UBL Processes

[Jan Algermissen <algermissen1971@mac.com>]

Hi,

I have read occasionally that the processes defined by UBL (which I  
understand to cover the order-acceptance 'pattern' and by that  
effectively the complete supply chain management domain) do actually  
cover most of the collaboration kinds found in general business  
communication.

Related to this understanding I have a couple of questions:

- is the above somewhere near to a correct understanding?
- can someone point me to metarial that shows the heritage of UBL (or
   should I just dig into ebXML, EDI or RosettaNet?)
- does anyone have any practical experience of applying UBL outside
   the "ordering goods or services" domain

I think that a domain not covered by the order-acceptance pattern is  
the domain of service provisioning and the related issues of service  
management. My understanding is that in this domain, the essential  
aspect is the service promise made by the service provider  
(manifested in an SLA for example) and that the collaborations of  
servicemanagement are essentially different from the ones made in the  
SCM patterns.

Does this make any sense? Has anyone applied UBL to service  
management (can a service promise be seen as an offer?).

Thanks in advance for any hints or resources to help me find a  
reasonable start into the above issues.

For something completely different:
My aim is to apply UBL to HTTP-based interactions (=> REST) and  
naturally I am troubled with UBL not having its own MIME type. Would  
anyone be interested in going through the effort of having e.g.  
application/ubl+xml regsitered with the IETF?

Jan