FW: Conf Call on Proposed OASIS Multi-Lingual eBusiness Technical Committee

["Reynolds, Peter" <Peter.Reynolds@bowneglobal.ie>]

Hi all,

I attended the meeting which is detailed below which was organised by
Patrick Gannon to see whether there was a need for an Oasis TC looking
at Multi-Lingual eBusiness.

Possibly because of the short notice there were only four attendees.
These were Patrick, Lars Hornborg who works for the Web Services
Competency Center in Sweden, Michael Burke who was representing Reinhard
Schaler of the LRC and myself. I was also late for the meeting as I had
another call which clashed with this one.

The main outcome from the meeting was a decision to set up an Oasis
email discussion. Lars will propose this with myself and Reinhard
seconding it. This should happen in the near future and will be used to
develop the ideas that Patrick has outlined in the mails below.

Thanks,

Peter.

-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick Gannon [mailto:patrick.gannon@oasis-open.org] 
Sent: 04 February 2004 02:25
To: Reinhard.Schaler@ul.ie; lars.hornborg@hornborg.net;
tony.jewtushenko@oracle.com; Reynolds, Peter; sinisa.zimek@sap.com;
jgauthier@webMethods.com; ocsv@korcham.net; Jeff Mischkinsky
Cc: karl.best@oasis-open.org; 'Scott McGrath'; 'Damian Scattergood';
jean-pierre.henninot@industrie.gouv.fr; feygin@unitspace.com;
irene.malcolm@stir.ac.uk; alan.melhuish@wales.gsi.gov.uk;
pereira@ean-int.org; howard.shao@documentum.com; wjsull@us.ibm.com;
jari.tammisto@pp.inet.fi; dcheung@csis.hku.hk; jwoods@globalsight.com;
'Eduardo Gutentag'
Subject: Conf Call on Proposed OASIS Multi-Lingual eBusiness Technical
Committee

Interested Participants,

Since I first sent this inquiry out 2 months ago, I am grateful for the
responses I have received.  Unfortunately with the holidays and first of
the year activities, its been tough to get everyone's participation
organized.

We have received strong support from the Localization Research Centre in
Ireland and from the Web Services Competency Center in Sweden.  There
has also been encouraging interest from some of the eBusiness platform
software vendors.  The key issue for many of those I contacted
(especially for the larger corporations) is finding the right resource
within their company.
But, there certainly appears to be sufficient interest to move forward,
at least through a series of informal dialogs and then into one of the
formal OASIS processes: a public Discussion List or a proposed Technical
Committee Charter with a Call for Participation.

To begin discussing next steps to move this activity forward, I would
like to hold a conference call this week.

I have scheduled a conference call time on Thursday, 5 February at 7am
PST [GMT-8] 10am EST [GMT-5] 4pm CET [GMT+1]

OASIS staff will host the bridge call:  +1-512-225-3050, code = 84759#

I realize that this is short notice, so we will likely hold another
follow-up call with one or more of our interested members handling the
planning and organization of subsequent calls.  Please confirm with me
(no need to reply to all) if you can join us on the call.

Best regards,

Patrick Gannon



-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick Gannon [mailto:patrick.gannon@oasis-open.org]
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 1:13 AM
To: 'Reinhard.Schaler@ul.ie'; 'lars.hornborg@hornborg.net';
'dcheung@csis.hku.hk'; 'istvan.erenyi@ihm.gov.hu';
'feygin@unitspace.com'; 'jean-pierre.henninot@industrie.gouv.fr';
'hilmar_lorenz@hp.com'; 'hohlov@iis.ru'; 'tony.jewtushenko@oracle.com';
'skiryushin@aeroflot.ru'; 'kosticm@fcs.yu'; 'Max.Lepoutre@udex.com';
'annalin@hkana.org'; 'ehocheng@nii.org.tw'; 'irene.malcolm@stir.ac.uk';
'alan.melhuish@wales.gsi.gov.uk'; 'simon.nicholson@sun.com';
'nikolau@rector.uoc.gr'; 'a.niwano@ana.co.jp'; 'ocsv@korcham.net';
'pereira@ean-int.org'; 'bprepin@predell.com';
'Peter.Reynolds@bowneglobal.ie'; 'safarik@unmz.cz'; 'js@logoport.net';
'howard.shao@documentum.com'; 'robert@skinstad.net';
'hsedi@attglobal.net'; 'wjsull@us.ibm.com'; 'jari.tammisto@pp.inet.fi';
'rajiv@darkstar.tulbom.unisys.com'; 'ttoichubaev@ctc.kg';
'jwoods@globalsight.com'; 'sinisa.zimek@sap.com';
'jgauthier@webMethods.com'; 'Damian Scattergood
(damian.scattergood@star-group.net)'; 'Helen Meng Ph. D.
(hmmeng@se.cuhk.edu.hk)'; 'Steve Capell'; 'Rouben Indjikian
(rouben.indjikian@unctad.org)'
Cc: 'karl.best@oasis-open.org'; 'James Bryce Clark'; 'Carol Geyer';
'Scott McGrath'; 'robin.cover@oasis-open.org'
Subject: DRAFT Charter for OASIS Multi-Lingual eBusiness Technical
Committee [with attachment]


Interested Participants,

During the past year or so, you have indicated to me some level of
interest
in being part of an effort to solve what (in my humble opinion) is the
last
barrier to true global eBusiness - local language translation in
"real-time"
of eBusiness transactions.  I believe that sufficient underlying
technology
and standards are now available to enable a broad global group of
participants to work on creating practical demonstrations of potential
solutions to this remaining barrier.

The following are just a few of the enabling technologies and standards
that
make such an undertaking as this possible.  We are seeing today the
widespread adoption (including many open source tools) of the various
ebXML
framework standards.  Web Services specifications are beginning to
emerge
from the open standardization process at W3C and OASIS - with more Web
Services standards on the way.  The OASIS UBL TC has just completed
their
first Beta 1.0 of their Committee Draft that describes some common
eBusiness
transactions (purchase order, invoice, etc.).  The OASIS UBL TC also
just
created two localization sub-committees (Japanese and Chinese), with
other
localization sub-committees (LSCs) in the planning stages.  These UBL
LSCs
will create local language specific code lists along with guidelines for
implementing UBL in those local languages.  There are also a number of
other
industry-specific content vocabularies being deployed (RosettaNet PIPs,
OAG
BoDs, HL7 transactions for healthcare, ACCORD transactions for
insurance,
and many more).  There are also many new developments in the creation of
industry standard templates for highly structured product descriptions
and
classifications.  

Over the past few years there has been much foundation work done at ISO
and
W3C in defining methods for indicating local languages of marked-up text
and
XML schemas.  Many new tools are emerging from localization vendors that
enable efficient machine translation and the creation of memory
translation
tables.  What is now needed is the creation of profiles or best
practices to
show how these standard vocabularies can be used in multi-lingual
transactions using a variety of message frameworks.  

The purpose of this new OASIS Multi-Lingual eBusiness Technical
Committee
will be to bring together much of this foundational work in
internationalization and translation memory, together with the industry
and
global standards for structuring data in pre-defined eBusiness
transactions
to demonstrate what can be done today and what else is needed to enable
multi-lingual eBusiness transactions to occur in the global marketplace.


To be successful, we should have participation representatives from the
following types of organizations:

- end-user organizations who can help define their business requirements
and
provide sample business scenarios,

- industry associations and non-governmental organizations who can
represent
the needs of a constituency who will benefit from the results of this
TC's
activities,

- government agencies who have a need to enable small and medium
enterprises
within their country to conduct global eBusiness transactions with
trading
partners who conduct business in a different language,

- localization and translation service and software tool providers who
can
apply the latest technologies for machine translation and translation
memory,

- software and service providers who have experience in building
multi-lingual product catalogs and/or product description
transformations,

- eBusiness framework software vendors and implementation service
providers
who can provide demonstration tools and experience in implementing
eBusiness
messaging services,

- XML consultants and those persons/companies with experience in
implementing XML in multiple language environments.


Attached is a first draft of what I believe an initial scope of work for
this TC could be.  Before we finalize the charter and issue a formal
"Call
for Participation" to all OASIS members and the general public, I would
like
to get your feedback on what would be an appropriate scope of work that
you
feel would be worthwhile for yourself or someone from your organization
to
participate.  So, I ask you to take a few minutes to review this DRAFT
TC
Charter and send back any comments.

I would specifically ask you to let me know of your level of interest
with
one of these options:

A.	This is definitely an activity whose time has come and we will
participate [we'll submit name(s) of participant(s) to be included in
the
proposed charter and we are (or will be) OASIS members], or

B.	This is an interesting activity and we would like to investigate
this further within our organization; please keep us informed of your
progress and we will let you know if/when we can join this proposed TC,
or

C.	This is an interesting activity but we would like to see the
scope
of work modified significantly, and would support the creation of an
OASIS
Discussion List for further online dialog on the proposed Scope of Work
and
Deliverables, or,

D.	We are not interested, thank you, or

E.	Other (please specify).


You are also invited to send me questions or comments on the draft
charter
document.

To reduce the amount of emails to those who are receiving this proposed
DRAFT charter, please "Reply" to the sender only and do not "Reply to
All".

I would appreciate receiving your initial reply of expressed interest by
the
end of this week (5 December) or 12:00pm EST [GMT-5] Monday 8 December
if at
all possible.

Your continued interest in the broad work of OASIS is appreciated.


Best regards,

Patrick Gannon
President & CEO
OASIS
630 Boston Road
Billerica, MA 01821 USA
+1.978.667.5115 x201 (Office)
+1.978.761.3546  (Mobile)
http://www.oasis-open.org