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

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

At 2003-03-13 15:57 +0800, Chin Chee-Kai wrote:
>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

I grant that the main office of the organization and the board of directors 
are both US-based, so I concede the appearance of that as being 
US-centric.  Though interestingly in all my committee work I have never 
perceived the committee work as being US-centric.

>That's why
>I suggested "international".  Since you intend to focus on
>politics, I thought you might want to know this.

Now that you have raised my awareness of this issue, I am unsure how to 
address it ... again, I never perceived the UBL work as being US-centric.

> >>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.

Again I apologize, Chee-Kai, as I was hoping you might have revised wording 
based on the feedback I gave you regarding your original wording.

>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.

I do not agree with the use of the term "abstract" ... I see the schemas as 
quite concrete and the sole representation of XML as being targeted for 
machine-to-machine communication.  Our formatting specification efforts are 
an adjunct to the original mandate of 1p00 meant for the convenience of 
users and as a precursor to future mandates of UBL that were conceived at 
the time UBL was formed (when such presentational facets of UBL were 
explicitly postponed to some later date that has come to the fore earlier 
than originally envisioned).

>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.

That I understand to be the purview of ebXML protocols.  I confess my focus 
has been on UBL and this has been an assumption on my part, such that I am 
ignorant of the details of ebXML.  Can anyone else on the list clarify that 
the transport-level is out-of-scope for UBL and in-scope for other aspects 
of ebXML?

>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.

Agreed .... and I suspect as a discussion in another venue.  Looking at the 
deliverables in http://oasis-open.org/committees/ubl/charter/ubl.htm I see 
nothing regarding the routing or other transport-related information of the 
business documents.

><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'm sorry, again I was looking for middle ground by putting forward my 
perspective and how it might modify your originally suggested wording into 
a new wording you would accept that accommodated my feedback.

><Invoke-Macro ref="already"/>

:{)}

Having heard no other input to the charter from others on the committee, 
I'll repost a revised version of that document.

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

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