[announce] OASIS Members Form Technical Committee to DevelopLocalization Interchange File Format

[Carol Geyer <carol.geyer@oasis-open.org>]

OASIS Members Form Technical Committee to Develop Localization
Interchange File Format

Commerce One, HP, IBM, Novell, Oracle, SAP, Sun Microsystems, Xerox, and
Others Unite on Multi-Lingual Data Exchange Standard

Boston, MA, USA; 22 January 2002 -- OASIS, the XML interoperability
consortium, today announced its members have formed the OASIS XML
Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF) Technical Committee to
advance a specification for multi-lingual data exchange. XLIFF will
allow any software provider to produce a single interchange format that
can be delivered to and understood by any localization service provider.
Supporting the entire localization process, XLIFF will be product
independent, open enough to allow the development of tools compatible
with an implementer's own proprietary data formats and company culture.

"Currently, software companies deliver resources to localization service
providers in a number of disparate file formats. In the case of uncommon
or nonstandard file formats, either the company or the service provider
has to supply a method for the file to be localized. For a software
company with many uncommon or nonstandard files, this requirement
becomes a major obstacle," explained Tony Jewtushenko of Oracle, chair
of the OASIS XLIFF Technical Committee. "XLIFF will address this
situation, streamlining the task of interchanging files through an
accepted standard."

Jewtushenko explained, "With our standard, a publisher will be able to
use a filter to convert their native file format to an XLIFF file, which
will be sent to a localization vendor for translation. When the file is
returned, it will be converted back to its original format. This adds
considerable value to those who publish software in international
markets by making the localization process more robust and efficient."

Initial development of XLIFF was begun by an independent group of
localization experts who plan to submit their work to the new OASIS
technical committee. Many existing XML formats such as UIML, OpenTag and
Translation Memory Exchange (TMX) were used as points of reference in
building XLIFF.

Yves Savourel, author of ‘XML Internationalization and Localization,’
applauded the consolidation under OASIS, saying, "The creation of an
OASIS Technical Committee for XLIFF is good news for our industry. XLIFF
brings the promise of much greater interoperability between the tools
used by customers and providers of localization services. This should
lead to more efficient and less costly processes."

Members of the OASIS XLIFF Technical Committee include consortium
sponsors, Commerce One, Hewlett-Packard Company, IBM, Novell, Oracle,
SAP, Sun Microsystems, Xerox, and other OASIS members. Participation
remains open to all organizations and individuals interested in
advancing localization. Information on joining OASIS can be found on
http://www.oasis-open.org/join.

OASIS will host an open mail list for public comment on XLIFF, and
completed work will be freely available to the public without licensing
or other fees.


About OASIS
OASIS (www.oasis-open.org), a not-for-profit, global consortium, drives
the development, convergence and adoption of e-business standards.
Members themselves set the OASIS technical agenda, using a lightweight,
open process expressly designed to promote industry consensus and unite
disparate efforts. OASIS is the home for XML conformance, Web services,
security, business transactions, electronic publishing, topic maps and
other interoperability specifications development.

OASIS has more than 400 corporate and individual members in 100
countries around the world. OASIS and the United Nations jointly sponsor
ebXML, a global framework for e-business data exchange. OASIS operates
XML.org, a community clearinghouse for XML application schemas,
vocabularies and related documents. OASIS hosts The XML Cover Pages, an
online reference collection for interoperable markup language standards.


For more information:
Carol Geyer
Director of Communications
OASIS www.oasis-open.org
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org
+1.978.667.5115 x209