OASIS Registry and Repository - Design Background

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Revision History

Revision 0.1, 12 March 2000, TA
Initial version, extracted from the Tech Spec.

Table of Contents

1. Identifiers
2. Semantics and Syntax

1. Identifiers

ISO/IEC 11179 posits the use of an International Registration Data Identifier (IRDI), specified in ISO/IEC 6523, and bureaucratic infrastructure to support assignment of various components of it. This infrastructure seems not to exist, and the OASIS Registry and Repository Technical Committee will not specify its use, it appears than other identifiers, notably URNs, will serve the same purpose. Note that SOs must be required to use URNs or other identifiers only from name spaces they are authorized to use; pointers to entities registered but not deposited should resolve to a site the SO is authorized to use. (For the purpose of unique identification any globally unique ID will works, such as the Microsoft GUID, but for ease of implementation it would be best if such IDs were presented as URNs.) URN resolver preferences may be expressed in the URN Resolver Preferences DTD, for which urnsamp.txt is a sample instance.

One of the uses of the IRDI is that the RA assigns one to an application for registration of a data element; in the same process the Registration Status of the entity to be registered is established by the RA. It is clear that the registry requires metadata beyond that supplied by the SO.

2. Semantics and Syntax

ISO/IEC 11179 is the obvious choice for registry metadata. The existing standard is specified in English, so it lacks a concrete syntax. The proposed revision of its Part 3, ANSI X3.285, “Metamodel for the Management of Shareable Data” is specified in English and accompanied by UML diagrams. The ISO/IEC 11179 working group is exploring the possibility of generating an XMI representation of the metamodel automatically from the UML. (The ISO/IEC JTC1 / SC 32 / WG 2 proposal for a work item on XML for ISO/IEC 11179 is .) The OASIS Registry and Repository Technical Committee has decided not to use this approach, at least for the present, for the following reasons.

Consequently the registry, which does not require the complexity of X3.285, will use the existing standard rather than the metamodel and await developments from SC32 WG2.

The OASIS Registry and Repository Technical Committee should track revision of ISO/IEC 11179 and the outcome of the W3C's XML Schema activity so that the registration document type may be updated when and as appropriate.

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