[ubl-cmsc] UBL messages to convey to XML 2001 from "technical" cttes

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

Jon,

Here are the messages that I was asked to supply to you from the Naming and 
Design Rules SC and also the Context Methodology SC.  I am copying both 
groups so that they can correct any mistakes I make (they haven't seen the 
final form of this until now).  This is broken up into what I hope are 
approximately slide-sized chunks, though you'll want to reword/cut 
down.  Other folks: Please respond by TODAY if you have corrections!

	Eve


The technical side of UBL work:

- The base UBL business document types will be expressed in a set of schema 
documents, which need to be designed in a consistent fashion.  We are 
developing a set of design guidelines for this purpose.

- Context-dependent changes will be needed in the structure of business 
documents.  For example, in the automotive sector, addresses sometimes 
contain GPS information in addition to or instead of a street address.  We 
are developing a machine-readable means for specifying these context-based 
changes.

- The subcommittees responding to these technical challenges are: Context 
Methodology, Naming and Design Rules, and Tools and Techniques.  (You can 
quote our charters if you want; they're short.)

- A good source of information is the "Naming and Design Rules portal":
   http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ubl/ndrsc/


Use cases:

- The working method of the technical SCs is to develop use cases, and then 
develop solutions that respond to the use cases.

- Everyone seems to need schema design rules these days, but they may not 
be universal: use cases will distinguish between our rules and rules 
developed by others for other circumstances.

- Some use cases we're developing so far (work in progress!!):

   . Develop New UBL Document Type to Replace Paper Document
   . Customize UBL Document Type
   . Create UBL Document
   . Edit UBL Document
   . Display UBL Document
   . Export UBL Document from Business Application
   . Import UBL Document into Business Application
   . Transform UBL Document into Other XML Format


Naming and design rules:

- We are trying to cover a huge area here, from schema modularity to 
element naming to rules for processing instructions in instances to 
performance considerations.

- So far we have a document outline plus and a number of individually 
championed position papers whose results will eventually fill in the 
document.  These position papers have drafts so far (but be sure to check 
out the NDR portal):

   . Modularity, namespaces, versioning
   . Customization (additive/subtractive)
   . Enumerated lists
   . Elements vs. attributes
   . Local vs. global elements


Schema issues:

- We have decided to develop the base UBL schema documents in W3C XML 
Schema (XSD).  Nonetheless, we've concerned about interoperability:

   . First and foremost, no schema developed in one tool works with any of 
the other tools!

   . Second, the notion of restriction is likely to be important for the 
context rules piece, but proper support is hard to find.

   . Third, namespace support also tends to be flaky.

- The context rules are abstract and don't depend on any one schema 
language.  We anticipate that they'll be used to build XSD variations, but 
we're ensuring that they will also work with RELAX NG because of RELAX NG's 
ability to compute schema comparisons.  This may be important given that 
UBL will have hundreds or thousands of variations, and while we want all of 
them to be created through the customization methodology, we can't 
guarantee it.
--
Eve Maler                                    +1 781 442 3190
Sun Microsystems XML Technology Center   eve.maler @ sun.com