Re: [ubl-fssc] Formal proposal for subcommittee (fwd)

[Chin Chee-Kai <cheekai@softml.net>]

After a self-imposed lurking time of 24hr to allow for
comments from others, here're some remarks/clarifications:



On Tue, 11 Mar 2003, G. Ken Holman wrote:

>>Ummmmmmm ... I'm Canadian and the chair of LCSC is Australian and the OASIS
>>group is working with the United Nations; on our committee Sue is from
>>England and Gunther is from Germany ... now Dan happens to be from the U.S.
>>but I think it might be unfair to call this a U.S.-originated SC.

I suppose I can buy the point the the team is likely to have
a high degree of internationality (not sure if there's such a 
word, but you know what I mean), but I was referring to the
origin, looking at:

-----------------------------------------------------------
this -->  http://www.oasis-open.org/who/contactus.shtml

<Excerpt>
Headquarters:
Mailing
OASIS
Post Office Box 455
Billerica, MA 01821
USA

Delivery:
OASIS
630 Boston Road
Billerica, MA 01821
USA
</Excerpt>


and this --> http://www.oasis-open.org/who/bod.shtml

<Excerpt>
Edward Cobb		BEA Systems
Colin Evans		Intel Corporation
Patrick J. Gannon	OASIS
Jim Hughes		Hewlett Packard
Christopher Kurt	Microsoft
Simon Nicholson		Sun Microsystems
Laura Walker		The Federal Reserve System
Michael Weiner		IBM Corporation
</Excerpt>
-----------------------------------------------------------

and starting to have some "preconceived" views.  That's why
I suggested "international".  Since you intend to focus on
politics, I thought you might want to know this.





>>I hope you are comfortable with the wording ... all development involves
>>some politics, and yes our main objective is to produce formal
>>specifications, but our success in doing so is predicated on our open
>>liaison and work with national bodies and international organizations
>>interested in paper forms.

I am eh,... ok, ok, comfortable.



>>Can you recommend simpler phrasing?  Have I successfully conveyed the
>>objective of the group is to produce standards that are not biased to any
>>given implementation technology?

I've mentioned my recommended phrasing right at the start, so
probably won't take up space here.  If it doesn't match your
line of thoughts, then perhaps the focus and intention of the
SC was slightly different from what I thought.  That's fine,
and I'm glad I clarified from the conversation.  




>>Well, let me try again.  My understanding of all of the other UBL
>>subcommittees is their focus is on machine-to-machine communication
>>ensuring applications successfully convey the desired meanings of
>>electronic commerce through an exchange of adopted message formats.

I think I differ slightly in the understanding of "machine-to-machine".
What UBL does at this stage (0p70 and likely up to 1p00) is to
specify and standardize, through the use of XML base language,
an abstract set of vectors in the information space used by
businesses into machine understandable and human-agreeable form.

UBL doesn't (yet) include transport-level specifications to
define how a UBL document instance is to be enveloped, transferred
and subsequently dettached from one machine to another.  We 
experimented a bit on that aspect in our XIP project and got
into further issues such as the presence of document brokers
which would then require document routing meta-information to
be stated in the envelopes, etc.  But that's another discussion.




>>Looking at http://oasis-open.org/committees/ubl/charter/ubl.htm there is no
>>mention of the presentation of business documents.  We are adding something
>>new and very distinct to UBL with this subcommittee in that we are
>>involving the human for both presentation and input of the XML documents
>>described in the UBL charter.

Ok, this is distinct, and nice to have.  We're just malloting
the charter to make it look better.



>>Looking at the NDRSC and LCSC groups as well, there are no efforts to
>>undertake what we are undertaking here.

Well, now with your spearheading, we do!


>>What would you recommend be said to bring this unique perspective of ours
>>to the UBL project to light to the reader?

<Macro name="already">
I've already provided a complete suggested wording right at
the start of my initial mail.  If focus and objectives differ,
I can't really word it the way you want it, coz, focus and 
objectives differ.
</Macro>





>>I think we are safe making them but examples of what might be included thus
>>not necessitating a review of the scope of work.  Can you recommend wording
>>that would give the reader the essence of the scope of work in the charter
>>paragraph without leaving the impression of a definitive list of tasks?

Already given in my first suggestion email.  Idea is just to
shift the listing to "Scope of Work", not removing it totally.



>>Granted ... can you recommend wording to convey that it is the efficacy of
>>the output work products being tested and not anything else?

<Invoke-Macro ref="already"/>




>>Please let me know if you have new suggestions for wording based on both
>>your original suggestions and my comments regarding them.

Just did.  Looks like time's up soon.



Best Regards,
Chin Chee-Kai
SoftML