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Subject: BusDox: Charter issue
The intent of the BusDox project is described in the Charter as three different ideas: 1. "The BusDox TC does not replace existing messaging service standards. It provides a simplified interface independent of the various standards used for the exchange of documents." Interface between what and what? "independent of the standards used for exchange" appears to be completely inconsistent with the description of the TC output as a set of Profiles for the standards used for exchange. What was really intended here? 2. "Establish profiles for a lightweight and federated document transport infrastructure supporting secure and reliable exchange of electronic business documents." followed by many other bullets that begin "Profile ... (some other network services standard)" This seems to be a good idea, consistent with several efforts of CEN and the EU -- to standardize a set of protocols and options for business document transmission, so that there is a well-defined layer cake of protocols that create interoperability at every layer below the document definition itself. But if this is the intent of the TC, then it defines a total end-to-end interface _/in terms of /_existing and emerging standards, not _/independent of/_ them, as the sentence cited as (1) above says. 3. "List of deliverables The BusDox TC will produce an integrated set of Committee Specifications including a set of XML Schemas and an XML-based request/response protocol for exchange of documents." I do not understand how a Profile or a set of Profiles is an XML Schema, or is usefully rendered as one. Presumably the business documents themselves are defined by standard XML Schemas chosen by the businesses, e.g., ebXML or OAGI or PLCS or whatever. And every layer of the Profile below the document level is simply a specific configuration of the referenced standards for that part of the addressing, packaging and transmission controls. So what kind of XML schema would this TC provide? And for whose consumption? The intent of the XML Schema appears to be an additional activity not mentioned in the Scope (as interpreted from "The committee Specifications will cover" list) -- the definition of an "XML-based request/response protocol for exchange of documents". And it is not clear which bullet of the objectives list would lead to this activity. Whatever this "development of a request/response protocol" is, it should be made one of the bullets of one of the lists. This undescribed activity seems to be a direct replication of the ebMS effort, to say nothing of the OAGIS and CEFACT simple webservices commonly in use, bearing in mind that those standards define standard document forms, and include acknowledgement messages (for asynchronous one-way messages) and request-with-response rules for the use of others. So it appears that the objective of this TC is not only to profile the lower layers of the layer cake, but also to create yet another standard for the actual business message envelope at the top level. Simply stated, creating a standard profile for the layers of the layer cake is a very worthwhile task. Adding yet another "simple" messaging standard for conveying an arbitrary text or XML payload is not clearly a worthwhile endeavour. Choosing an existing standard for that purpose, as part of the overall Profile, would be consistent with the overall intent of creating a standard interoperable suite of layers for conveying arbitrary business documents. I believe the Charter needs to be clarified in these regards, so that the intent of this project is clear to the WS-I folk, the ebMS folk, and the CEFACT folk. Further, it is not clear that the identified participants include any individuals who have been involved in any of the major standards that are to be profiled, or any of the "similar or applicable work". Yet no formal liaisons are identified. Some significant effort must be made to create and operate the liaisons between this TC and the organizations responsible for the standards the TC expects to Profile, and the implementors of those standards, lest this whole project result only in academic shelfware. -Ed Barkmeyer -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4694
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