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[February 28, 2001]     ASN.1 Markup Language (AML).     In the context of a discussion on XML compression, Olivier Dubuisson (France Telecom R&D) has described an XML-based "ASN.1 Markup Language" now under development. According to the documentation, this new form of ASN.1 value notation "was created in Geneva during the January joint meeting of the SG 7 and SC 6 groups, and the format of this value notation is based on XML. This work allows ASN.1 values to be transferred or displayed in a variety of textual of binary formats (PER BER HTML XML plain text, etc.); users can leverage browsers for XML display and still have efficient binary transfer in BER..." ASN.1 is "a formal notation used for describing data transmitted by telecommunications protocols, regardless of language implementation and physical representation of these data." Dubuisson reports that the the ASN.1 Project from ITU-T is actually working jointly with ISO on two initiatives: (1) An XML value notation for ASN.1 types (or 'ASN.1 Markup Language') that allow to write values by way of an XML markup whose tags are derivated from the ASN.1 type names. Such an XML value notation can appear in an ASN.1 module, and can be used to display ASN.1 values with an XML browser. When appended with an XML document header and footer, this value notation turns into what could be called 'XML Encoding Rules for ASN.1'. This will be a standard named 'ITU-T Recommendation X.693 - ISO/IEC 8825-4'. (2) An XML Schema to ASN.1 mapping that keeps all the information contained in an XML Schema and translates it into equivalent ASN.1 types and subtype constraints." [Full context]

[February 28, 2001]     Draft Version of The Upper Cyc Ontology in XML Topic Map Representation.     Murray Altheim (Sun Microsystems) announced the availability of a draft version of the Upper Cyc Ontology in XTM (XML Topic Map) format. Reference: Sun Microsystems Technical Report 27-February-2001. The Technical Report "documents research and development of an XML Topic Map (XTM) representation of the Upper Cyc Ontology, including a distribution of five XTM topic maps based on features of the ontology. The Technical Report plus any associated software and/or documentation may be submitted to TopicMaps.Org with the goal of promoting XML Topic Maps (XTM) as a suitable ontological framework, as well as a source of XTM Published Subject Indicators (PSIs)." The Upper Cyc Ontology knowledge base stores some 3,000 terms "capturing the most general concepts of human consensus reality; it also represents a vast structure of more specific concepts descending below this upper level: logical axioms (rules and other assertions) which specify constraints on the individual objects and classes found in the real world." [Full context]

[February 28, 2001]     Geography Markup Language (GML) Version 2.0 Based on W3C XML Schema.     The Open GIS Consortium, supporting Geospatial and Information Technolgy Industries with open standards specifications, has now released Geography Markup Language (GML) 2.0 with a complete W3C XML Schema notation. The Geography Markup Language (GML) "is an XML encoding for the transport and storage of geographic information, including both the spatial and non-spatial properties of geographic features." The 2.0 specification "defines the XML Schema syntax, mechanisms, and conventions that provide an open, vendor-neutral framework for the definition of geospatial application schemas and objects, allow profiles that support proper subsets of GML framework descriptive capabilities, etc. Sections 1 and 2 of the new specification present the background information and modeling concepts that are needed to understand GML. Section 3 presents the GML conceptual model which is independent of encoding. Section 4 presents material which discusses the encoding of the GML conceptual model using the XML Schema definition language (XSDL). This material is intended to demonstrate how to employ the normative GML geometry and feature schemas specified in Appendices A and B of this document. Section 5 of this document presents the rules for the development of conformant GML application schemas. Section 6 presents examples to illustrate techniques for constructing compliant GML application to model recurring geographic themes." [Full context]

[February 28, 2001]     Exploration and Mining Markup Language (XMML).     Simon Cox reports that the Exploration and Mining Markup Language (XMML) is under development as an XML specification governing online data transfer for the exploration and mining industry. XMML is being designed as an application of the Geography Markup Language (GML); GML is an XML format for geospatial data based on the ISO/TC 211 feature model, and provides components, such as geometry, for re-use in specific domains. Interoperability with GML will allow XMML "to leverage developments in GIS and will provide maximum compatibility with generic software (e.g., GIS, CAD, DBMS, spreadsheet, web-browser). Thus XMML will be compatible with emerging geospatial data standards. It will support the efficient transfer of data between current software packages, between users at different sites, and of extracts of data from servers to clients in a variety of other scenarios, which requires shared protocols. XMML will be capable of describing rich 3-D geology, including ore-bodies, boreholes, geophysics and samples." Development plans call for the completion of XML schemas and several stylesheets by the end of 2001. [Full context]

[February 28, 2001]     Human Markup Language Initiative (HumanML).     A communiqué from Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga invites all interested parties to "join in the discussion group for the Human Markup Language (HumanML). The initiative is an XML-based non-proprietary endeavor, open to the contributions of all parties interested in helping define human XML standards. These standards include various aspects of human communication process through markup, including 'gestures', 'thoughts', 'emotions', and 'attitudes'. The project has a goal of "enriching human communications and reducing human misunderstanding" through explicit mechanisms to represent paralinguistic features of human communication. The markup initiative would "provide a trusted means to markup the interpretive process. (1) Reduce miscommunication through a standard framework of referents to descriptions of emotional states (2) Enhance communication by enabling emotional states to be identified and used to query if requests and responses do not conform to predicted ranges for sequence and frequency within a genre. (3) Create communication through authoring tools that use genre-based schema to organize sequences and frequencies of emotional expressions." [Full context]

[February 27, 2001]     XLINKIT.COM Demonstrates a UML Checker Using XML and XLink.     A posting from Christian Nentwich references an updated online application of 'xlinkit' for software engineering called the 'xlinkit UML Checker': "you can submit your UML document to this service in XMI format; the document will be checked for inconsistencies according to the rules set out in the UML Standard, as defined by the OMG. The well-formedness rules are expressed in the 'xlinkit' rule language, which allows arbitrary first order logic expressions, restricted to equality as the only function and finite sets of DOM nodes as the only type of set allowed." The 'xlinkit' tool represents a "lightweight application service which provides rule-based link generation and checks the consistency of distributed documents and web content. The tool leverages standard Internet technologies, notably XML and XLink. [Full context]

[February 27, 2001]     MISMO's Real Estate Property Information Workgroup Unifies Standards for Real Property.     The Real Estate Property Information Workgroup of MISMO (Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization) recently announced that it is nearing completion of a Property Information Data Dictionary which will be released for public review. Real estate professionals representing assessors, county recorders, realtors, appraisers, and mortgage bankers met in January 2001 to review a draft version of the dictionary, which now includes real estate listing and public records data. "The draft dictionary represents core data elements from collateral valuation forms including appraisal and Employee Relocation Council forms, as well as input from county recorders and assessors. The working group is also coordinating with representatives from other professional organizations to review naming protocols and incorporate common elements." The resulting common data language should accommodate the requirements of a number of specifications, including Real Estate Transaction Specifications (RETS), Comprehensive Real Estate Transaction Markup Language (CRTML), Numerata's REPML, the Appraisal Institute Data Storage and Transmission Standard, and others. [Full context]

[February 27, 2001]     ASC X12 and UN/EDIFACT Working Group Define Business Objects to Unify EDI and XML.     A recent announcement from the two 'global e-business standards bodies' ASC X12 and EWG describes the initiation of work to create a single set of business objects ('core components') "that are valid within the UN/EDIFACT and ASC X12 business processes. This joint initiative of the Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12 and the UN/EDIFACT Working Group (EWG) is focused on single set of business objects (core components) which would be the basis for future developments with new and emerging technologies such as Extensible Markup Language (XML). The XML standards proposed by X12 and EWG will be based on ebXML recommendations. To complement this effort, ASC X12's Process Integration Task Group (PITG) is coordinating demonstrations of modeling software tools while preparing 'How to' guides to illustrate modeling methodology concepts in an easy-to-understand manner. PITG's work will build on existing frameworks within ASC X12 and EWG and help to define the business processes and modeling." [Full context]

[February 27, 2001]     New FpML Working Group on FX Products.     The FpML.org Board of Directors and Standards Committee has issued a call for participation in a new FpML FX Products Working Group. FpML recently formed an Equity Derivatives Products working group as well. FpML.org is supported by a group of financial firms dedicated to the development and use of FpML (Financial Products Markup Language) as the communications standard for streamlining the processes supporting e-commerce activities in the financial derivatives domain. The new FX Products Working Group "will be responsible for extending the product definition of the current FpML standard to accommodate the use of FpML for FX products, whilst ensuring full utilization of the existing language. The WG will evaluate the Citigroup/UBSW FX FpML proposal and other proposals as they deem appropriate and will deliver an FpML specification for the following FX products: FX Spots; FX Forwards, including 'Non-Deliverable Forward' (NDF); FX Swaps; 'Simple' Options (e.g., excluding barriers and other exotics); and Option Strategies (multiple simple options)." [Full context]

[February 23, 2001]     International Accounting Standards Committee Releases 'Taxonomy of XBRL for Financial Statements'.     At the first global meeting of XBRL.org in London, the XBRL member organization International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) announced a "draft taxonomy of XBRL for Financial Statements to members of XBRL.org for review. The IASC taxonomy is an XML-based specification for the 'Commercial and Industrial' sector that allows users and suppliers of financial information to exchange financial statements across all software and technologies, including the Internet." The draft/beta taxonomy is available as an XML schema and in Microsoft Access database format. The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) has also formed a broad-based steering group in London that is in the process of developing the UK taxonomy for financial statements. With over 85 member organizations, XBRL.org is now "expanding as industry sectors and foreign jurisdictions begin development of XBRL specifications for financial and other business reporting. Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is an open specification which uses XML-based data tags to describe financial statements for both public and private companies. [Full context]

[February 23, 2001]     eXcelon Corporation Releases Stylus Studio 3.0 Integrated Development Environment.     Christopher Parkerson announced the release of eXcelon's Stylus Studio 3.0 as a new "integrated development environment for XML applications built around the Stylus Visual XSLT Editor. Stylus Studio includes components needed to develop XML-based solutions. Stylus Studio 3.0 supports project management, a scalable XML editor, a Schema editor, Visual XSLT editor, a Visual XML-to-XML mapper, a Java source editor, and an integrated Java and XSLT debugger. The XSLT debugger allows one to quickly debug through XSLT with support for variables, watches, and stack tracing. Studio is designed to be capable of handling XML source files tens of megabytes in size. Stylus Studio Beta is available now via the eXcelon Corporation website." [Full context]

[February 22, 2001]     XMLTrans Tool for XML-based Recursive Transductions.     Derek Walker of the ISSCO Research Centre (University of Geneva) has developed a free/GPL XML transducer 'XMLTrans'. The tool is "similar to IBM alphaWorks' PatML, but the syntax is meant to be less heavy. The pattern matching focuses on horizontal constraints (regular expressions over siblings); it is optimized for transducing lots of relatively small but complex chunks of the same type in a big file without putting the whole file in memory. XMLTrans provides rooted/recursive transductions, similar to transducers used for natural language translation. It is written in standard Java and is available to the general public. XMLTrans was developed as part of the DicoPro project, a project funded within the EU Multilingual Information Society programme (MLIS)." [Full context]

[February 22, 2001]     Intellidimension Announces RDF Gateway Technology Release.     Geoff Chappell announced a technology release of 'RDF Gateway' Version 0.1 by Intellidimension, Inc.. RDF Gateway is "an RDF-based semantic query service for distributed data. The query service uses RDFQL, a simple SQL-style language with inference extensions to perform complex deductive queries. Queries can be executed over a wide range of dynamic data by connecting to one or more Data Services. Data Services expose structured data as a collection of RDF statements. The release contains Data Services for File Systems, RDF Memory Repositories, RDF Database Repositories, OLEDB Providers and RDF Files. The query service is exposed to applications via an ADO/OLEDB interface. [Full context]

[February 22, 2001]     ebXML Integrates SOAP Into Messaging Services Specification.     An announcement from UN/CEFACT and OASIS describes efforts now underway to "integrate the SOAP 1.1 and SOAP with Attachments specifications into the ebXML Messaging Specification. SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is designed to provide the underpinnings for messaging requirements. This development by ebXML will result in an open, widely adopted global standard for reliably transporting electronic business messages over the Internet. The ebXML Messaging Specification encompasses a set of services and protocols that allow an electronic business client to request services from electronic business servers over any application-level transport protocol, including SMTP, HTTP and others. ebXML defines a general-purpose message, with a header that supports multiple payloads, while allowing digital signatures within and among related messages. Although the header is XML, the body of the message may be XML, MIME or virtually anything digital." [Full context]

[February 22, 2001]     Symposium on Electronic Markup and Publication of Ancient Near Eastern Texts.     A communiqué from Charles E. Jones and Patrick Durusau invites submissions for two panel sessions on "Electronic Markup and Publication of Ancient Near Eastern Texts," to be held at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Denver, CO, November 17-20, 2001. The NEML (Near Eastern Markup Language) symposium is jointly sponsored by the Oriental Institute (University of Chicago) and The Society of Biblical Literature. The symposium builds upon the work of a variety of individuals, groups, and organizations to articulate "technical standards for the interchange of Near Eastern data in digital form, seeking to develop stable platforms for the electronic publication of scholarly work in ancient Near Eastern studies utilizing preexisting markup languages and planning for the implementation of widely accepted standards." [Full context]

[February 21, 2001]     OASIS Technical Committee for Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML).     An OASIS technical committee has been proposed for the development of standards governing access control policies. The proposed scope of discussion "is Extensible Access Control Markup Language ('XACML', an intermin moniker), which addresses security related specifications orthogonal to the efforts of the existing Security Services OASIS TC. Whereas the Security Services TC exists to define an XML framework for exchanging authentication and authorization information, XACML is to be concerned with the representation of access control policies as XML and the application of these policies to XML documents." The current discussion leader is Ernesto Damiani. [Full context]

[February 21, 2001]     MathML Version 2.0 Published as a W3C Recommendation.     The W3C has released the Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 2.0 specfication as a W3C Recommendation, together with an implementation and interoperability report, several testimonials from implementation teams, and a press release. "MathML 2.0 consists of a number of XML tags which can be used to mark up an equation in terms of its presentation and also its semantics. As a result, MathML 2.0 attempts to capture something of the meaning behind equations rather than concentrating entirely on how they are going to be formatted out on the screen. This is because mathematical equations are meaningful to many applications, independent of how they are rendered aurally or visually. MathML 2.0 is intended to facilitate the use and re-use of mathematical and scientific content on the Web, and for other applications such as computer algebra systems, print typesetting, and voice synthesizers. MathML can be used to encode both the presentation of mathematical notation for high-quality visual display, and mathematical content, for applications where the semantics plays more of a key role such as scientific software or voice synthesis." [Full context]

[February 21, 2001]     Microsoft Announces Smart Tag Software Development Kit with XML Support.     Microsoft has announced the availability of a 'Smart Tag Software Development Kit' For Office XP. Smart tags "enable real-time, dynamic recognition of content and offer relevant options to people as they work to allow them to quickly access and analyze information. For example, they support the ability to dynamically link user input (e.g., a supplier invoice number, with relevant user actions such as 'check invoice status' or 'visit supplier Web site') using the full power of COM and development tools like Visual C++ and Visual Basic. In addition to extensible smart tags, Office XP offers native support of XML as a file format in Excel and Access, which enables the integration of Office XP solutions with other XML-enabled enterprise applications and business processes. Documentation illustrates building smart tags without writing code by generating Microsoft Office Smart Tag List XML files and including smart tags directly into Web pages." [Full context]

[February 21, 2001]     CIDX Reports Completion of Chem eStandards Initiative Phase Two.     Chemical Industry Data Exchange (CIDX) recently announced the successful completion of phase two work in the Chem eStandards initiative. The Chem eStandards initiative is "a multicompany-funded undertaking dedicated to the development and promotion of nonproprietary, XML-based standards for conducting global e-business in the chemical industry. Participating and contributing to this initiative are leading chemical companies, chemical marketplaces and service providers." CIDX now assumes a larger role as the chemical industry standards body, committed to supporting and further developing the Chem eStandards. [Full context]

[February 21, 2001]     Updated XSLT-process Tool for Emacs.     Ovidiu Predescu announced the version 1.2 release of XSLT-process. XSLT-process is "a minor mode for (X)Emacs that allows you to invoke an XSLT processor of choice on a buffer, displaying the result in an additional buffer. Currently supported processors include Xalan 1.x, and Saxon 5.x and 6.x. Cocoon 1.8.x, an XML publishing framework, is also supported through its command line interface; support for other Java XSLT processors could be added easily." Changes include additional support for the TrAX interface, support for GNU Emacs on Windows NT/2000, modified keyboard bindings, and enhanced documentation. [Full context]

[February 20, 2001]     Conference Program Available for XML Europe 2001.     Marion L. Elledge (Senior VP/IT, Graphic Communications Association) has announced the publication of the full conference program for the XML Europe 2001 Conference, to be held May 21 - 25 in Berlin. XML Europe 2001 is a conference for users and developers which "focuses on how XML powers industry applications. XML Europe 2001 offers 31 tutorials, 4 special interest days, and a 3-day conference featuring 6 concurrent tracks." Pre-conference tutorials will be held on Monday-Tuesday (May 21-22). The Special Interest Day Program will also be on May 22, featuring sessions on Enterprise Content Management, XML and Healthcare, XML and Digital Printing, and the XML Executive Briefing. Attendees may participate in conference tracks addressing ebXML, Web Services, Knowledge Management, XSLT, Digital Assets, Schemas, e-business applications, vertical industry applications, graphics, tools, and more. [Full context]

[February 20, 2001]     iX Magazine Publishes Three-Part Online XSLT Tutorial.     Henning Behme recently announced that iX - Magazin für professionelle Informationstechnik has published an online three-part tutorial for XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 1.0. The XSLT tutorial begins with the basics and finishes by trying out AxKit (v 1.2) for serving XML sources dynamically." The three-part tutorial series is also available in German. The iX/Raven web site provides a list of XSLT resources, and references for XML generally. [Full context]

[February 19, 2001]     W3C XForms Working Group Publishes Updated XForms Working Draft.     A revised version of XForms 1.0 incorporating new material on the XForms Processing Model has been released by the W3C XForms Working Group. The working draft document "presents a description of the architecture, concepts, processing model, and terminology underlying XForms, the next generation Web forms. 'XForms' is W3C's name for a specification of Web forms that can be used with a wide variety of platforms of varying capabilities, for instance, desktop computers, television sets, personal digital assistants, cell phones, computer peripherals and even paper. XForms are comprised of separate sections that describe what the form does, and how the form looks; this allows for flexible presentation options, including classic XHTML forms, to be attached to an XML form definition." [Full context]

[February 19, 2001]     IBM Web Services Toolkit Provides New Support for UDDI, SOAP, and WSDL.     The updated Version 2.2 IBM Web Services Toolkit from alphaWorks labs provides a client API to access a UDDI registry; the client API makes use of the UDDI4J API also available from IBM. The updated Web Services Browser which can browse a complete UDDI registry in a tree-view format; it may be used to browse through web services published with the Web Services Client API, publish and unpublish services, view and save services' descriptions. Also included in the 2.2 release are several SOAP-related technical previews: "(1) the COM pluggable provider is an Apache SOAP pluggable provider that takes incoming requests to the SOAP server and delegates them to a COM object; (2) the Web Services Management Technology Preview introduces a management interface which allows SOAP server resources to be managed; (3) SOAP Chaining Framework preview demonstrates how modules of code (or Handlers) can be chained before and/or after the actrual Web Service being invoked." Updated WSDL tools, documentation, and configuration setup utilities are also provided in WSTK Version 2.2. The IBM Web Services Toolkit is "a runtime environment as well as demo/examples to design and execute web-service applications to find one another and collaborate in business transactions without programming requirements or human intervention." [Full context]

[February 19, 2001]     Wireless Abstract XML (WAX) Used in Morphis Wireless Content Transcoder.     Kargo, Inc. recently announced Morphis as a GPL open-source wireless transcoding platform for application development supporting wireless devices, including mobile phones, handheld PCs and personal digital assistants. "Central to the Morphis solution is WAX (Wireless Abstract XML), a set of tools and an abstract markup language used to author content for wireless applications; it provides a general foundation for performing any type of content transformation (including binary, plain text and text markup) and is also able to perform multiple complex transformations, including industry standard XSLT-based transformations. Morphis provides an XML processing framework based on XML SAX event processing and XSLT. Documents may be processed through multiple filters, and multiple translations; custom SAX filters can perform logic based on XML SAX events, or complex logic can be written using XSLT extensions." [Full context]

[February 17, 2001]     Open Archives Initiative Publishes XML Schemas for the OAI Metadata Harvesting Protocol.     Version 1.0 of The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting has been published with appendices documenting XML schemas for metadata representation (e.g., Dublin Core metadata format, RFC1807 metadata format, MARC21 records in an XML format). The Open Archives Initiative, with funding from the Digital Library Federation and the Coalition for Networked Information, "develops and promotes interoperability standards" for efficient dissemination of content on the Web. The published OAI protocol defines a mechanism for harvesting records containing metadata from repositories, where metadata records be structured as XML data. The OAI protocol and has been extensively tested by a variety of alpha testers before its public release and is now widely implemented. The OAI metadata harvesting protocol supports an "interoperability framework with two classes of participants: (1) Data Providers administer systems that support the OAI protocol as a means of exposing metadata about the content in their systems; (2) Service Providers issue OAI protocol requests to the systems of data providers and use the returned metadata (XML-encoded byte stream) as a basis for building value-added services." An online 'Open Archives Initiative Repository Explorer' supports interactive testing of archives for conformance with the OAI protocol. [Full context]

[February 17, 2001]     XML4Lib Electronic Discussion Forum on the Use of XML in Libraries.     Roy Tennant has announced the launch of the XML4Lib Electronic Discussion Forum for the discussion of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and its use in libraries. The purpose of the XML4Lib electronic discussion is to assist library staff in learning about XML and how to apply it to library problems and opportunities. XML4Lib is hosted on the Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE, a digital library and a support service for digital library, museum and archive developers. [Full context]

[February 17, 2001]     Species Analyst Project Uses ANSI/NISO Z39.50 and XML for Federated Natural History Databases.     The Species Analyst based at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center "is a research project developing standards and software tools for access to the world's natural history collection and observation databases. The Species Analyst relies heavily upon the fusion of the ANSI/NISO Z39.50 standard for information retrieval (ISO 23950) and XML. All of the tools used by the Species Analyst transform Z39.50 result sets into an XML format that is convenient to process further, either for viewing or data extraction. This fusion of Z39.50 and XML brings standards based information retrieval to the desktop by extending the capabilities of existing tools that users are familiar with such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Excel and ESRI's ArcView." [Full context]

[February 17, 2001]     Implementation Guideline Markup Language (igML).     Several EDI software vendors, including Extol, FORESIGHT, Paperfree, Dynamic Web, RTCI, and Washington Publishing have formed a working group to develop a new XML based markup language for the rendition of EDI implementation guidelines and standards. Implementation Guideline Markup Language (igML) will serve many of the same purposes as SEF, and the IMPDEF and DIRDEF EDIFACT messages, with important extensions. igML is not 'another schema language', nor is it 'a solution for X12 to XML conversion'. The XML DTD specifies the use of XML markup "to encapsulate all the information contained in an EDI guideline, as an XML version of SEF or IMPDEF." A W3C XML schema will be used in place of the XML DTD when the Schema Recommendation is issued. [Full context]

[February 16, 2001]     OASIS Entity Resolution Technical Committee Releases Draft XML Catalogs Specification.     Norman Walsh (Technology Development Group, Sun Microsystems, Inc.) announced the publication of a new version of the XML Catalogs specification from the OASIS Entity Resolution Technical Committee. The document addresses problems stemming from the lack of entity management facilities in XML, which has "impeded" interoperability of XML documents. The specification "defines an entity catalog that handles the simple cases of mapping an external entity's public identifier and/or system identifier to an alternate URI. Though it does not handle all issues that a combination of a complete entity manager and storage manager addresses, it simplifies both the use of multiple products in a great majority of cases and the task of processing documents on different systems." [Full context]

[February 16, 2001]     New W3C Working Drafts for XPath and XSLT Requirements.     W3C has published new working draft specifications for XPath Requirements Version 2.0 and XSLT Requirements Version 2.0. XPath is a language for addressing parts of an XML document, designed to be used by both XSLT and XPointer. The new XPath requirements document has been written by members of the XSL Working Group and the XML Query Working Group. Building upon the XPath 1.0 W3C Recommendation, the goals of XPath version 2.0 are to "simplify manipulation of XML Schema-typed content, simplify manipulation of string content, support related XML standards, improve ease of use, improve interoperability, improve i18n support, maintain backward compatibility, and enable improved processor efficiency." The XSLT 2.0 requirements specification has been produced by the XSL Working Group as part of the W3C Style activity. XSLT is a language for transforming XML documents into other XML documents; it is designed for use as part of XSL, which is a stylesheet language for XML that also includes an XML vocabulary for specifying formatting. The XSLT version 2.0 goals are similar to those of XPath 2.0; it will build upon XSLT 1.0 W3C Recommendation and will support W3C XML Schema by "providing support for the common operations needed for matching and construction of transformed documents based on a source document containing these typed elements and attributes." XSLT 2.0 non-goals are: "simplifying the ability to parse unstructured information to produce structured results" and "turning XSLT into a general-purpose programming language." [Full context]

[February 16, 2001]     OASIS Announces Technical Committee for TREX.     An announcement from Kark Best and James Clark describes the formation of a new OASIS Technical Committee for TREX (Tree Regular Expressions for XML). The purpose of the TREX TC is "to create a specification for a schema language for XML based on the TREX proposal. The key features of TREX are that it: is simple, is easy to learn, uses XML syntax, does not change the information set of an XML document, supports XML namespaces, treats attributes uniformly with elements so far as possible, has unrestricted support for unordered content, has unrestricted support for mixed content, has a solid theoretical basis, and can partner with a separate datatyping language (such W3C XML Schema Datatypes). The projected date for the first OASIS Committee Specification is 1-July-2001. [Full context]

[February 16, 2001]     NISO Releases Draft Standard ANSI/NISO Z39.86-200x for Digital Talking Books.     NISO (US National Information Standards Organization) has released a draft version of File Specifications for the Digital Talking Book [Draft Standard ANSI/NISO Z39.86-200x, Version 3.8] for public review. The standard defines an XML 1.0 element set (DTBook3) for markup of the text files of books and other publications presented in digital talking book (DTB) format; XML DTDs are presented in eight appendices. The standard "presents the file specifications for digital talking books (DTBs) for blind, visually impaired, physically handicapped, or otherwise print-disabled readers... DTBs go far beyond the limits imposed on analog audio books because they can include not just the audio rendition of the work, but the full text file and images as well." [Full context]

[February 15, 2001]     W3C XML Query Working Group Releases XQuery Working Draft and Related Documents.     The W3C XML Query Working Group has published an initial public working draft specification for XQuery: A Query Language for XML. XQuery "is designed to be broadly applicable across all types of XML data sources. XQuery is a functional language in which a query is represented as an expression; it is derived from an XML query language called Quilt, which in turn borrowed features from several other languages." Supporting specifications also released include: (1) XML Query Data Model "which is the foundation of XML Query Algebra; together, these two documents will provide a precise semantics for the XML Query Language. (2) The XML Query Algebra defines a a formal algebraic model for an XML query language. (3) XML Query Use Cases "specifies usage scenarios for the W3C XML Query data model, algebra, and query language." XML Query Requirements articulates "goals, requirements, and usage scenarios for the W3C XML Query data model, algebra, and query language." [Full context]

[February 15, 2001]     IBSi Finalizes ITML Account Provisioning Specification for Internet Business.     On February 15, 2001, The Internet Business Services Initiative (IBSi), an industry association promoting the development and use of Web-native business solutions, announced that it has "launched a 'proof-of-concept' implementation of its first standard to streamline interoperability among Internet Business Services. The IBSi ITML Provisioning Specification defines XML-based secure interoperability standards for sharing user data among Web-based business-to-business services so that customers will not have to enter the same information every time they subscribe to a new service or change their user-permissions levels." The provisioning specification has been proposed by IBSi member Jamcracker, which also recently sent an ITML Message And Protocol Specification Working Draft and an ITML Distributed Session Management Specification Working Draft to the OASIS Security Technical Committee. [Full context]

[February 15, 2001]     XPath Based Query Language Evaluation and Retrieval Tool (XPERT) Supports SAX.     Dongwook Shin announced that XPERT (XPath based query language Evaluation and Retrieval Tool) Version 0.5 now supports SAX. "XPERT is now able to index with SAX parsers as well as DOM parsers. With this, you can virtually index any size of XML file no matter how large it is. And you can hook up any Java SAX parser to XPERT as long as it supports SAX version 2. One more advantage is that SAX version takes less memory and index more quickly than DOM version. This Java tool allows different types of XML documents to be indexed together and and to be retrieved in an efficient way using an XPath based query language." [Full context]

[February 15, 2001]     CIMI Project Launches XML Testbed for SPECTRUM DTD.     Alice Grant (CIMI Project Manager) recently announced a test bed program designed to test the consortium's XML DTD and to encourage its use in the museum community for a variety of purposes. CIMI, a consortium of cultural heritage institutions and organizations. is working with the Museum Documentation Association to develop a Document Type Description (DTD) for describing objects in SPECTRUM, a well-known standard widely used in the museum world. CIMI's testing project will explore the utility of the SPECTRUM XML-DTD, as well as its interoperability with other XML DTDs originating from related cultural and heritage domains. [Full context]

[February 14, 2001]     MSL: A Model for W3C XML Schema.     Conversations by Dan Connolly, Andrea Asperti, and Philip Wadler on the the public W3C 'spec-prod@w3.org' mailing list [forum for discussion of W3C Spec Production Issues] have (incidentally) referenced MSL (Model Schema Language), which represents "an attempt to formalize some of the core idea in XML Schema." MSL, as with Hypertextual Electronic Library of Mathematics (HEML) and the online The COQ proof assistant, may be of special interest to XML developers having expertise in mathematics and formal logic. A presentation entitled "MSL: A model for W3C XML Schema" will be given in an XML Foundations session at the Tenth International World Wide Web Conference (WWW10). An online draft paper indicates that "MSL has already proved helpful in work on the design of XML Query; we expect that similar techniques can be used to extend MSL to include most or all of XML Schema." According to one online authority, MSL (Model Schema Language) is "an initiative by members of the W3C's XML Schema Working Group, to provide a formal model for the XML Schema language." [Full context]

[February 13, 2001]     W3C Specification for XML Fragment Interchange Issued as a Candidate Recommendation.     The document XML Fragment Interchange of 12-February-2001 has been published as a W3C Candidate Recommendation, replacing the previous working draft of 1999-06-30. The editors are Daniel Veillard and Paul Grosso. The problem addressed by this specification, according to the abstract: "The XML standard supports logical documents composed of possibly several entities. It may be desirable to view or edit one or more of the entities or parts of entities while having no interest, need, or ability to view or edit the entire document. The problem, then, is how to provide to a recipient of such a fragment the appropriate information about the context that fragment had in the larger document that is not available to the recipient. The XML Fragment WG is chartered with defining a way to send fragments of an XML document -- regardless of whether the fragments are predetermined entities or not -- without having to send all of the containing document up to the part in question." [Full context]

[February 13, 2001]     XKMS Mailing List and Interest Group Meeting.     Philip Hallam-Baker (VeriSign, Inc.) posted an announcement for a new mailing list to support the work of anyone interested in the development/interoperability/standardization of XKMS. The "XML Key Management Specification (XKMS)" defines protocols "for distributing and registering public keys, suitable for use in conjunction with the proposed standard for XML Signature developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and an anticipated companion standard for XML encryption." An XKMS interest group meeting will be held in Cambridge MA on March 01, 2001, coordinated with meetings of the W3C XML Encryption Working Group [the March 1st XML Encryption FTF] and the OASIS XML Security Services Technical Committee. [Full context]

[February 13, 2001]     TM4J - A Topic Map Engine For Java.     Kal Ahmed (Techquila.com) recently announced the availability of TM4J, an open source topic map engine for Java programmers. "TM4J is a small suite of Java packages which provide interfaces and default implementations for the import, manipulation and export of Topic Maps encoded to conform to the XTM (XML Topic Maps) DTD, viz., the XTM syntax defined and specified by Topicmaps.Org. The new download also includes several sample applications, including an experimental topic map navigation application." Binary and source distributions are available for download; terms are based on the Apache Software Foundation license. [Full context]

[February 13, 2001]     TREX Supports New XML Schema Datatyping Implementation.     James Clark announced an updated sample implementation of TREX in Java. This implementation "now supports datatyping using a 'real implementation' of W3C XML Schema Part 2; the datatyping implementation is independent of the rest of the sample implementation, so it might be useful for other applications of XML Schema Part 2. There's also a TREX task that allows the TREX sample implementation to be used conveniently from within Ant." TREX (Tree Regular Expressions for XML) is Clark's new language for validating XML documents. [Full context]

[February 12, 2001]     XML Markup Technologies Featured at Corpus Linguistics 2001.     The upcoming Corpus Linguistics 2001 Conference at Lancaster University will feature a special workshop on "XML Markup Technologies for Working with Linguistic Data," organized by Jean Carletta (University of Edinburgh) and Henry Thompson (University of Edinburgh and W3C). The workshop will highlight W3C XML-related standards relevant to corpus linguistics research as well as the "inventory of tools and technologies for the markup and analysis of language data expressed in XML developed by the Language Technology Group at the University of Edinburgh's Division of Informatics, with support from EPSRC, ESRC, and the EU." The CL2001 conference itself offers a special session on 'Markup And Tools', with papers on feature structures, text alignment (synchronization), and XML-based systems for corpora development. [Full context]

[February 12, 2001]     Schematron Version 1.5 Assertion Language Supports 'phrases' for Dynamic Validation.     A communiqué from Rick Jelliffe (Academia Sinica Computing Centre) reports on the version 1.5 release of Schematron, including references for the updated specification, implementation, conformance tests, mailing list, and schemas web site. Schematron is a "simple XML-based assertion language using patterns in trees. Its uses include validation, automated link generation, and triggering actions based on complex criteria. Version 1.5 adds support for 'phases', a way of grouping patterns together to allow dynamic validation where different rules and assertions will be tested according to the phase, 'diagnostics', for generating very specific diagnostic hints, 'abstract rules', which allow more convenient declarations and type extension, and various smaller changes to allow elements to be decorated with more kinds of information that metastylesheets or user interfaces need." [Full context]

[February 12, 2001]   
AuthXML Working Group Submits AuthXML Web Security Specification to OASIS.    

The AuthXML Working Group has announced the submission of its AuthXML specification to the OASIS XML Security Services Technical Committee. In January, Netegrity, Inc. and a small group of vendors also submitted its Security Services Markup Language draft specification to the OASIS TC. AuthXML is a vendor-neutral specification that enables the integration of proprietary Web security, network security, B2B infrastructures and applications with individual Internet-based user sessions and transactions; the AuthXML Working Group is comprised of over 45 active contributors. [Full context]

[February 12, 2001]   
US Library of Congress Hosts Online EAD Application Guidelines.    

Kris Kiesling (Chair, SAA EAD Working Group and SAA Standards Committee) reports that the Web/HTML edition of the Encoded Archival Description Application Guidelines for Version 1.0 of the EAD DTD is now online from the Library of Congress EAD web site. The EAD Document Type Definition (DTD) is a standard for encoding archival finding aids using SGML and XML (Extensible Markup Language). The Encoded Archival Description SGML/XML standard is now used by dozens of universities and consortial digital library projects. The EAD standard is maintained in the Network Development and MARC Standards Office of the Library of Congress (LC) in partnership with the Society of American Archivists. [Full context]

[February 12, 2001]   
XML Topic Maps 1.0 Authoring Group Review Specification.    

Steve Pepper (Ontopia) recently announced the public release of the TopicMaps.Org Authoring Group Review Specification for XML Topic Maps 1.0. The specification "describes version 1.0 of XML Topic Maps (XTM) 1.0, an abstract model and XML grammar for interchanging Web-based topic maps, written by the members of the TopicMaps.Org Authoring Group. TopicMaps.Org is an independent consortium of parties developing the applicability of the topic map paradigm [ISO13250] to the World Wide Web by leveraging the XML family of specifications." [Full context]

[February 09, 2001]   
Semantic Web Activity Launched by W3C.    

The World Wide Web Consortium has formally inaugurated a Semantic Web Activity within the W3C Technology and Society Domain. The 'Semantic Web' is "a vision: the idea of data on the Web defined and linked in a way that it can be used by machines for automation, integration and reuse. The Web can reach its full potential only if it becomes a place where data can be shared and processed by automated tools as well as by people." Part of this vision is "developing an environment to permit each user to make the best use of the resources available on the Web." The Semantic Web Activity is being launched as a successor to the W3C Metadata Activity. Key participants in the new activity include, in addition to W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee, (1) Eric Miller (W3C, Activity lead), (2) Ralph Swick (W3C, Development Lead), (3) Dan Brickley (University of Bristol, RDF IG Chair and RDF Core WG co-chair) and (4) Brian McBride (HP, RDF Core WG co-chair). Planned activities of W3C toward development of the Semantic Web vision are described in the W3C Semantic Web Activity Statement. We read: "For the Web to scale, programs must be able to share and process data even when these programs have been designed totally independently. The Web can reach its full potential only if it becomes a place where data can be shared and processed by automated tools as well as by people. The Semantic Web Activity, to this end, has been established to serve a leadership role, in both the design of enabeling specifications and the open, collaborative development of technolgies that support the automation, integration and reuse of data across various applications. To faciliate this goal, the Semantic Web Activity builds upon the existing foundation work accomplished by W3C Metadata Activity with the following additional objectives: (1) Continue the work of the RDF Interest Group. The RDF Interest Group will coordinate implementation and deployment of RDF and will provide liaison with new work in the W3C and the wider community on matters relating to RDF. (2) Undertake revisions to the RDF Model and Syntax Recommendation. (3) Complete work on the RDF Schema specification. This Working Group group will incorporate the results of the on-going RDF implementation experience and consider directions established by the XML Schema Candidate Recommendation. (4) Coordinate with W3C initiatives focussed on defining semantics for supporting Web technologies. This includes P3P, CC/PP, XML Protocols, WAI, and other infrastructure for remote services. (5) Coordinate with selected non-W3C initiatives and individual activities working on Semantic Web technologies. This coordination includes, but is not limited to, DCMI, DAML, OIL, SHOE. The current international collaboration between DAML and OIL groups on a Web ontology layer is expected to become a part of this W3C activity. The goals of coordination are to ensure the generality of the solution, to provide solutions and experience, to prevent arbitrary divergence, and to ease adoption of the technology in related fields. (6) Perform advanced development to design and develop supporting XML and RDF technologies. The development project is intended to facilitate distributed collaboration with a specific intent to increase the level of automation of the W3C Web site and to develop open-source RDF infrastructure support modules." See also (1) "DARPA Agent Mark Up Language (DAML)"; (2) "Ontology Interchange Language (OIL)." Other references are cited in "XML and 'The Semantic Web'."

[February 09, 2001]   
XML.GOV Portal Opened.    

As previewed in a December 2000 announcement, the US Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council has opened a new XML.GOV portal to provide awareness of federal XML-related initiatives. The portal will serve as a clearinghouse for federal XML activities as well as provide a collaborative workspace. The stated purpose of the web site "is to facilitate the efficient and effective use of XML through cooperative efforts among government agencies, including partnerships with commercial and industrial organizations." In the UK, similar coordination of XML-related 'e-Government' activity is facilitated through the "e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF)." The XML.GOV portal currently references a number of federal XML-related efforts and provides an events calendar. The Enterprise Interoperability and Emerging Information Technology Committee (EIEITC) recently issued a memorandum to the Chief Information Officers Council calling for government-wide participation in enhancing the portal: ""Following a period of prototyping, the xml.gov site has now been activated at http://xml.gov. Please make your staff aware of the site and encourage them to become active participants in helping to develop and improve its design and content. The longer-term objective is not only to provide a comprehensive and authoritative reference for government-related XML activities but also a collaborative work space to support those activities... The XML Working Group will be issuing an RFP for the second generation, embracing the principles outlined in Raines' Rules. One of the features contemplated for future implementation is an ISO/IEC Standard 11179 compliant registry/repository of inherently governmental XML data elements, DTDs, and schemas. If such a repository is established, it may be used on a pilot basis to register the data elements (fields) represented on Standard and Optional Forms (SFs & OFs), with the longer-term objective of integrating the registry into the information burden reduction process mandated by the Paperwork Reduction Act..." The CIO Council's Enterprise Interoperability and Emerging Information Technology Committee (EIEITC) chartered the XML Working Group "in order to capitalize on the potential of XML more efficiently and effectively on a Government-wide basis. The purpose of the XMLWG is to accelerate, facilitate and catalyze the effective and appropriate implementation of XML technology in the information systems and planning of the Federal Government. Wherever possible, the Working Group will seek to achieve the highest impact from resources by building on initiatives and projects that are underway in the Federal Government, or elsewhere in the public or private sectors." For other descriptiion and references, see: "US Federal CIO Council XML Working Group."

[February 09, 2001]   
IBM and Microsoft Submit Specification for SOAP Security Extensions.    

The W3C has acknowledged submission of a note by International Business Machines Corporation and Microsoft Corporation for SOAP Security Extensions: Digital Signature. Reference: W3C NOTE 06-February-2001, by Allen Brown (Microsoft), Barbara Fox (Microsoft), Satoshi Hada (IBM), Brian LaMacchia (Microsoft), Hiroshi Maruyama (IBM). Submitted by David Fallside (IBM) and David Turner (Microsoft Corporation). Document abstract: "This document specifies the syntax and processing rules of a SOAP header entry to carry digital signature information within a SOAP 1.1 Envelope." Rationale: "The motivation for this Note is to propose a standard way to use the XML Digital Signature syntax to sign SOAP 1.1 messages. We define a SOAP header entry <SOAP-SEC:Signature> for this purpose. We also propose the definition of an extensible namespace for adding security features to the SOAP header. By extensible we mean that new elements can be added to the schema overtime but elements in the schema will not change. It is our intention that other security features, such as confidentiality of SOAP 1.1 messages, will be added within this namespace as appropriate standards, such as forthcoming XML Encryption, become available. What we specifically defer to another Note or working group is the definition of an authentication protocol for SOAP. By 'protocol', we mean any expectation of processing by the recipient of a signed/encrypted message." According to the text of the submission, "The co-submitters of this specification believe strongly in the need for standardized protocols to support interoperable interactions with remote Web-based services. Although there are a number of similar efforts underway, we feel the W3C is well suited to co-ordinate work in this area. We propose the formation of a new working group within the existing XML Protocol Activity or the inclusion of this activity in the XML Protocol Working Group to continue the evolution of this proposal. It is essential that security be part of the interoperability goals within XML messaging." Joseph Reagle (W3C Team Contact for the XML Signature Working Group) supplied this explanation and disposition in the W3C Staff comment: "The SOAP-SEC submission specifies how to use XML Signature with SOAP via envelop headers. First, it imports two optional envelop headers for use in SOAP-SEC: 'actor' can be used to indicate the recipient of a header element; 'mustUnderstand' indicates whether an application must attempt validation of the enclosed Signature. While the example provided is of a detached signature, (<Signature> is a sibling of the element signed), enveloping and enveloped signatures are permitted, where <Signature> is an ancestor or descendant respectively. XML Signature can work with arbitrary content, but its use with these SOAP headers might be of interest to the XML Protocol Working Group as a usage scenario for mandatory/optional signature validation over messages. Second, the submission defines a global attribute 'ID' in the SOAP-SEC namespace that is defined to always be of type ID. This can be used by applications as a referent of a Signature to unambiguously identify and reference elements. W3C Working Groups, especially XML Signature, might consider generalizing and standardizing this approach for use by all XML applications. This submission will be referred to the attention of the XML Protocol Working Group and the XML Signature Working Group email lists for the reasons stated above." See (1) "Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)" and (2) "XML Digital Signature (Signed XML - IETF/W3C)."

[February 09, 2001]   
Quick Version 4.0 Combines Java Data Modeling with an XML Binding Schema.    

Bill la Forge announced the release of Quick Version 4.0.0, with significant enhancements since version 3.3.1: "QJML now serves as both a Java Data Modeling language and as an XML binding schema. Full Java inheritance is supported in the XML schema. This release also introduces OCM, a component system for performing complex XML transformations. Like Quick, OCM is intended for a multi-threading environment." Quick, being developed as an open source project [LGPL] on SourceForge, "is a tool for generating and processing XML. Arbitrary object structures can be converted into trees of XML elements. Cross-linked XML documents can be converted into structures of objects. Quick is a data modeling system for Java. Quick fully supports Java inheritance, including abstract and interface elements. The developer is given fine-grained control over code generation, so the generated code can extend and interoperate with pre-existing classes. Quick works with Java Beans and Bean Property Editors. Developer-provided Bean Property Editors allow the use of custome data types (Java classes) when processing XML attributes and simple elements with text content. Quick provides a thread-safe framework (the ocm package) for simple and complex data transformations. QJML is an XML markup language for describing Java models. QJML elements are tied to various Java classes, interfaces, fields, and Bean Properties. QJML can be used to generate Java classes and can be created through Java reflection. QJML is also an XML binding schema. QJML describes both an XML markup language and how to convert that type of XML document into Java objects. Because QJML describes a Java data model, it can be used to extract data from an object graph. This data can then be used to create an XML document, or to create Java objects using a different set of classes (transcription). QDML is a simplified form of QJML, with all references to classes, interfaces, fields, and properties removed. QDML still defines an XML markup language, and also supports Java inheritance. QIML is the compiled form of QJML. The elements in a QIML document are used to configure the Quick Engine objects, which are used in turn to convert XML documents into Java objects and to generate XML documents from Java objects. The Open Conversion Model (OCM) is an element composition system for defining complex data transformations. OCM is build using Quick and, in turn, is being used to write various Quick utilities. OCM uses a model/controler approach to help keep maintenance at a manageable level, but applies this approach to tree processing. OCM, like the Quick Engine, uses a tree-factory design pattern. XML is used to configure a tree factory, which is then converted into a tree of factory objects. The tree factory is then used to create context trees for processing." The changes between versions 3.3.1 and 4.0.0: (1) The QJML binding schema and the QDML schema have been reworked to more closely model Java inheritance, to provide better control over generated code, and to provide for future support of arrays, maps, and indexed properties. The qjml4 utility has been included in this release to help convert old QJML files to the new format. (2) A component system, OCM, has been developed to support complex data transformations. (3) In an effort to reduce maintenance, the utilities are being rewritten using OCM. (4) There have been some bug fixes in the Quick Engine code dealing with multi-threading issues. (5) There has also been a bug fix dealing with default values. The source is available for download.

[February 09, 2001]   
The XSLT C Library for Gnome (libxslt).    

Daniel Veillard recently posted information about an XSLT C Library for Gnome (libxslt) now under development. The GNOME project was born "as an effort to create an entirely free desktop environment for free systems. From the start, the main objective of GNOME has been to provide a user friendly suite of applications and an easy-to-use desktop. As with most GNU programs, GNOME has been designed to run on all modern strains of Unix-like operating systems." The XSLT C Library for Gnome (libxslt) is being released as a "first beta" version. Key points: (1) Libxslt is a C implementation; (2) Libxslt is based on libxml for XML parsing, tree manipulation and XPath support [see "The XML C library for Gnome"]; (3) It is written in plain C, making as few assumptions as possible, and sticking closely to ANSI C/POSIX for easy embedding. Should works on Linux/Unix/Windows; (4) The library is released under the GNU LGPL. Both the C library and libxml-2.3.0 are available at http://xmlsoft.org/. Online resources for using libxml include the API documentation automatically extracted from code comments (using gtk doc) and the mailing-list archive. Veillard writes: "... adding one more unfinished XSLT processor to the list may sound like a bad idea. The point is that I will try to fix all reported bugs in a timely fashion. This is also very likely to be included in most Linux distributions within six months as part of the Gnome enviroment. It should also compile and work without troubles in most C enviroment, (with the notable exception of AS/400 where the compiler represent char/strings in EBCDIC and not ASCII)... As Libxslt-0.1.0 is the first beta release, it should cover most features from the XSLT-1.0 spec but it's clearly not complete yet; check the FEATURES file to get a precise idea... The embedded xmlproc test program allows one to run non-trivial transformations anyway. Usage is: xsltproc [-v] [--debug] file.xsl file.xml. The main parts missing are: Extensions support; Embedding Stylesheets; Some part of xsl:number; xsl:apply-imports; document() and key() are incomplete. A quick grep on FEATURES indicates 146 YES and 19 NO. Bjorn Reese provided numbers and formatting functions. We are getting closer from feature completion at a quick rate. Libxslt may work for most use right now, but it is clear that its not well tested and it's aboslutely certain that some obvious bugs will be found as there is more testing and real use." For related tools, see "XSL/XSLT Software Support."

[February 09, 2001]   
Apache XML Project Releases Apache SOAP Version 2.1.    

A recent communiqué from James Snell announces the release of Apache SOAP Version 2.1. Apache SOAP ("Simple Object Access Protocol") is an implementation of the SOAP submission to W3C. It is based on, and supersedes, the IBM SOAP4J implementation. Apache SOAP v2.1 has been released and is available for download in a Zipfile. New features in version 2.1 include: (1) Added message handling support; (2) Added configurable error handling mechanism; (3) Added pluggable provider support; (4) Added client-side HTTPS support; (5) Added HTTP proxy support; (6) Added HTTP basic authentication support; (7) Added support for SOAP Messages with Attachments; (8) Introduced SOAPContext; (9) Added support for transport hooks; (10) Added SSL support; (11) Reduced dependency on xsi:type for deserialization; (12) Added soap configuration file; (13) Added pluggable configuration manager; (14) Added support for international character sets; (15) Added support for default serialization/deserialization of: Hashtable (as xmlsoap:Map), Date (as xsd:timeInstant) GregorianCalendar (as xsd:date). The Apache XML Project currently consists of seven sub- projects, each focused on a different aspect of XML: Xerces - XML parsers in Java, C++ (with Perl and COM bindings); Xalan - XSLT stylesheet processors, in Java and C++; Cocoon - XML-based web publishing, in Java; FOP - XSL formatting objects, in Java; Xang - Rapid development of dynamic server pages, in JavaScript; SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol; Batik - A Java based toolkit for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG); Crimson - A small-footprint Java XML parser. See "Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)."

[February 09, 2001]   
Xalan-Java Version 2.0 Released.    

David Marston recently announced the availability of Xalan-Java Version 2.0. Xalan is "an XSLT processor ['a stylesheet interpreter'] for transforming XML documents into HTML, text, or other XML document types. It implements the W3C Recommendations for XSL Transformations (XSLT) and the XML Path Language (XPath). It can be used from the command line, in an applet or a servlet, or as a module in other program." Marston writes: "The Xalan team of the Apache XML Project proudly announces the debut of Xalan-Java Version 2.0. This new edition of the highly reliable XSLT processor implements the transformation part of the Java API for XML Processing version 1.1 (final draft), enabling API-level users to code XML applications without reference to the internal details of a particular processor or XML parser. In addition, the API is more understandable, encouraging more participation in the open-source development of Xalan. The internals of Xalan have been redesigned for greater clarity, while the processor behavior has been brought into closer conformance with the XSLT and XPath Recommendations of the World Wide Web Consortium. The new design lends itself to the production of transformation output while the input is still being parsed. Xalan-Java 2.0 incorporates the SAX parsing event model in its support for incremental production of output. The new API, otherwise known as TrAX (Transformation API for XML), provides a stable framework for plugging transformers (Xalan-Java 2 and others) and XML Parsers into applications that manipulate XML. In November 2000, TrAX was incorporated into Java Specification Request 63, now in the public review stage. Xalan-Java 2 has been tested by beta users around the world, and has also passed thousands of abstract tests applied by IBM Research staffers who work full-time on evaluation and enhancement of XSLT processors. It is ready to replace Xalan-Java 1.2 in all applications. In addition to implementing the XSLT specification, Xalan-Java 2 includes extension functions for SQL access to databases via JDBC, redirection of output, conversion of result-tree fragments to node-sets, set operations on node-sets, tokenizing strings, and more. Xalan-Java 2 available now for free download from the Apache website: http://xml.apache.org/xalan-j. The download will include documentation, usage samples, and source code." For related resources, see "XSL/XSLT Software Support."

[February 08, 2001]   
World Wide Web Consortium Publishes W3C Weekly News.    

The W3C announced that it has "launched a new public news service, W3C Weekly News, published on Mondays. This text-based email includes all home page news items for the previous week." The 'w3c-announce-request@w3.org' weekly news column is read only. The corresponding news archives are available online. To subscribe to the W3C Weekly News, send email to w3c-announce-request@w3.org with the the word subscribe in the subject line. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) "is 500 Member organizations and 65 Team members leading the Web to its full potential. W3C is an international industry consortium jointly run by the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT LCS) in the USA, the National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA) in France, and Keio University in Japan. The home page of the W3C Morocco Office (hosted by the École Mohammadia d'Ingénieurs [EMI], in Rabat, Morocco) is also now open to the public. The W3C Web site hosts specifications, guidelines, software and tools. Public participation is welcome. W3C supports universal access, the semantic Web, trust, interoperability, evolvability, decentralization, and cooler multimedia."

[February 07, 2001]   
W3C Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Test Suite.    

On behalf of the W3C SVG Working Group, Chris Lilley (Working Group Chair) announced the completion of a second public release of the W3C Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Test Suite. SVG "is a language for describing two-dimensional graphics in XML which allows for three types of graphic objects: vector graphic shapes (e.g., paths consisting of straight lines and curves), images and text. Graphical objects can be grouped, styled, transformed and composited into previously rendered objects." Details on the new test suite are provided in the Second BE Release Notes. The new release comprises 127 tests which have been updated to the latest SVG specification and extensively tested. "The latest release includes 'Basic Effectivity' tests - aiming for covering all of the spec, but not in fullest detail; further releases will add 'Drilldown Tests' which fully exercise all posibilities of particular features. Various test harnesses are available: (1) a frame-based harness, with the reference PNG and the test SVG presented side by side, together with instructions (for browser implementations and plug-ins) (2) an SVG-based harness which uses the SVG image element to include the actual test, and provides navigation links. To view the reference PNG and the instructions, you will need to also view (in an HTML browser) the reference PNG and instructions. (3) another SVG harness which displays the reference PNG and the SVG test image side by side, with navigation links. (4) a bare-bones harness with the reference PNG and instructions displayed in an HTML page; the SVG files are loaded one by one; suitable for standalone viewers or editors that do not implement the SVG image element fully. The accompanying SVG Conformance Suite Implementation Status document [Release 2.0 - 27 January 2001] "describes the results of particular SVG implementations tested against the SVG Conformance Test Suite." Implementation tested include Adobe, CSIRO SVG Toolkit, Batik, Ionic, Jackaroo, and JASC Web Draw. The goal in this test is to "demonstrate that every part of the SVG Candidate Recommendation specification can be implemented, as required by the SVG Candidate Recommendation exit criteria. For this, each BE test must be passed by at least one implementation. It is not an exhaustive test of all SVG implementations; the implementations listed here are the ones that were readily available at the time of conformance testing. This is also not a formal test, and thus does not rank the implementations. The purpose is purely to show that the SVG specification can be and has been implemented, and to demonstrate a good degree of interoperability between implementations. The package may be downloaded as a single zipfile for local/offline testing, along with the manual. See references in "W3C Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)."

[February 07, 2001]   
Sun Microsystems Proposes Java APIs for XML RPC.    

Sun Microsystems recently published a Java Specification Request for design activity that would provide consistent Java APIs for using emerging XML RPC standards. Reference: JSR-000101, Java APIs for XML RPC. JSR Review Closes 2001.02.12. Endorsers and initial Expert Group Members include: Allaire, Apple, ATG, BEA, Bowstreet, Commerce One, HP/Bluestone, iPlanet, SilverStream, Sun Microsystems, webGain, webMethods. According to the text of the proposal, "There is considerable interest in using XML for 'Remote Procedure Calls', where a procedure call (or method call) on one computer is transmitted over a network as XML and is then delivered as procedure call (or method call) on another computer. In particular, there is now a W3C Protocol Working Group developing a standard XML protocol, 'XP', which supports XML RPC. The goal of this JSR is to develop APIs and conventions for supporting XML RPC protocols in the Java platform. There are three main needs to be addressed: (1) APIs for marshaling and unmarshaling arguments and for transmitting and receiving calls. These APIs should permit the development of portable 'stubs' and 'skeletons'. (A stub is a piece of code that runs on a client computer and maps a language level call into a network call. A skeleton is an analogous piece of code that runs on a server and maps an incoming network call to a language level call on the server.) (2) APIs and conventions for mapping XML RPC call definitions into Java interfaces, classes, and methods. The purpose of this 'forward mapping' is to allow XML RPC interfaces that have been defined in other languages to be mapped into Java. It is highly desirable to be able to map all XML RPC call definitions into Java. (3) APIs and conventions for mapping Java classes, interfaces, and methods into XML RPC call definitions. The purpose of this 'reverse mapping' is to allow programmers to define APIs in Java and then map them into XML RPC. There may be some constraints on which Java methods can be mapped into XML RPC. As part of mapping between XML RPC data types and Java types, this JSR will attempt to include support for existing Java language to XML mappings, such as those defined in JSR-031 'XML Data Binding' (and possibly also those defined in JSR-057 'JavaBeans Persistence'). The expert group will evaluate to what extent the XML RPC mappings and APIs should be aligned with the existing CORBA and RMI APIs and mappings. The JSR will make reasonable efforts to define APIs and conventions that are independent of specific protocols and data formats, and to define APIs that are 'pluggable' and can allow different protocols to be substituted. However, the initial primary focus will be on the emerging W3C XP standard. Where possible, the JSR will attempt to use or learn from existing work on Java XML RPC systems, especially work such as the Apache SOAP project. [Rationale:] There are already two major RPC systems in the Java platform, the OMG CORBA Object Request Broker, and the Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI) APIs. However, neither of these systems have been designed to work with XML RPC. Where practicable, this JSR should attempt to align with this existing RPC work. There are several existing JSRs that define XML APIs. These include JSR-031 'XML Data Binding', JSR-057 'JavaBeans Persistence', JSR-063 'Java APIs for XML Processing 1.1', JSR-067 'Java APIs for XML Messaging', and JSR-093 'Java APIs for XML Registries'. None of these APIs address XML RPC. However, the Java APIs for XML RPC should attempt to align with and exploit these existing APIs. In particular, it is expected there will be close liaison between this XML RPC JSR and the existing XML Messaging JSR, as it appears that it will be beneficial for these two JSRs to be closely aligned. Both styles of communication (asynchronous messaging and synchronous RPCs) are likely to be important, for different use cases." Please direct comments on the JSR to jsr-101-comments@sun.com. Contact: Graham Hamilton. See also (1) "XML-RPC", and (2) Dave Winer's comment on the Sun JSR-000101.

[February 05, 2001]   
Mailing List for Microsoft Reader and 'EBooks'.    

Jon Noring announced the formation of a new unmoderated mailing list 'MS_Reader' for the discussion of all technical matters pertaining to the Microsoft Reader for ebooks. This list is independent: it is neither not affiliated with nor endorsed by the Microsoft Corporation. All posts to MS_Reader are publicly accessible and there are no membership restrictions. A partial list of allowable discussion topics include: (1) Technical publishing matters associated with the creation of works in LIT format. This includes, as a partial list, OEBPS, HTML, CSS, XML, conversion from other formats, compilers, etc. (2) End-user issues, such as the installation of Microsoft Reader (both Desktop and PocketPC versions), reading, and accessibility. (3) Software development using Microsoft's Reader Content SDK. This includes the development of new LIT compilers. (4) Security and server issues. To join the list, follow the instructions on the Yahoo Groups [formerly eGroups] forum. On EBooks, see "Open Ebook Initiative." For other lists, see "SGML/XML Discussion Groups and Mailing Lists."

[February 02, 2001]   
W3C Note Specifies a P3P Assurance Signature Profile.    

W3C has released a note specifying A P3P Assurance Signature Profile. Reference: W3C Note 2-February-2001, edited by Joseph Reagle. The NOTE "specifies a P3P Assurance Signature Profile: the intended meaning (assures) of the key holder is bound to the signature via a SignatureProperty. Using the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) as an example, the NOTE presents a possible use of the SignatureProperty element, as permitted by the XML-Signature Syntax and Processing specification, for exploration and discussion. The document has been made available for W3C-member review. It is not intended to be a normative specification. Instead, it captures the authors' thoughts on how applications might use the XML Signature specification to meet their requirements (defining signature semantics and algorithm profile)..."

[February 02, 2001]   
Last Call Working Draft for the W3C XML Information Set Specification.    

On behalf of the W3C XML Core Working Group, Paul Grosso posted an announcement for the 'last call' publication of the XML Information Set specification. Reference: W3C Working Draft 2-February-2001, edited by John Cowan and Richard Tobin. The specification "provides a set of definitions for use in other specifications that need to refer to the information in an XML document." Paul writes: "The Last Call review period ends 23 February 2001. Please send review comments before that date to www-xml-infoset-comments@w3.org. Because there was an earlier Last Call, the XML Core WG would like to point out that there has been a change in design principle for the current specification. Please read the introduction carefully where, among other things, it states: [This specification's] purpose is to provide a consistent set of definitions for use in other specifications that need to refer to the information in a well-formed XML document. It does not attempt to be exhaustive; the primary criterion for inclusion of an information item or property has been that of expected usefulness in future specifications. In particular, that means that inclusion in the Infoset was driven more by the intersection of what other specifications needed, not the union, and omission of something from the Infoset does not mean that a particular specification (e.g., the DOM, XML Schema, XML Query) could not define new infoitems and require that processors conforming to their specification must support such infoitems. We viewed this version of the Infoset as a 'library of definitions to facilitate the writing of other specifications' rather than a definitive universe of all information in an XML document..."

[February 02, 2001]   
Robotic Markup Language (RoboML).    

Maxim Makatchev (Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Engineering Management,