[tc-announce] OASIS TC Call For Participation: Web Services RemotePortal

["Karl F. Best" <karl.best@oasis-open.org>]

A new OASIS technical committee is being formed. The OASIS Web Services
Remote Portal Technical Committee (WSRP TC) has been proposed by the
following members of OASIS: Brian Pearson, Bowstreet; Ed Anuff,
Epicentric; Thomas Schaeck, IBM; Sasha Aickin, Plumtree; David Sean
Taylor, IONA; Una Kearns, Documentum; Jon Klein, Lexis-Nexis; Jeff
Broberg, Silverstream; Nigel Ratcliffe, Factiva; Michael Freedman,
Oracle; Michael Hyman, Netegrity; and Mark Cassidy, Netegrity.

The proposal for a new TC meets the requirements of the OASIS TC Process
(see http://oasis-open.org/committees/process.shtml), and is appended to
this message. The proposal, which includes a statement of purpose, list
of deliverables, and proposed schedule, will constitute the TC's
charter. The TC Process allows these items to be clarified (revised) by
the TC members; such clarifications (revisions), as well as submissions
of technology for consideration by the TC and the beginning of technical
discussions, may occur no sooner than the TC's first meeting.

To become a member of this new TC you must 1) be an employee of an OASIS
member organization or an Individual member of OASIS; 2) notify the TC
chair, Thomas Schaeck (schaeck@de.ibm.com), of your intent to
participate at least 15 days prior to the first meeting; and 3)
participate in the first meeting on 18-20 March 2002. You should also
subscribe to the TC's discussion list. Note that membership in OASIS TCs
is by individual, and not by organization. You must be eligible for
participation at the time you time you notify the chair.

The private mail list wsrp@lists.oasis-open.org is for committee
discussions. TC members as well as any other interested OASIS members
should subscribe to the list by going to the mail list web page at
http://lists.oasis-open.org/ob/adm.pl, or by sending a message to
wsrp-request@lists.oasis-open.org with the word "subscribe" as the body
of the message. (Note that subscribing to the mail list does not make
you a member of the TC; to become a member you must contact the TC chair
as described in the preceeding paragraph.)

A public comment list wsrp-comment@lists.oasis-open.org will be
available for the public to make comments on the work of this TC; the
public may subscribe to this list by going to the mail list web page at
http://lists.oasis-open.org/ob/adm.pl, or by sending a message to
wsrp-comment-request@lists.oasis-open.org with the word "subscribe" as
the body of the message.

The archives of both of these mail lists are visible to the public at
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/

</karl>
=================================================================
Karl F. Best
OASIS - Director, Technical Operations
978.667.5115 x206
karl.best@oasis-open.org  http://www.oasis-open.org



PROPOSAL: OASIS WSRP TC

NAME

The name of this Technical Committee shall be the Web Services Remote
Portal (WSRP) TC.

PURPOSE

The aims of the WSRP TC shall be as follows:

1. Create an XML and web services standard that will allow for the
“plug-n-play” of: portals, other intermediary web applications that
aggregate content, and applications from disparate sources. These
so-called Remote Portlet Web services will be designed to enable
businesses to provide content or applications in a form that does not
require any manual content or application-specific adaptation by
consuming applications.

2. Work closely with the OASIS WSIA technical committee (previously
named the WSCM TC) to ensure reuse and compatibility where possible.

3. To harmonize WSRP as far as practical with existing web application
programming models (e.g. Portals/Portlets, Macromedia Flash, ...), with
the work of the W3C (e.g.XForms, DOM, XML Events, XPath, XLink, XML
Component API task force), emerging web services standards (e.g. SOAP,
WSDL, WSFL) and with the work of other appropriate business information
bodies.

4. Ultimately, to promote WSRP to the status of an international
standard for the conduct of XML and Web Services based web application
development, deployment and management.

DELIVERABLES

The primary deliverable of the WSRP TC is specification that consists of
a coordinated set of Web Services interfaces and technical contracts
that will allow businesses to:

- Implement Remote Portlet Web Services according to the spec to that
they are interoperable with compliant consuming applications, e.g.
portals.
- Publish Remote Portlet Web Services into UDDI directories with
meta-information that indicates their capabilities
- Implement consuming applications according to the spec so that they
are interoperable with compliant Remote Portlet Web Services.
- Find Remote Portlet Web Services in UDDI directories and exploit the
associated meta-information to determine their capabilities.

As examples, the following things shall be possible:
- Portals shall be able to consume Remote Portlet Web Services, using
generic Portlet Proxies to allow to dynamically plug in any Remote
Portlet Web Service.
- Portals shall be able to publish any local portlet as a Remote Portlet
Web Service
- Remote Portlet Web Services can be implemented on any Web
services-capable platform, e.g. J2EE or .NET.

As currently envisioned, the WSRP work will take place in four phases:

1. A first phase to gather requirements across portal vendors, service
providers, system integrators, and portal deployers.

2. Produce an initial set of working drafts for the Remote Portlet Web
Services specification for review by the OASIS members and the public.

3. Finalize the first version of the specification.

4. Define a set of design patterns to guide WSRP developers in creating
re-useable application components. In addition the TC will encourage
implementations, test suites and interoperability guidelines.

If the work actually does take place in this form, then it is estimated
that the first, second, and third will take roughly one year to complete
and that the fourth phase will take roughly
one year.

If phases can be combined or run in parallel, then it is estimated that
delivery of an initial set of specifications will take one to two years.

LANGUAGE

The TC shall conduct its proceedings in English.

MEETINGS

The first meeting of the TC shall take place 18 March 2002 through 20
March 2002 at facilities in Westchester County, New York, donated by
IBM, or at an alternative location in the New York City area chosen to
accommodate the number of participants who register to attend. The date
and time of record for establishing initial voting membership under the
OASIS TC process shall be 18 March 2002 at 2 p.m. Eastern Time.

The TC shall meet in person no more often than four times a year and by
telephone at such other times as its members may determine.

It is the intention of the sponsors of the TC to adopt a meeting
schedule that will maximize contact between the persons engaged in the
WSRP work, business experts engaged in the work of W3C, and persons
engaged in the work of other organizations attempting to define XML and
Web Services based web application standards

Prospective participants in the WSRP TC should be ready to commit to a
schedule calling for as many as two meetings annually in North America
and as many as two meetings annually in Europe or Asia.

TC PROPOSERS

The following persons eligible to participate in OASIS technical
committees state that they are committed to the meeting schedule and
purpose stated above:

Brian Pearson, Bowstreet <bpearson@bowstreet.com>
Ed Anuff, Epicentric <ed@epicentric.com>
Thomas Schaeck, IBM <schaeck@de.ibm.com>
Sasha Aickin, Plumtree <AlexanderA@plumtree.com>
David Sean Taylor, IONA	<david.taylor@iona.com>
Una Kearns, Documentum <una.kearns@documentum.com>
Jon Klein, Lexis-Nexis <jon.klein@lexisnexis.com>
Jeff Broberg, Silverstream <jbroberg@silverstream.com>
Nigel Ratcliffe, Factiva <nigel.ratcliffe@factiva.com>
Michael Freedman, Oracle <michael_freedman@oracle.com>
Michael Hyman, Netegrity <mhyman@netegrity.com>
Mark Cassidy, Netegrity <mcassidy@Netegrity.com>

CHAIR

The TC shall be chaired by Thomas Schaeck.

MEETING SPONSORS

The default sponsors of telephone meetings during the first year of
operation of the TC and face-to-face meetings held at certain North
American cities during the first year of operation of the TC shall be
IBM.  Other meeting sponsors, if any, shall be disclosed on the publicly
visible TC mailing list.