Hi all:
<>I've taken a stab at the first draft of the Charter
Clarification for the XLIFF TC.
We need dates assigned to the
deliverables. Anyone care to take a stab at that?
>
Let me know what you think...
Regards,
Tony
The charter for this TC is as follows.
Name
XML Localisation Interchange File Format (XLIFF)
Statement of Purpose
The purpose of the OASIS XLIFF TC is to define, through XML vocabularies,
and promote the adoption of, an extensible specification for the interchange
of localization information. To date, the committee has published two
specifications - XLIFF 1.0 and XLIFF 1.1 - that define how to mark up
and capture localizable data and interoperate with different processes or
phases without loss of information. The vocabularies are tool-neutral, support
the localization-related aspects of internationalization and the entire
localization process. The vocabularies support common software and content
data formats. The specifications provide an extensibility mechanism to allow
the development of tools compatible with an implementer's own proprietary data
formats and workflow requirements.
The state of affairs in software localisation before XLIFF was that a
software provider delivered their localisable resources to a localisation
service provider in a number of disparate file formats. Once software
providers commenced implementing XLIFF, the task of interchanging localisation
data became simpler. Using proprietary and nonstandard resource formats force
either the software provider or the localisation service provider to implement
a costly and inefficient bespoke process for localising their content. For a
software publishers with many proprietary or nonstandard formats, this
requirement becomes a major hurdle when attempting to localise their
software. For software developers employing enterprise localisation
tools and processes, XLIFF defines a standard but extensible vocabulary
that captures relevant metadata at any point of the lifecycle which can be
exchanged between a variety of commercial and open-source
tools.
<>The first phase, now completed, created a
committee specification that concentrated on software UI file requirements.
The next phase consists of promoting the adoption of XLIFF throughout the
industry through additional collateral and specifications, continuing to
advance the committee specification towards a full OASIS standard,
contributing to the development of standard localisation directives tag
library and consuming it when available, and defining and publishing an
implementation guide for document based content that addresses segmentation
and alignment requirements. To encourage adoption of XLIFF, the TC will
define and publish implementation guides for the most commonly used resource
formats (HTML, RTF, Window Resources, Java Resource Bundles,
.NET), and will include reference implementations of XLIFF
1.1.
>The OASIS XLIFF TC concluded a 45 day public review from 11 Aug
and ended 24 September 2003. The TC revised and then approved a Committee
Specification based on the comments received, publishing the XLIFF
1.1 Committee Specification and XLIFF
1.1 XSD schema.. All public comments submitted were resolved, and a report
of all public review activity is publicly available.
XLIFF is based on initial work done by the Yahoo! DataDefinition Group.
That group published a white paper, a specification and a DTD, which were made
public through that group's site. The XLIFF 1.0 specification was approved as
Committee Specification by the XLIFF TC in April 2002.
XLIFF 1.0 was submitted with the following intellectual property rights
statement:
Each of the submitting companies, referenced in section (vii), below,
agrees to offer a license, on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, to use
any patent claim it owns or controls and which is necessarily infringed by use
of the XLIFF format described in this submission or any Committee
Specification or OASIS standard based thereon. Such a license will be for the
limited purpose of implementing the XLIFF format described in this submission
or in any Committee Specification or OASIS standard based thereon, and may be
conditioned on the licensee's agreement to grant a reciprocal license on
reasonable and non-discriminatory terms to use any patent claim it owns or
controls and which is necessarily infringed by use of the XLIFF format
described in this submission or in any Committee Specification or OASIS
standard based thereon.
The archive for previous discussions can be found at the following URL:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DataDefinition
The white paper, the specification, and the DTD and can be found at this
URL:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DataDefinition/files/Final
List of Deliverables
- XLIFF 1.1 Document-based Content Implementation Guide (Segmentation
& Alignment)
- XLIFF 1.1 XHTML/HTML Representation Guide
- XLIFF 1.1 RTF Representation Guide
- XLIFF 1.1 .NET Representation Guide
- XLIFF 1.1 Java Resource Bundle Representation Guide
- XLIFF 1.1 Windows Resources Representation Guide
- XLIFF 1.1 PO File Representation Guide
- XLIFF 1.1 Reference Implementation (as Open Source? In
collaboration with Trans-WS?)
- Submit XLIFF 1.1 for consideration as OASIS Standard
- Review and input to development of Standard Localisation Directives Tag
Library
- XLIFF 1.1: Consume / Implement Standard Localisation Directives Tag
Library
--
Tony Jewtushenko
Principal Product Manager - Oracle Application Development Tools
Oracle Corporation, Ireland
mailto:tony.jewtushenko@oracle.com
Direct tel: +353.1.8039080