RE: [wsbpel] Issue 88 - Proposal to vote

[Francisco Curbera <curbera@us.ibm.com>]

The semantics we (and also WSDL and essentially XSD afaik) rely upon are
that the process definition is dependent on a set of external definitions
that we explicitly declare through the import element. Whether XSD uses the
abstraction of virtual inlining into the importing document is essentially
irrelevant for us.
So I think that introducing a new element name to do essentially the same
would be a mistake and not serve our users well.

Paco



                                                                                                                                        
                      "Ugo Corda"                                                                                                       
                      <UCorda@SeeBeyond        To:       Francisco Curbera/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, <wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org>              
                      .com>                    cc:                                                                                      
                                               Subject:  RE: [wsbpel] Issue 88 - Proposal to vote                                       
                      04/01/2005 04:11                                                                                                  
                      PM                                                                                                                
                                                                                                                                        




> Q: Should we use the XML element name 'import'?
> Import implies that the files that are being pointed to are
> included in the BPEL definition. But strictly speaking that
> isn't the case since BPEL does not support in-line WSDL or
> XML Schema definitions. Shouldn't the name be more
> descriptive, such as 'associate'?
>
> A: Import does not usually imply that files are "included" in
> the BPEL definition - that is "include" as in XSD and WSDL
> 2.0; import implies that definitions from the referenced
> namespaces are used by the importing document. Since that is
> what we are doing here (albeit crossing XML
> dialects) I propose we keep the "bpel:import" element name.
> Fewer new concepts is better.

I don't agree with your characterization of "import". In WSDL 1.1,
import is clearly an in-lining mechanism. (I prefer not to talk about
WSDL 2.0, since the exact meaning of import is still being debated).

In XML Schema, the import is a logical in-lining, in the sense that the
schema components coming from the imported schemas become integral part
of the pool of schema components corresponding to the importing schema.

[from Schema1, sec. 4.2.3:
"The *schema components* (that is {type definitions},
{attribute declarations}, {element declarations}, {attribute group
definitions}, {model group definitions},
{notation declarations}) of a schema corresponding to a <schema> element
information item with one
or more <import> element information items must include not only
definitions or declarations
corresponding to the appropriate members of its [children], but also,
for each of those <import>
element information items for which clause 2 above is satisfied, a set
of *schema components* identical
to all the *schema components* of I"].

Given that BPEL does not follow in-lining semantics, I would prefer if a
different term were used.
If we decide to reuse the same term "import", I think we should define
it in our own namespace (no reuse of xsd:import or wsdl:import), and we
should clearly define our own semantics without referring to the
semantics of xsd:import and wsdl:import.

Ugo


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