XML Working Group
Meeting Notes
January 21, 2004
Owen Ambur announced that Joe Chiusano is part of the team lead by BearingPoint that won the contract for the Department of the Interior’s big Financial and Business Management System (FBMS), and indicated he is looking forward to tapping Joe’s XML expertise for Interior’s benefit.
Owen distributed and briefly discussed his draft work plan for the scanning/identification stage of the emerging technology life-cycle management process, and Lee Ellis explained his tasking to define criteria by which ET components will be assessed by the ET Subcommittee. Owen’s draft work plan is available at http://xml.gov/draft/ETComponentIdentificationWorkplan.htm
Ian Jacobs briefed the group on the W3C’s working draft Architecture for the Web, explaining their desire to provide assistance in the design of real-world Web sites. He pointed out that use of the HTTP GET function enables the use of URIs. He discussed safe versus unsafe operations. Safe operations use the GET method and allow caching, and he suggested that HTTP 1.1 got caching right. He noted that HTTP POST is an unsafe operation and that SOAP and WSDL have the same issue. He spoke about addressability, which he defined as allowing everything to fit in a URI. He noted the power of the network effect derived from a common syntax for globally unique identifiers. Other points he made include:
● Everything should be transparent to the user.
● FTP does not support redirects but HTTP does, which allows movement of resources without breaking the Web.
● Access control is independent of identification.
● XForms allows submits that use the GET method.
● POST requires more information that can be placed in a URI, so POSTs cannot be linked or bookmarked.
Finally, Ian used the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) as an example of good and bad Web architectural practices. His presentation is available at http://xml.gov/presentations/w3c/arch/Overview.html
Ken Sall discussed XML parsing problems that he and Betty Harvey experienced in putting together their ET pilot. The two major parsing applications provided conflicting results when applied to the same XSD. There was some discussion of the need for a “gold standard” for parsing. Owen suggested that an XML parser component may be a good candidate for consideration in the ET process, and Lee Ellis indicated his belief that is the very sort of thing the FEA component-based architecture contemplates. Ken also noted that the current draft of the XML Developers Guide requires the use of XML Schema, but that developers are tending toward usage of RelaxNG. He suggested it may be time to reconsider the direction provided in the Guide. Ken’s presentation is available at http://xml.gov/presentations/silosmashers/XSDValidation.htm Ken and Betty’s ET pilot site is at http://www.eccnet.com/ET-Register/
David Webber discussed the OASIS Content Assembly Mechanism (CAM). Points that he made include: OAGI primarily supports ERP vendors. British Telecom (BT) supports an open source CAM. A combination of data validation rules and content reference rules provides for globally unique IDs. The commercial data mappers all use proprietary formats. CAM is based solely on XML 1.0 and XPath. David’s presentation is available at http://xml.gov/presentations/webber/oasiscam.htm
The meeting concluded with a demonstration of the OASIS Standards Registry by Joe Chiusano. Joe did not have a presentation per se but accessed the Registry directly on the Web, at http://registry.oasis-open.org/index.jsp Ian pointed out that resources in the Registry cannot be directly referenced and bookmarked. Bob Benedict asked about Adobe’s plans for the registry software and whether they have an ongoing business relationship with OASIS for support of the Registry. No one could answer those questions but Owen indicated they may be a good topic for discussion at a future meeting.
If you have any corrections or additions to these notes, please contact Owen_Ambur@fws.gov
Those in physical attendance, for part or all of the meeting, included:
Owen Ambur, Co-Chair
Lee Ellis, Co-Chair, GSA
Roy Morgan, NIST, head of our Registry Project Team
Ken Sall, SiloSmashers
Joe Chiusano, Booz Allen Hamilton
Ian Jacobs, W3C
Robert Benedict, NASA
Duane Degler, IPGems
Amin Hassam, i411
John Kane, NARA
Renee Lewis, Lockheed Martin for SSA
Alice Marshall, Presto Vivace
Frank Napoli, LMI
Judith Newton, NIST
Vickey Niblett, SAIC/NASA
Iqbal Talib, i411
John Weiland, NMIMC
Gene Zapfel, Booz Allen Hamilton
Those participating via teleconference and the Web included:
Claude Matthews, IRS
Judy Burnam, FTC
Mary Ann Frye, FTC
Brand Niemann, EPA
Rex Brooks, Starbourne.com
Russ Ruggiero, HumanML