Re: [ubl] Minutes of Atlantic UBL TC call 8 August 2007

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

At 2007-08-08 09:06 -0700, jon.bosak@sun.com wrote:
>MINUTES OF ATLANTIC UBL TC MEETING
>WEDNESDAY 8 AUGUST 2007
>...
>    ACTION (from Manhattan): MG to investigate the impact of GKH's
>    proposed namespace-based versioning mechanism on the NDR.
>    AGREED that if no critical problems are found in this
>    investigation, we will adopt GKH's proposal for namespace-based
>    versioning, as contained in
>
>       http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/document.php?document_id=23654
>
>       MG: Only major impact is that we will have to revert to
>       capturing the minor version in the namespaces.
>
>       BH: Chief concern is impact on users.  If a system is set up
>       for a particular minor version and the next minor version
>       doesn't introduce features requiring an update to the
>       system, the system will have to be changed anyway just to
>       accommodate the revised namespaces, and trading partners
>       will have to be notified as well.  We're not supposed to
>       design around tools, but this looks like a major hardship to
>       people who have implemented UBL: a minor version change has
>       the same impact as a major version change.
>
>       JB: GKH may also be having his doubts about this for other
>       reasons.
>
>       ACTION: JB to ping GKH and see what his current thinking is
>       regarding namespaces as a versioning mechanism.

Just a clarification:  I expressed to Jon I was 
having doubts only on the improvements introduced 
in New York, while I am still quite confident in 
the basic approach described in Montréal a year ago.

I'm anxious to talk with Mike and Betty on this 
because the processing model I've proposed is 
resilient to changes introduced in the 
namespaces.  That is the whole point:  in a 
heterogeneous network with different 
implementation levels of UBL instances, the 
introduction of a UBL instance of a higher 
revision does *not* impact on any existing 
implementations of lesser revisions.

I understood this to be the problem to be solved 
and I feel confident my proposed processing model achieves the objective.

In New York I characterized optimizations of the 
processing model that have since proven to not be 
sufficient to the task at hand.

I understand not everyone is yet comfortable with 
what I've proposed but I am hoping that is only 
because the benefits have not been properly 
conveyed on my part, rather than there be an 
actual downside to the approach.  Yes, I haven't 
seen this approach taken by other vocabularies, 
but I don't think that should take away from the benefits I believe we achieve.

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

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