate with it.  One of the lawyer members of the 
  committee said that conventional XML, even without a printed format 
  such as would be generated by a style sheet, could serve as a contract.  
  A court would accepted it if it manifested the agreement of the parties.

* The Universal Business Language Technical Committee is discussing 
  standardizing style sheets for the display of their documents.

* Does our XML standard have to support CSS style sheets?

* Would our standard allow any content in the output to be generated by
  "algorithmic means?"

* Does the XML for the contract have to contain all the information 
  that is part of the contract.  And, how does this impact the use of
  XForms to include information.

* Importance of having "mandatory" and "optional" requirements in a standard
  And what does that mean.  One interpretation is that for certification, 
  an implementation would have to provide the "mandatory" features but
  the implementors would not have to provide the other features. The
  purveyors of that implementation could still say they met our our 
  standard.

* What is the importance of understanding and dealing with semantic issues?
  Should  we not include in our requirements, "semantic items" and 
  business terms such as quantities, prices, and units.

Mr. Chambers concluded that he has enough information and views from
the committee from our discussions to come to the next draft revision
of the Requirements Document.  The Scenarios that are now on our web
page and were discussed will be attachments to the Requirements
Document.  They will be put in a single HTML file.  However, there will
be no new headers, reorganizing or editorial changes to the contents.

The Structural Markup Subcommittee Report was put on the agenda for
the next meeting to be held in two weeks.  [That would be May 11th.]

The Technical Committee adjourned at 1910 Eastern time.