[ubl-ndrsc] Minutes for 21 November 2001 UBL NDR meeting

["Eve L. Maler" <eve.maler@sun.com>]

1. Roll call (quorum is 8):

    Bill Burcham
    Doug Bunting      YES
    Dave Carlson
    Mark Crawford     YES
    John Dumay
    Matt Gertner
    Jack Gager
    Arofan Gregory
    Eduardo Gutentag  YES (left at x:46)
    Eve Maler         YES
    Dale McKay        YES
    Sue Probert       YES (y:32)
    Marion Royal
    Gunther Stuhec    YES (left at y:47)
    Mike Rawlins      YES (x:30)

    Quorum not reached as of x:10; we proceeded informally.

2. Acceptance of minutes of previous meetings:

    7 November 2001 meeting:
    http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/ubl-ndrsc/200111/msg00026.html
    Deferred.
    14 November 2001 meeting:
    http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/ubl-ndrsc/200111/msg00068.html
    Deferred.

3. Adoption of agenda

    Need to add action item review.
    Adopted with this change.

3a. Action item review:

>    ACTION: Arofan to talk to Pam Samuelson about the legal
>    implications of default values supplied out-of-band.
>
>    ACTION: Arofan to create a new use case for instance constraint
>    checking.
>
>    ACTION: Arofan to write the position paper for this for next
>    Wednesday, using a small but complete example of needing
>    subtraction/selection and addition.
>
>    ACTION: Dave to create [use case] HTML template for people to use.

     Continued.

4. Brief discussion of any additional use cases
    Discussed ad hoc in the context of the next two agenda items.

5. Review structure of latest draft of NDR document (led by Mark)

    We discussed and gave editorial direction on the document, up through
    Chapter 4.  We will try to finish the whole outline next time.

    ACTION: Dale to revise 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3 to make them shorter and
    provide a reference to the source whence the information came.

    New terminology:

    W3C XML Schema (XSD):
    Long-form and short-form name of W3C's XML schema language.

    ACTION: Mark to add new terminology to the glossary and add "W3C
    XML Schema" and "XSD" to the Conventions section as well.

    ACTION: Mark to revise the NDR document to reflect editorial
    directions by next meeting, if possible.

    Issue/ACTION/position list:
    - Review and decide on remaining design principles. (Mark)
    - We need to formalize the decision about schema language. (Eve)
    - Relationship between UBL and UN/CEFACT constructs position. (Mark)
    - TPA section. (Doug -- but not any time soon!)

6. Discuss/decide markup naming position (led by Mark)

    Arguments for option 1, highly structured tags:
    - Better semantic clarity across disparate user groups (requires
      good definitions as well as heavy application of the naming rule)
    - Avoids accidental duplication of names for different concepts
    - Creating new elements would require a more time-consuming naming
      exercise
    - The Library Content SC is already "renaming" xCBL wholesale in
      their spreadsheet)
    - More regular naming helps readers of the raw XML because they can
      guess meanings through the patterns

    Arguments for option 2, slightly structured tags:
    - More intuitive and familiar naming (friendlier for business people)
    - Shorter names in general
    - Don't have to rename xCBL wholesale
    - Sometimes difficult to apply the naming rules.

    Issues:
    - Is aliasing directly in the XML file an option?  We don't want to
      just tell people to use substitution groups in their own ad hoc
      customization layers.  But we need to think about aliasing for
      L10N purposes too.

    ACTION: Arofan/Sue/Lisa to provide the xCBL naming guidelines (and
    all the other xCBL guidelines!).

    ACTION: Dale to generate a use case where the actor is an implementor
    and needs to create a message with alternate (aliased) tag naming.

    Doug: Only tag naming semantics are covered.  We need to cover
    attribute names and enumerated value names as well.

    Dale: People read tags in two circumstances: In the context of their
    business documents and situations, and searching repository to find
    out what tags already exist.  We don't want people to make up their
    own; harmonization will be impossible.

    Gunther: We can rely on tools to help with locating the right
    elements; option 1 is preferable.

    Mike: If we go with option 1, there are some edge cases that make
    applying the rules difficult; these need to be explained better.
    Also, there need to be better rules on removing duplication within
    a name.

    We will assume that a decision to go with option 1 will be achievable
    the next time we have quorum.

    ACTION: Mark to update the position paper with our suggestions
    (including email suggestions).

7. Discuss/decide customization position (led by Arofan)
    Deferred.

8. Next steps

    On the agenda for next time:
    - Approve minutes from last three meetings
    - Action item review
    - The XSD decision
    - Finish going through the outline and assign more champions
    - Arofan's position paper
    - Bill Burcham's position paper

9. Adjourn

    Adjourned at y:56.  Happy Thanksgiving to all the folks in the U.S.!
    (And, what the heck, to everyone else too. :-)

--
Eve Maler                                    +1 781 442 3190
Sun Microsystems XML Technology Center   eve.maler @ sun.com