announcement of new OASIS Standards Registry

["Karl F. Best" <karl.best@oasis-open.org>]

OASIS members:

We are pleased to announce the availability of the OASIS Standards 
Registry. The Registry, found on the OASIS server at 
http://registry.oasis-open.org, is for the purpose of sharing 
information about the technical activities of OASIS and other standards 
development organizations (SDOs) who may elect to submit data. The goal 
of the Registry is to promote participation in technical activities, 
collaboration between SDOs, and broader awareness and adoption of 
completed technical work based on data standards.

The Registry is a structured database that stores six types of data 
objects: Standards Development Organizations, Technical Committees, 
Specifications, Companies, Products, and Glossary Terms. Users and the 
general public will be able to browse and search its contents, which are 
stored in a hierarchical tree, and can be linked by associations between 
the different objects. For example, a software or hardware "Product" is 
the output of a "Company", and may also be an implementation of a 
"Specification". A "Specification" belongs to a "Technical Committee", 
which in turn belongs to an "SDO". Users can traverse these associations 
through the Registry tree to discover relationships between activities.

The Registry is based on the ebXML Registry (RIM) specification, and a 
metadata structure developed by an ad hoc Standards Registry committee 
formed by several SDOs. The Registry was built for OASIS by Yellow 
Dragon Software (recently acquired by Adobe), and is designed to be 
compatible with interfaces for UDDI and other standards-based data 
discovery methodologies. These standardized interfaces will allow for 
direct application-to-application links, thereby enabling federated 
queries with other registries implementing these open standard 
interfaces, as they become available.

OASIS will host and maintain the Registry, and permit other relevant 
organizations to enter pertinent data. For example:
* SDOs, Technical Committees and Companies may submit their contact 
data, and be listed as data objects.
* Technical Committees of any standards organization may submit data on 
their Specifications that are available as public resources.
* Companies may submit data on their Products that implement a 
Specification. ("Company" is a generic classification that may also 
cover unincorporated entities, governments, end-user organizations, and 
other Product sources.)
* Products may include products provided by vendors that implement the 
linked "Specification". This object may also be used by other user 
organizations to reference their internal projects that are implemented 
using the linked "Specification" whether through the installation of a 
product from a vendor or from in-house developed applications that use 
the referenced "Specification".

Any user may browse the Registry as a public resource without needing an 
account or password. Users who wish to enter listed data objects must 
register and log in before submitting new objects. Instructions and 
documentation for browsing as well as for submitting new objects are 
available through links at the bottom of the Registry's home page.

Each entry in the Registry is an assertion by the data owner; the 
submitter takes responsibility for the accuracy of the assertion. OASIS 
will maintain the availability of the Registry as a data resource, and 
will permit parties to list relevant data about their own activities at 
their option. OASIS will act as the "owner" of current information for 
its own Technical Committees and Specifications in the Registry, and 
maintain current contact and status information there for member and 
public use. We have pre-loaded the Registry with the current OASIS TCs, 
and with each OASIS specification that has been approved as Committee 
Drafts and OASIS Standards.

OASIS also has entered the organizational members of OASIS as "Company" 
data objects, and we encourage representatives of member companies to 
enter information about their products that implement OASIS specifications.

We will be announcing the OASIS Standards Registry to the public on or 
about 15 January, and inviting other standards development organizations 
to enter information about their technical work. In order to give 
exposure to the work of OASIS member organizations in implementing OASIS 
specifications, we would like to see your products entered into the 
Registry by that time.

We will be demonstrating the Registry to OASIS members this week, 
Tuesday through Thursday, at the OASIS booth at the IDEAlliance XML 2003 
conference in Philadelphia. Please stop by booth #409 for a quick look.

-Karl

=================================================================
Karl F. Best
Vice President, OASIS
office  +1 978.667.5115 x206     mobile +1 978.761.1648
karl.best@oasis-open.org      http://www.oasis-open.org