Re: [ebxml-bp] Yunker/Nagahashi 1/26/2004: Question on Construction ofGUIDREF / Versioning

["Monica J. Martin" <Monica.Martin@Sun.COM>]

Kenji, this is valuable language to ensure is included in the final 
verbiage (see **...**).  Are we set? Thanks.

There are two points to address:
- double reference with name and nameID
- uniqueness rule for nameID (or name), i.e. scope of nameID.

Terms:
- BPSS components: such as BinaryCollaboration, TransactionActivity.
- GUID: general term for globally unique identifier. UUID is a specific
example of GUID. Identifiers only unique within a document or package 
are not GUIDs.
- UUID: 128bit globally unique identifier defined by DCE. Used in ebRR. 

Proposal:

- Use only nameID for referencing BPSS components.

- BPSS specification doesn't enforce any specific format for nameID.
Author may use arbitrary text (as far as it satisfies other rules).

- name attribute carries descriptive text only. It is never used for
referencing BPSS components. It is not required to be unique at all, 
even within a package.

- Scope of nameID is a package. So reference to BPSS components (within
the same document) MUST be qualified with package names. As a special 
case, qualification is not necessary for reference to BPSS components in 
the same package. This means nameID is not a GUID (as defined above) --- 
so type name for nameID should not contain "GUID" to avoid confusion.

- external descriptions (eg CPP/A) reference BPSS components by
combination of 
 1. globally unique identifier for BPSS document (eg. URL, or UUID 
assigned by ebRR)
 2. fragment = <package name> '.' <nameID>

 (example: http://host.domain.com/brabra/process.xml#package.PO)

**Therefore:
a. Use the nameID to locate a set of BPSS which may support a sub process (semantic linkage). This allows semantic identification of an alternate set of BPSS implementations which MAY also support that specific subprocess identified by the NameID. 
b. Use the globally unique BPSS ID to assemble a specific solution (specific linkage).  For explicit linking it identifies a specific version of a BPSS document, allowing specification of guaranteed integrity of a larger set of linked BPSS.**