A personal perspective on considerations for UBL subsets, extensions, versions, validation and interchange

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

Hello all,

I've posted a publicly-downloadable copy of my personal contribution 
to the UBL discussion of subsets, extensions, versions, validation 
and interchange for UBL 2.0 (note this is version 0.2 ... there may 
be follow-on versions):

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/18660/gkholman-ubl-modeling-0.2.zip

If you are reading this post from the archives, check here for the 
latest version, sorted by date, named "gkholman-ubl-modeling-X.Y.zip":

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/documents.php?num_per_wg=100&wg_abbrev=ubl&sort_field=d1.submission_date 


Some of the ideas are radical, but I haven't been convinced by 
demonstrative examples of alternative approaches to meet the business 
requirements I've seen.

I do present a pure W3C Schema and XSLT 1.0 approach to the problems, 
without any references to RELAX-NG or NVDL.  Some Schematron is used 
to create the XSLT used in the runtime process.

I welcome suggestions for alternative approaches to those presented 
in my paper, backed up with demonstrative examples of functionality, 
not just quotes from a standards document or somebody else's paper 
... the TC needs to see working code in order to be convinced 
decisions we are making are good for the long term.

I would be very pleased if simpler solutions were found that meet all 
of the requirements.  If requirements as stated are incorrect, or 
they change, then of course my proposals may not be appropriate.

I'm proposing very late (too late?) changes to the NDR for UBL to 
ensure the schemas we produce next are more resilient to change and 
extension than the draft schemas of January 2006.  I don't believe 
the NDR as they stand meet all our needs.

I am focused on the technical aspects of the problems ... once the 
mechanics are set in place I feel we can then see what policy aspects 
of the problems need to be ... but I don't feel we can make policy 
decisions first and then decide on a technology like W3C XSD Schema 
and its constraints and then try to make something work when that 
technology won't let us do what we need.

I hope this is considered constructive.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ken

p.s. I apologize for how late this is being submitted, but my 
contribution to UBL is entirely volunteer and there are other 
obligations on my time ... I welcome assistance from anyone to 
evaluate and demonstrate alternative simpler solutions to the 
problems.  I will have a business interest in the end result since 
I'll be teaching it, so it is important to me to know if alternatives 
are going to work or not.

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