[wsrp-wsia] Internationalization, localization

[Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>]

Title: Internationalization, localization

Due to a thread on  the tm-published subjects list, it came to my attention that there is another fairly significant standards organization in this unfortunately burgeoning field, which has promulgated yet another new e-commerce catalog of Products and Services, the Universal Standard Products and Services Classification  (UNSPSC) which has had a Topic Map rendered for it. The url below is to the standard, not the XTM.

http://www.eccma.org/download/11UNSPSC.zip

However, it turns out that this spec is legally owned by the UN:

---

> Just a word of warning as you have
> obviously not been reading the Diffuse
> newsletters recently :-(
>
> There has been a lot of argument about who controls the UNSPCS over
> the last
> few months, and since the beginning of this month the standard has
> clearly
> been under the control of the United Nations Development Programme
> (UNDP)
> rather than ECCMA. A new body is being set up to manage the list.
> All
> references to the list should now be made through their website at
> www.un-spsc.net
>
> Martin Bryan

Technical Manager, The Diffuse Project

---

Do you know anything about this Monica?

However, on a more useful and less contentious note, all this led me to an actually International Guide to Internationalization / Localization

http://www.diffuse.org/IntLocGuide.html

I can't vouch for either ECCMA, (which includes H-P, SAP, Lucent, Oracle and a gazillion others but does not include on their current list of members IBM, Sun, Microsoft, and a number of other notables I won't bother listing), or diffuse.org, though it looks at a completely cursory level as if diffuse is a bit more unbiased, but in any event, it is best to keep apprised of such things, especially those who have some interest in promoting UDDI as the de facto look up list for web services.

Since diffuse is connected to IST. and this appears to be the European Community's equivalent to OASIS, I am including their url below:

http://www.cordis.lu/ist/home.html

Ciao,

Rex

-- 

Rex Brooks
Starbourne Communications Design
1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA 94702 *510-849-2309
http://www.starbourne.com * rexb@starbourne.com