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Subject: Subset calculation model semantics and 'extraneous variables'


Greetings UBL-Dev'ers

Just a quick email to address and area of concern now that there are
some major implementations of UBL and derivatives of UBL, especially
in public sector.

I feel a little responsible for seeking to make sure laws about using
UBL and the like did not not impose excessive burdens on small
businesses or organizations caught in the middle of a grand scheme to
electronically enable business processes as part of modernization.

Back when I was a local government IT officer I was concerned to
ensure the trading parties trading with a public body didn't have to
buy expensive software or invest too much in enabling their existing
software if they wanted to move from paper invoices or orders to
electronic ones. I thought with UBL a core subset should be identified
to shield parties from the burden of shipping entities and the like
which were part of UBL. I thought that as long as the core was the
only part that had to be passed into the back-office systems all would
be well and UBL could still be used. I didn't realise at that stage
how UBL might grow with the addition of entities whose inclusion in a
document such as an invoice could affect the totals e.g. a rounding
amount) if the core didn't include such an entity. It seems obvious
now, but maybe not to someone who is further from the details of UBL.

A family member more scientifically up-to-date than I am tells me in
science they refer these days to extraneous variables and try to
eliminate them in scientific experiments and that seems analogous to
the need to eliminate non-core entities which are significant in a
calculation model defined for the core. I think one way to handle such
entities is to firmly define the calculation model so only core
entities are included in it, when the core subset is defined. Does
that ring true?

Just picture that poor dutiful, god-fearing IT officer wanting to obey
the laws of the land and use a subset of the UBL semantics as required
by a law but unable to process an electronic invoice in his or her
in-house back-office system because there are too many entities for
their limited resource finance application to handle or their
programming skills are so challenged to handle such a complex set of
entities that they have to give up hope of keeping in line with such
laws. It might put them out of a job.

I guess the answer is not to abandon complex model standards but it
might be to find a way to use them but make using them a lot more
simple than it could be if the subsets ignore the real complexity and
push it all onto the implementing software writer or buyer.

-- 

Best regards
----
Stephen D Green

"Fear God and keep His commands for that is the whole duty of man."

- King Solomon

"The first command is this: You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and
with all your mind."

- The Lord Christ Jesus


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