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Subject: Re: [ubl-dev] UBL vs UN/CEFACT


My guess is it is precisely this emphasis on small businesses
being able to use UBL that puts it off the radar for some agencies
(and maybe companies) who do not take small business usage
all that seriously (not enough money in it for the consultants?).
Also the same reason might make UBL more popular with some
government bodies for whom small business requirements means
popularity and votes for the masters - plus public / social security
stability and ultimately economic prosperity (and more tax)... :-)

This may be the same reason why so many (though not mentioned
in our circles or in too many government agency reports) it seems
(anecdotally) use cXML: it is relatively friendly to small businesses
(??) and doesn't try to align with legacy/large business EDI. I'm
guessing (again) we would see a lot more take up of UBL if there
weren't so many using cXML but cXML usage still doesn't seem to
actually get recommended in government guidelines. I guess there
is a reluctance for some reason and UBL seems to get the mention
instead. Once the CEFACT support for the full procurement cycle
gets out there maybe it too will really be competing with cXML but
not like to admit it. This might make the CEFACT v UBL debate
somewhat irrelevant. Still, as long as folk can safely trade
electronically who cares what standard they use - the consultants
I guesss. :-)

---
Stephen D Green



2009/7/22 JAVEST by Roberto Cisternino <roberto@javest.com>
Hi,

I try to answer by talking about UBL.

In my experience (the "shipping" and "transport" domain), the use of UN/EDIFact has been limited to few directories (93, D95B, D96A, and few others) because the backward compatibility was continuously broken, and of course the EDI solutions were really complex to maintain.

It seems CEFACT is still thinking to publish every six month a directory, but the way they're doing will probably generate the same effect of before (expecially the way they include most codelists as xsd enumerations:  see CII Invoice with a total of 43 XSDs)

UBL is born for a specific mission: to let SMEs to enter the eBusiness, so there is a particular attention to maximize compatibility and to separate the business document from codelists, as these are updated with different frequence.

XML-based documents are more stable than EDI ones, so codelists are the last mile of interoperability, and should be separated (hope).


regards,

Roberto

---
Stephen Green ha scritto:
Could I guess on another reason why CEFACT produces messages

which duplicate the UBL efforts (and what might have been UBL potential
future messages): Maybe the aim is to ensure EDIFACT and CEFACT
messages can keep on aligning. The BIEs don't have to be represented
in XML alone - the same BIEs could be represented in EDIFACT too.
UBL makes no difference, it seems to my sideline viewpoint, except that
it doesn't correlate its efforts with EDIFACT except that it submits to
TBG17 for harmonisation. Maybe this is irrelevant to many and maybe
the many have to accept slow pace while getting little in return while the
EDI users get more benefit perhaps if the messages are produced in/by
CEFACT. Just a stab in the dark guess.
---
Stephen D Green



2009/7/22 Stephen Green <stephengreenubl@gmail.com>
Not sure about that Roberto. I read an XBRL book a few years ago which
argued that ebXML might compete with XBRL and efforts like UBL had a
chance of successfully doing this. Back then there was no intention of
CEFACT producing its own XML messages - nothing definite anyway -
so the only likely candidate for competing with XBRL from the ebXML
technology 'side' was UBL (probably not GS1-XML or OAGIS, in other words).
The name of UBL as Universal Business Language and its design as a
fully extensible library of BIEs meant it could be as broad in its coverage
of business domains as the demand required. The domains side of it with
its early adoption of the context methodology (even to the extent that we
have context columns in the spreadsheets to allow as many contexts
as required beyond Procurement, Transport, etc) meant it could grow and
grow. We never knew (still don't, I guess) whether UN/CEFACT messages
would fill any of the gaps like eGovernment, Accounting, etc. The NDR
allows domains not even considered by UBL to adopt the same methods
in producing documents. Seminal in all of this was an early paper and
government recommendation for XML messages by Hong Kong Uni
(by guys on this list I expect) to say how UBL methodology combined with
a harmonisation system could cater for producing electronic versions of
every kind of paper form used in the Hong Kong public sector and this got
taken up as an influencer of the UBL approach. Back then eGov TC had
thoughts that all sorts of things could be done using the UBL approach,
not just procurement. I think it might have been the CEFACT message
design projects which curtailed these ideas as TBGs were set up for all
sorts of things. But they don't cover even as many areas as OASIS covers
and seem to have been slowing down. OASIS was forum for areas like
emergency response messages, elections, tax, CRM contact details, etc
which don't seem to have been replicated in CEFACT. So UBL was a
little bit unique in the extent to which its efforts have been duplicated and
that has been mainly in two related domains - procurement / transport.
So I think it is a little bit of an exaggeration to say that CEFACT has
been the preferred forum because it can encompass more domains.
That isn't even true to date if you compare CEFACT's TBGs with OASIS
coverage in general of business and government domains. The answer is
more political than that. CEFACT is preferred by governments which are
very pro-UN and maybe a little ambivilent about OASIS - perhaps also by
those more pro-EDI and XML-phobic. That's my guess anyway. The
politics rather than technical reasons behind that are hidden from me.
I guess it might be a matter of preserving one's existing investments but
not necessarily future-looking in a technological sense. I'm not all that
convinced that CEFACT is the only forum, even looking forward, which
can cover many domains. Depends where people want to direct their
resources, in my opinion (not necessarily those of my employers!).
---
Stephen D Green



2009/7/22 JAVEST by Roberto Cisternino <roberto@javest.com>

Hello,

I think I already answered this question.

UBL is covering just the commercial part of the electronic business.  Of course supported documents are the most common in the world but not the only one.    eFinance messages for instance are not in the scope of UBL.

UN/EDIFact was embracing almost *ALL* documents/messages used all over the world.

This is why CEFACT has been always considered the preferred place to drive an ISO standardization of an eBusiness Global Standard.

Best regards

Roberto

---
Danny Gaethofs ha scritto:
Dear Robert and Andreas,

Although UN/EDIFACT - and also ANSI X12 if we are just going to look into what WAS available - is one of the oldest EDI standards we have seen with the advent of XML a boost of new XML standards (semantics and syntaxes) coming up such as the OAGI standard, BASDA, RosettaNet, cXML and moreover 150 other XML standards.

We can turn the phrase around and say UN/CEFACT vs UBL but that is not what ultimately it is about. The question is why after all these 150 XML standards were developed including cXML and UBL have people decided to start the development of UN/CEFACT ?

kind regards
Danny Gaethofs


From: Robert Lemense <r.lemense@skynet.be>
To: andreas.schultz@dkv.com; roberto@javest.com; dgaethofs@yahoo.com
Cc: ubl-dev@lists.oasis-open.org
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 12:37:26 PM
Subject: Re: [ubl-dev] UBL vs UN/CEFACT

Well done Andreas,
 
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.  (George Santayana - The Life of Reason)
 
Best Regards,
Robert Lemense
Past Chair TBG12 (Accounting & Audit)
UN/CEFACT
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 10:20 AM
Subject: AW: [ubl-dev] UBL vs UN/CEFACT

Hello Danny and Roberto,
 
especially, mentioning  UN/EDIFACT the point is, that UN/EDIFACT was there for a long time before UBL came up. As far as I remember, UBL came up, during the time of the ebXML project. So indeed, you could turn the question just the other way round.
 
Best regards
Andreas Schultz
Chair TBG8 (Insurance)
UN/CEFACT Forum


Von: JAVEST by Roberto Cisternino [mailto:roberto@javest.com]
Gesendet: Dienstag, 21. Juli 2009 18:52
An: Danny Gaethofs
Cc: ubl-dev@lists.oasis-open.org
Betreff: Re: [ubl-dev] UBL vs UN/CEFACT

Hello Danny,

probably you can find some answers into the MoU for eBusiness where OASIS has been invited:
http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/e-business/mou/

and following the link "Key Standards" under Resources, you will find UBL too:

http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/e-business/mou/MoUMG-standards.html

In few words the MoU on eBusiness is promoting collaboration and re-use of existing standards within partecipants.

UBL was in the agenda of the MoU/Management Group
http://xml.coverpages.org/MoU-MG-OASIS2002.pdf
http://xml.coverpages.org/MOU-OASIS-200202.html
    

Compared to UN/EDIFact, UBL can be considered as the eBusiness kernel, just like ISO20022-UNIFI is the eFinance kernel and WCO is the Customs kernel, so on...

So I understood it was a logic path to create a unique integrated set of business documents & messages for the whole Financial Supply Chain.

UBL was effectively into this path from a long time, expecially due to the MoU.

Today the possibility to endorse OASIS and W3C Standards by European Standardization bodies is providing new instruments to protect the best practices and standardization efforts provided by relevant Open Consortium (aka User Groups).
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/standards/whitepaper.pdf
Hope this helps,

Best regards,

Roberto Cisternino
---

Danny Gaethofs ha scritto:
Dear all,

I just recently got the question what has been the reason for starting the development of UN/CEFACT whereas UBL was already available. I have been reading a lot about this but apart from the CCTS approach that has been worked out much further within UN/CEFACT I do not really find the answer.

Any one out there that has been there from the start remembers why ?

kind regards
Danny Gaethofs


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