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SGML and XML News

By: Robin Cover

October 30, 2000]
RDF Schema Explorer for Querying/Validating/Extending RDF Models.
Wolfram Conen recently announced RDF Schema Explorer -- a service based on Jan Wielemaker's SWI-Prolog (3.4.0), his SGML/RDF parser, and an adaptation of his CGIServ code. RDF Schema Explorer can be used as follows: "(1) You can feed some RDF into the Explorer, either by keying it directly into the text field below or by uploading a file. This will be parsed with Jan Wielemaker's SWI-Prolog parser and the resulting triples will be asserted to the fact base. (2) You can check/validate your model against the rule set provided in version 1.2 of the paper 'A logical interpretation of RDF.' (3) You can query the model repeatedly by using the provided rule/fact set and by providing your own additional rules/queries. (4) You can define/extend the semantics for your own predicates directly from within your RDF document, along the guidelines presented in RDF Semantic Extensions. Version 1.2 of the paper 'A logical interpretation of RDF' is currently under public review in the Semantic Web (SEWEB) area of the web site Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (ETAI), where it is possible to comment/discuss the paper." For related resources, see "Resource Description Framework (RDF)."
[October 27, 2000]
Electronic Book Exchange (EBX) Working Group Publishes Digital Rights Specification.
The Technical Committee of the Electronic Book Exchange (EBX) Working Group has published an initial draft digital rights standard "for protecting copyright in electronic books and for distributing electronic books among publishers, distributors, retailers, libraries, and consumers." The Electronic Book Exchange (EBX) Working Group "is an organization of companies, organizations, and individuals developing a standard for protecting copyright in electronic books and for distributing electronic books among publishers, distributors, retailers, libraries, and consumers. The draft EBX specification accommodates a variety of content formats for electronic books, including Open eBook Publication Structure and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). The EBX Working Group operates under the auspices of the Book Industry Study Group." The draft specification is The Electronic Book Exchange System (EBX). Version 0.8. July 2000 Draft, 109 pages. [An interim, incomplete draft and has not been approved as a standard by the EBX Working Group.] "[This is] the complete technical specifications for the Electronic Book Exchange (EBX) system for interoperable applications and devices that use public-key cryptography for copyright protection and distribution of electronic books. The EBX system is being developed by the EBX Working Group, whose members are Adobe Systems Incorporated, the American Library Association, Audible, ContentGuard, DigitalOwl.com, Glassbook, GlobalMentor, Nokia, RightsMarket.com, SoftLock.com, Thomson Consumer Electronics, Versaware, and Yankee Rights Management." This document describes the Electronic Book Exchange (EBX) system. The EBX system defines the way in which electronic books (e-books) are distributed from publishers to booksellers and distributors, from booksellers to consumers, between consumers and between consumers and libraries. It describes the basic requirements of electronic book reading devices and the electronic books themselves. It also describes how these 'trusted' components interact to form a comprehensive copyright protection system that both protects the intellectual property of authors and publishers as well as describes the capabilities required by consumers. In addition, the model describes in general how products and revenue for those products are generated and managed." While the The EBX system does not define a specific 'content' file format, it does define vouchers, which are encoded in XML. "EBX is primarily concerned with the creation and transfer of digital objects called vouchers. A voucher is an electronic description of e-book permissions transferred from one book owner in the network to another book owner. EBX vouchers are encoded in XML." A sample EBX voucher encoded in XML is available for inspection. See in this connection the feature article by Mark Walter and Mike Letts "Mad Scramble for Mindshare In Digital Rights Management. [Digital Rights Management: Peacekeepers Needed]," in The Seybold Report on Internet Publishing Volume 5, Number 2 (October 2000), pages 9-15. For DRM in relation to XML, see: (1) Extensible Rights Markup Language (XrML); (2) Digital Property Rights Language (DPRL); (3) Electronic Book Exchange (EBX) Working Group; (4) Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL); (5) Open eBook Initiative; (6) "IOTP Requirements for Digital-Right Trading."

[October 27, 2000]
Payment API for Internet Open Trading Protocol Version 1.

Members of the Internet Open Trading Protocol Working Group have published a specification for the "Payment API for v1.0 Internet Open Trading Protocol (IOTP)." IETF Internet Draft. TRADE Working Group. By Hans-Bernhard Beykirch, Werner Hans, Masaaki Hiroya, and Yoshiaki Kawatsura. Reference: 'draft-ietf-trade-iotp-v1.0-papi-02.txt'. September 2000. "The Internet Open Trading Protocol provides a data exchange format for trading purposes while integrating existing pure payment protocols seamlessly. This motivates the multiple layered system architecture which consists of at least some generic IOTP application core and multiple specific payment modules. This document addresses the common interface between the IOTP application core and the payment modules, enabling the interoperability between these kinds of modules. Furthermore, such an interface provides the foundations for a plug-in-mechanism in actual implementations of IOTP application cores. Such interfaces exist at the Consumers', the Merchants' and the Payment Handlers' installations connecting the IOTP application core and the payment software components/legacy systems. . .The Payment API is formalized using the Extensible Markup Language (XML). It defines wrapper elements for both the input parameters and the API function's response. In particular, the response wrapper provides common locations for Error Codes and Error Descriptions. It is anticipated that this description reflects the logical structure of the API parameter and might be used to derive implementation language specific API definitions..." Relevant XML DTDs are presented in the draft document. The Internet Open Trading Protocol "provides an interoperable framework for Internet commerce. It is optimized for the case where the buyer and the merchant do not have a prior acquaintance and is payment system independent. It will be able to encapsulate and support payment systems such as SET, Mondex, CyberCash's CyberCoin, DigiCash's e-cash, GeldKarte, etc. IOTP is able to handle cases where such merchant roles as the shopping site, the payment handler, the deliverer of goods or services, and the provider of customer support are performed by different Internet sites." See related specifications referenced in "Internet Open Trading Protocol (IOTP)."

[October 26, 2000]
XML Encoding for Sumerian Literary Texts.

A recent communiqué from the University of Oxford Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature reports on initial work toward the creation of XML DTDs for transliteration-level encoding and publishable translations for a large online corpus of Sumerian texts. This markup language design is part of a broader project endeavor to analyze the digital library corpus in order to document and describe aspects of its style, lexis, grammar and register. The goal of the Sumerian Literature project, now substantially completed, has been "to produce a 'collected works' of over 400 poetic compositions of the classical [Sumerian] literature, equipped with translations. This standardised, electronically searchable SGML corpus, which is based to a large degree on published materials, comprises some 400 literary compositions of the Isin/Larsa/Old Babylonian Period, amounting to approximately 40,000 lines of verse (excluding Emesal cult songs, literary letters, and magical incantations). The full catalogue can be found on the project web site. The online compositions are presented in single-line composite text format (in a standardised transliteration) with newly-prepared English prose translations, and a full bibliographical database, thereby making available for the first time a collected works of Sumerian literature. The corpus is freely available to anyone who wishes to use it via this World Wide Web site... The literature written in Sumerian is the oldest human poetry that can be read, dating from approximately 2100 to about 1650 BC. The main 'classical' corpus can be very roughly estimated at 50,000 lines of verse, including narrative poetry, praise poetry, hymns, laments, prayers, songs, fables, didactic poems, debate poems and proverbs. The majority of this has been reconstructed during the past fifty years from thousands of often fragmentary clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform writing. Relatively few compositions are yet published in satisfactory modern editions. Much is scattered throughout a large number of journals and other publications. Several important poems must still be consulted in twenty-year-old unpublished doctoral dissertations, some with translations which have now become unusable because of progress in our knowledge of the language. Major compositions have not yet been edited at all. The slow progress of research, with little organised collaboration until recently, means that Sumerian literature has [hitherto] remained inaccessible to the majority of those who might wish to read or study it, and virtually unknown to a wider public." This University of Oxford project is representative of a large number of academic digital library projects which are migrating from SGML to XML-based markup for document structuring and delivery. The extraordinary "Perseus Project" -- with its thousands of SGML-encoded Greek and Latin texts -- provides another example. For additional description and references on the Oxford project, see "Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL)." The development of online reference materials for ancient civilizations presents significant challenge to the extent that the ancient writing systems (especially cuneiform and hieroglyphic) are very complex, and the literary traditions very rich recensionally. Standards efforts have been painfully slow, but collaborative work is now being done in several research initiatives. See a partial listing of projects in the document "Encoding and Markup for Texts of the Ancient Near East." Readers are encouraged to send notification concerning related ancient language projects.

[October 25, 2000]
Transaction Authority Markup Language (XAML).

From a recent announcement: "Leading proponents of e-business interoperability Bowstreet, Hewlett-Packard Company, IBM, Oracle Corporation, and Sun Microsystems, today announced they are leading an initiative to define a vendor-neutral industry standard that will enable the coordination and processing of on-line, multi-party transactions in the rapidly emerging world of XML-based web services. The initiative is called XAML (Transaction Authority Markup Language). [The XAML initiative addresses] coordinated processing of transaction-supporting web services between internal fulfillment services (the chemical provider's inventory system) and external services such as: (1) An insurance policy service to insure the product being shipped; (2) A financing service to ensure payment according to vendor terms; (3) A transportation service to guarantee timely shipment/delivery of product; (4) A regulatory service to ensure compliance with government safety requirements. The XAML standard will: (1) Provide a specification for the XML message interfaces and interaction models of web services to support the coordination and processing of multi-stage transactions on the Internet; (2) Specify interfaces and protocols that preserve investment and strengths in transaction monitors and resources; (3) Specify interfaces and protocols that can be 'added on' to existing and emerging web service interfaces and protocols; (4) Specify interaction models for software systems to provide business-level transactions that coordinate the processing of multiple distributed web services; (5) Build on existing and emerging industry standards. The XAML initiative is so-named because it is an extension of XML, the common language of e-commerce, which supports transactional semantics as defined by the widely adopted standard for two-phase commit, XA (Transaction Authority). XAML intends to provide a means for transaction supporting web services to participate in higher-level business transactions. The XAML proposal will be submitted to one or several standards bodies that may include the W3C, OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) and/or the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force)." For other details, see: (1) the "XAML Transaction Authority Markup Language White Paper" and (2) the full text of the announcement: "Bowstreet, HP, IBM, Oracle and Sun Microsystems Join Forces to Create Standard for e-Business Transactions Across the Internet. XAML proposal focuses on creating XML standard to guarantee multi-vendor transactional integrity across web services... There are emerging standards for web services (such as SOAP, ebXML, XP, UDDI, e-Speak and WSDL), and there are existing transaction management standards (such as XA and JTA); XAML ties the two groups of standards together..." For other references, see "Transaction Authority Markup Language (XAML)."

[October 25, 2000]
XLink Markup Name Control.

W3C has published a NOTE under the title XLink Markup Name Control. Reference: W3C Note 24-October-2000, edited by [W3C XML Linking Working Group co-chairs] Eve Maler (Sun Microsystems) and Daniel Veillard (W3C). Document abstract: "This document proposes a possible XML Schema-based solution to the need to use XLink in XML-based languages such as XHTML 1.0." The note addresses the particular problem of 'namespaces' when attempting to upgrade existing document markup to be interpreted as XLink syntax. "Currently, XLink requires applications to recognize a particular set of attribute names in the XLink namespace in order to do their work... [suppose] you already have some marked-up information that provides some of the same kinds of linking information that XLink is designed to provide: in order to incorporate XLink usage directly into the existing vocabulary as a first-class construct, you would have to force the vocabulary to undergo a backwards-incompatible change from href to xlink:href. XLink's attributes must have namespace prefixes on them because of the way XML namespaces work; 'global' attributes that can be attached to any element must be prefixed because they cannot identify themselves in any other way..." The NOTE's proposed solution builds upon a suggestion from Henry Thompson of the W3C XML Schema Working Group. A future version of W3C XLink might allow applications "to take advantage of XML Schema datatypes instead, or in addition, as a way to recognize Schema-XLink data. The idea is that any attribute name could be used, as long as the attribute were 'marked' with an appropriate datatype, made available through a post-schema-validation information set or by other means. . . If Schema-XLink were to define such datatypes, it could provide a normative XML Schema module that merely contains a series of type definitions. Note, however, that as of this writing, XML Schema does not have facilities to specify additional normative constraints of the style that XLink needs; prose would still be needed to specify the combinations of attribute types that are expected to appear on particular 'XLink element types'..." For related references, see "XML Linking Language."

[October 25, 2000]
Using CSS for Everything.

As part of the W3C style activity, the W3C CSS Working Group has produced a "work in progress" Working Draft specification Syntax of CSS Rules in HTML's "style" Attribute. Reference: W3C Working Draft 25-October-2000, edited by Tantek Çelik (Microsoft) and Bert Bos (W3C). Document abstract: "HTML provides a 'style' attribute on most elements, to hold a fragment of a style sheet that applies to those elements. One of the possible style sheet languages is CSS. This draft describes the syntax of the CSS fragment that can be used in the 'style' attribute." The WD illustrates how one can directly express and control processing behaviors on an element-by-element basis throughout a document (whether visual, aural, tactile, or other behaviors) through the use of a globally-defined style attribute. Thus, from the examples offered, one can: (1) specify display behavior by "setting properties on the element itself, [using] no pseudo-elements or pseudo-classes; (2) colorize a first letter (by "setting properties on the element, as well as on the first letter of the element, by means of the ':first-letter' pseudo-element"; (3) regulate other appearances and effects, by "setting properties on a source anchor for each of its dynamic states, using pseudo-classes." The Working Draft document "defines both the simple case (only properties on the element itself), as well as the more complex case (properties on the element's pseudo-elements and pseudo-classes), and generalizes the cascading order rule for "the case where the inline fragment contains inline rule-sets: the declarations are treated the same as if they occured in the same order at the end of the author's style sheet with a specificity equal to that of a selector with one ID-selector and as many pseudo-elements and pseudo-classes as in the inline rule-set." The working draft would appear to extend the life of HTML 4.0's style attribute, along with the HTML META HTTP-EQUIV Content-Style-Type selector mechanism, since the processing specification principle is to be applied generally to any XML vocabularies (document types) in which designers want to be able to control processing directly from within the document instance. The WD states: "This document recommends that any future XML based languages which have presentational information (whether visual, aural, tactile, or other) also add a STYLE attribute which similarly permits the user to use CSS to style the document and elements in documents written in that language." For one person's doubts about this apparent notion of a 'global use' attribute without (apparent) namespace declaration mechanism, see the W3C comment list. For other references on CSS, see "W3C Cascading Style Sheets."
[October 24, 2000]
XML Schema Becomes a W3C Candidate Recommendation.
A W3C press release announces the publication of XML Schema as a W3C Candidate Recommendation. "The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has issued XML Schema as a W3C Candidate Recommendation. Advancement of the document to Candidate Recommendation is an invitation to the Web development community at large to make implementations of XML Schema and provide technical feedback. Simply defined, XML Schemas define shared markup vocabularies and allow machines to carry out rules made by people. They provide a means for defining the structure, content and semantics of XML documents. 'Databases, ERP and EDI systems all know the difference between a date and a string of text, but before today, there was no standard way to teach your XML systems the difference. Now there is,' declared Dave Hollander, co-chair of the W3C XML Schema Working Group and CTO of Contivo, Inc. 'W3C XML Schemas bring to XML the rich data descriptions that are common to other business systems but were missing from XML. Now, developers of XML ecommerce systems can test XML Schema's ability to define XML applications that are far more sophisticated in how they describe, create, manage and validate the information that fuels B2B ecommerce.' By bringing datatypes to XML, XML Schema increases XML's power and utility to the developers of electronic commerce systems, database authors and anyone interested in using and manipulating large volumes of data on the Web. By providing better integration with XML Namespaces, it makes it easier than it has ever been to define the elements and attributes in a namespace, and to validate documents which use multiple namespaces defined by different schemas. XML Schema introduces new levels of flexibility that may accelerate the adoption of XML for significant industrial use. For example, a schema author can build a schema that borrows from a previous schema, but overrides it where new unique features are needed. his principle, called inheritance, is similar to the behavior of Cascading Style Sheets, and allows the user to develop XML Schemas that best suit their needs, without building an entirely new vocabulary from scratch. XML Schema allows the author to determine which parts of a document may be validated, or identify parts of a document where a schema may apply. XML Schema also provides a way for users of ecommerce systems to choose which XML Schema they use to validate elements in a given namespace, thus providing better assurance in ecommerce transactions and greater security against unauthorized changes to validation rules. Further, as XML Schema are XML documents themselves, they may be managed by XML authoring tools, or through XSLT. . . Candidate Recommendation is W3C's public call for implementation, an explicit invitation for W3C members and the developer community at large to review the XML Schema specification and build their own XML Schemas. This period of implementations and reporting allows the editors to learn how developers outside of the Working Group might use them, and where there may be ambiguities for implementors. Public testing and implementation contribute to a more robust XML Schema, and to more widespread use." The CR specification is published in three parts: (1) XML Schema Part 1: Structures. W3C Candidate Recommendation 24-October-2000, edited by Henry S. Thompson (University of Edinburgh), David Beech (Oracle Corp.), Murray Maloney (for Commerce One), and Noah Mendelsohn (Lotus Development Corporation). Part 1 defines the XML Schema definition language, "which offers facilities for describing the structure and constraining the contents of XML 1.0 documents, including those which exploit the XML Namespace facility. The schema language, which is itself represented in XML 1.0 and uses namespaces, substantially reconstructs and considerably extends the capabilities found in XML 1.0 document type definitions (DTDs). This specification depends on XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes. Appendix A supplies a normative "Schema for Schemas"; Appendix F contains a non-normative "DTD for Schemas"; Appendix J gives brief summaries of the substantive changes to this specification since the public working draft of 7 April 2000. (2) XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes. W3C Candidate Recommendation 24-October-2000, exited by Paul V. Biron (Kaiser Permanente, for Health Level Seven) and Ashok Malhotra (IBM). Part 2 of the specification for the XML Schema language "defines facilities for defining datatypes to be used specifications. The datatype language, which is itself represented in XML 1.0, provides a superset of the capabilities found in XML 1.0 document type definitions (DTDs) for specifying datatypes on elements and attributes." Appendix A provides the normative "Schema for Datatype Definitions" and Appendix B gives the non-normative "DTD for Datatype Definitions." (3) XML Schema Part 0: Primer. W3C Candidate Recommendation 24-October-2000, edited by David C. Fallside (IBM). "XML Schema Part 0: Primer is a non-normative document intended to provide an easily readable description of the XML Schema facilities and is oriented towards quickly understanding how to create schemas using the XML Schema language. XML Schema Part 1: Structures and XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes provide the complete normative description of the XML Schema language -- this primer describes the language features through numerous examples which are complemented by extensive references to the normative texts." In connection with this CR publication, Henry Thompson announced the availablility of a self-installing version of XSV, the W3C/University of Edinburgh XML Schema validator; 'WIN32 for now, UN*X coming soon'. See also: (1) Testimonials for XML Schema Candidate Recommendation; (2) the longer memo from Henry S. Thompson (Janet Daly) explaining why the I18N WG dissented from the specification's treatment of dates and times, and the CR exit criteria; (3) W3C XML Schema; and (4) full references in "XML Schemas."
[October 24, 2000]
Rapid Progress on XML Topic Maps.
Several subgroups working within the TopicMaps.org initiative are making noteworthy progress: these include the Interchange Syntax Subgroup (ISS), Conceptual Model Subgroup (CMS), Authoring Group (AG), XTM Syntax Subgroup, and XTM Modeling Subgroup. Murray Altheim (Sun Microsystems) recently announced the availability of minutes from the October 13-15 XTM meeting in Swindon. This document is available on the XTM Repository web site, which provides also the current 'discussion DTD', the Topicmaps.Org Charter and By-laws, and other relevant resources. The eGroups mailing list 'xtm-wg@egroups.com' serves as host for XTM email. The XTM Conceptual Model Subgroup (CMS) is attempting to explicate the relationship between the Topic Maps and RDF models, and has participated in a number of discussions with W3C's RDF design teams; the XTM syntax may be recommended for the interchange ('serialization') of RDF statements. See further references in "(XML) Topic Maps."
[October 24, 2000]
XSLTMark: XSLT Benchmark and Compliance Testing Suite.
Eugene Kuznetsov has announced the availability of XSLTMark, an XSLT benchmark and a small compliance testing suite. "XSLTMark Version 1.1.0 is available now and is the first release to the general public. The XSLTMark test cases have been designed to challenge processors with a variety of tasks and input conditions in order to provide a well-rounded benchmark and to facilitate analysis of which processors perform best for various applications. XSLTMark measures performance in four major categories: (1) Pattern Matching - this category covers XSLT template pattern matching and template instantiation. This performance category is important to stylesheets with many template rules and with many expected apply-template invocations. (2) XPath Selection - this category covers nodeset selection through the evaluation of XPath path expressions. This performance category is crucial for stylesheets that contain lots of xpath expressions, particularly ones with predicates. (3) XPath Library Functions - this category covers the execution of XPath library functions, particularly the frequently used string functions. This category is most important to stylesheets that perform a lot of string processing. (4) XSLT Control - this category covers the control structures defined by XSLT elements, including variable and parameter handling. This category is most relevant for stylesheets that perform tricky calculations involving calling templates with parameters. . . There are about 40 different testcases in this release; see documentation for descriptions and several third-party credits. A variety of java and C/C++ processors are supported, and drivers for other XSLT engines are easy to add. Source and makefiles are being released (with an emphasis on Linux X86, although Win32 X86 and Solaris SPARC are also supported, and other platforms should be fairly straightforward). We are also making available some initial benchmark results for several popular and well-regarded XSLT processors. We welcome comments, benchmark results submissions and new test drivers for other XSLT processors. DataPower's XSLTMark is the first comprehensive benchmark for measuring the performance of XSL processors. It can be used to test the XSLT performance of XSL processors for XML-to-XML and XML-to-HTML transformations. It also provides basic compliance testing to ensure that benchmark results are not distorted by incorrectly functioning processors. The benchmark is a java application that uses a 'Driver' class to communicate with the XSL processor under test. Both java and native (C/C++) processors are supported, with driver modules available for many popular XSLT engines on a variety of platforms. XSLTMark is currently being used for performance and compliance testing at DataPower, but also has a core suite of tests to yield benchmark figures for external comparison purposes. The tool features: (1) Processing throughput measurement; (2) Normalized score calculation; (3) Balanced test suite; (4) Optional standards compliance testing; (5) Support for processors written in both java and C/C++; (6) Cross-platform operation; (7) Test drivers for most popular XSLT processors [XT (James Clark), Saxon (Michael Kay), Transformiix (Mozilla), Xalan-J (Apache), Xalan-C++ (Apache), MSXML (Microsoft)]. For related topics, see "XSLT/XPath Conformance."
[October 24, 2000]
W3C Specification for Modularization of XHTML Advances to Candidate Recommendation.
The W3C specification for the Modularization of XHTML has been promoted to the status of a Candidate Recommendation. Reference: W3C Candidate Recommendation 20-October-2000, edited by Robert Adams (Intel Corporation), Murray Altheim (Sun Microsystems), Frank Boumphrey (HTML Writers Guild), Sam Dooley (IBM), Shane McCarron (Applied Testing and Technology), Sebastian Schnitzenbaumer (Mozquito Technologies), and Ted Wugofski (Phone.com). The new Candidate Recommendation "specifies an abstract modularization of XHTML and an implementation of the abstraction using XML Document Type Definitions (DTDs). This modularization provide a means for subsetting and extending XHTML, a feature needed for extending XHTML's reach onto emerging platforms." Status: This version of XHTML "incorporates some comments from the Last Call Working Draft review period. A diff-marked version from the Last Call draft is available for comparison purposes. Major changes in this version include: (1) Re-integration of the Building document into this document; (2) Incorporation of the Henry Thompson/Dan Connolly XML Namespace handling process with substantial additions by the Math and HTML working groups; (3) Complete worked examples including modules and miniature DTDs; (4) Minor restructuring of abstract module definitions, including the creation of a 'style attribute module', a 'name identification module' and a 'target' module; (5) Tweaking of some of the module contents based on review comments. On 20 October 2000, this document enters a Candidate Recommendation review period. From that date until 17-November-2000, W3C members are encouraged to review and implement this specification and return comments to w3c-html-editor@w3.org. W3C is looking for testimonials from users of this specification. Additionally, experience using all of the modules is being sought to create a coverage table of the use of each module. These two criteria are needed to advance this specification to Proposed Recommendation." Available from W3C as a Single HTML file, Postscript version, PDF version, ZIP archive, or Gzip'd TAR archive. See additional references in "XHTML and 'XML-Based' HTML Modules."
[October 24, 2000]
Update of XGMML (Extensible Graph Markup and Modeling Language) Schema.
John Punin has announced an updated version of the XML Schema for XGMML (Extensible Graph Markup and Modeling Language). The revised XML Schema is based on the W3C XML Schema Working Draft 22-September-2000; it has been validated using the XSV Validator version 1.166/1.77. XGMML (Extensible Graph Markup and Modeling Language) "is an XML application based on GML which is used for graph description. XGMML uses tags to describe nodes and edges of a graph. The purpose of XGMML is to make possible the exchange of graphs between differents authoring and browsing tools for graphs. The conversion of graphs written in GML to XGMML is trivial. Using XSL with XGMML allows the translation of graphs to different formats. XGMML was created to be used for the WWWPAL System that visualizes web sites as a graph. Web Robots can navigate through a web site and save the graph information as an XGMML file. XGMML, as any other XML application, can be mixed Robots can navigate through a web site and save the graph information as an XGMML file. XGMML, as any other XML application, can be mixed with other markup languages to describe additional graph, node and/or edge information." The XGMML 1.0 Draft Specification is available online. See further reference in "Extensible Graph Markup and Modeling Language (XGMML)."
[October 24, 2000]
Pixy System 2 Astronomical Image Software Uses RELAX/Relaxer.
Murata Makoto recently announced the availability of Pixy System 2 from the MISAO Project. The MISAO Project "aims to make much use of images taken all over the world for searching and tracking astronomical remarkable objects." Pixy (Practical Image eXamination and Inner-objects Identification system) "is an automated astronomical image examination system developed by Seiichi Yoshida, used in the cource of new object survey of the MISAO Project. It automatically detects all stars from an image, collates them with star data recorded in catalogs such as GSC, USNO-A2.0, etc., and finds out new objects or variable stars. It also prints out all astrometric and photometric data of all detected stars, so it is also useful for astrometry of minor planets or photometry of variable stars." Pixy System 2 is implemented using Java language; it runs both on a Windows PC and a UNIX workstation. The software is available for download, and its API documentation may be read online. Pixy System 2 "heavily uses RELAX/Relaxer: the class files in the net.aerith.misao.xml.relaxer package are created by Relaxer from the RELAX files." Relaxer is a Java class generator that operates on a XML document defined by a RELAX grammer. In the new version of Pixy, one may 'save the examination result in XML file, and review of the desktop from the XML file'.
[October 19, 2000]
Research Information Exchange Markup Language (RIXML).

A recent announcement from a group of industry financial leaders describes the formation of RIXML.org, created to support the development of "an open protocol to improve the process of categorizing, aggregating, comparing, sorting, and distributing global financial research." The fifteen founding members of RIXML.org include five Asset Managers and ten Broker-Dealers. Details: "A group of major financial firms announced the formation of RIXML.org, a global industry association of buy-side and sell-side firms whose mission is to develop an open standard for the electronic exchange of investment research. The new specification, to be known as RIXML (Research Information eXchange Markup Language), will be based on XML, the emerging standard for data sharing between applications. RIXML will provide a structure for parsing and classifying investment research in a way that enables recipients to access information in a customizable format through standard sorting and filtering criteria. Once developed through the collaborative efforts of the association's members, the RIXML specification will be made available for use by firms within the financial services industry as well as other interested parties." See (1) the text of the announcement: "Financial Industry Leaders Join Forces to Develop a Global Standard for Investment Research", and (2) "Research Information Exchange Markup Language (RIXML)."

[October 18, 2000]
New Working Draft for W3C Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) Version 1.0.
Max Froumentin (W3C XSL Staff Contact) announced the release of a new working draft for Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) Version 1.0. Reference: W3C Working Draft 18-October-2000. By Sharon Adler (IBM), Anders Berglund (IBM), Jeff Caruso (Pageflex), Stephen Deach (Adobe), Paul Grosso (ArborText), Eduardo Gutentag (Sun), Alex Milowski (Lexica), Scott Parnell (Xerox), Jeremy Richman (BroadVision), and Steve Zilles (Adobe). Document overview: "This specification defines the Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL). XSL is a language for expressing stylesheets. Given a class of arbitrarily structured XML documents or data files, designers use an XSL stylesheet to express their intentions about how that structured content should be presented; that is, how the source content should be styled, laid out, and paginated onto some presentation medium, such as a window in a Web browser or a hand-held device, or a set of physical pages in a catalog, report, pamphlet, or book. Formatting is enabled by including formatting semantics in the result tree. Formatting semantics are expressed in terms of a catalog of classes of formatting objects. The nodes of the result tree are formatting objects. The classes of formatting objects denote typographic abstractions such as page, paragraph, table, and so forth. Finer control over the presentation of these abstractions is provided by a set of formatting properties, such as those controlling indents, word- and letter-spacing, and widow, orphan, and hyphenation control. In XSL, the classes of formatting objects and formatting properties provide the vocabulary for expressing presentation intent. The XSL processing model is intended to be conceptual only. An implementation is not mandated to provide these as separate processes. Furthermore, implementations are free to process the source document in any way that produces the same result as if it were processed using the conceptual XSL processing model." WD status: "This version supersedes the previous draft released on March 27, 2000. The working group is issuing this interim public draft as it sets out a number of changes made in response to comments received on the Last Call draft. The Working Group intends to submit a revised version of this specification for publication as a Candidate Recommendation in the near future. Items under consideration for change for Candidate Recommendation include the name of the font-height-override-before and font-height-override-after properties. Discussion is invited and comments can be sent to the editors at xsl-editors@w3.org." The WD is available in several formats: PDF, XML file, HTML single file and .ZIP file. See related references in "Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL)."

[October 18, 2000]
jUDDI: Bowstreet Hosts Open Source Java-based UDDI Toolkit Development on SourceForge.

Bowstreet recently announced 'jUDDI' as "the industry's first implementation of broad industry-initiated standard to link e-businesses to the 'Yellow Pages' of B2B web services. The jUDDI implementation, available immediately, comes after Ariba, IBM and Microsoft unveiled a draft specification of the UDDI standard. Bowstreet has introduced jUDDI as free, open source software that is available for anyone to use. UDDI -- which stands for Universal Description, Discovery and Integration -- is designed to make it easy for businesses to create partnerships and new business models using platform-neutral application components called web services. The initiative will create a distributed registry, or Yellow Pages, for publishing, finding and using web services that companies wish to offer to the marketplace. Bowstreet's jUDDI (pronounced 'Judy') is an open source Java-based toolkit for developers to make their applications UDDI-ready. jUDDI-enabled applications will be able to look up a web service in a UDDI registry. A retail chain, for example, could use the toolkit to jUDDI-enable its online catalog. With jUDDI, the catalog could call another company's shopping cart and a third company's transaction web service, creating an instant web-based store. Companies will eventually create many connections like this, spawning "business webs," or dynamic collections of businesses, on a massive scale. jUDDI and UDDI will complement DSML (Directory Services Markup Language) -- the directory services standard launched last year by Bowstreet, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and the Sun-Netscape Alliance. Directories provide users with a powerful way to manage web services, including web services published in UDDI registries. Bowstreet sees synergy between DSML and UDDI and will actively explore a relationship between the two specifications, according to Tauber, who is chairman of the DSML 2.0 working group. The jUDDI project is hosted at SourceForge and available as downloadable software from www.juddi.org. jUDDI is the latest in a long line of Bowstreet's industry firsts that advance intercompany interoperability on the Internet. 'UDDI, Microsoft's .NET, HP's e-Speak, ebXML, DSML and a host of other initiatives confirm what Bowstreet customers already know,' said Bob Crowley, Bowstreet's president and chief executive officer. 'They know that plug-and-play e-commerce is possible and inevitable for the 21st century, because they're doing it.' Bowstreet, a founding advisor to the UDDI initiative, was one of the first companies to recognize the importance of web services and act on it commercially. In 1998, the company announced a software architecture for deploying and managing web services across multiple vendor platforms." For references on UDDI, see "Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI)."

[October 18, 2000]
Revised Working Draft for W3C's Platform for Privacy Preferences 1.0 Specification.

As part of the W3C's P3P Activity, the P3P Specification Working Group has released a new 'last call' working draft for the The Platform for Privacy Preferences 1.0 (P3P1.0) Specification. Reference: W3C Working Draft 18-October-2000, edited by Massimo Marchiori (W3C/MIT/UNIVE). Description: "The Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) enables Web sites to express their privacy practices in a standard format that can be retrieved automatically and interpreted easily by user agents. P3P user agents will allow users to be informed of site practices (in both machine- and human-readable formats) and to automate decision-making based on these practices when appropriate. Thus users need not read the privacy policies at every site they visit. The P3P1.0 specification defines the syntax and semantics of P3P privacy policies, and the mechanisms for associating policies with Web resources. P3P policies consist of statements made using the P3P vocabulary for expressing privacy practices. P3P policies also reference elements of the P3P base data schema -- a standard set of data elements that all P3P user agents should be aware of. The P3P specification includes a mechanism for defining new data elements and data sets, and a simple mechanism that allows for extensions to the P3P vocabulary. P3P policies use an XML encoding of the P3P vocabulary to identify the legal entity making the representation of privacy practices in a policy, enumerate the types of data or data elements collected, and explain how the data will be used. In addition, policies identify the data recipients, and make a variety of other disclosures including information about dispute resolution, and the address of a site's human-readable privacy policy." Appendices 4 and 5 of the Working Draft provide the 'XML Schema Definition' and the 'XML DTD Definition'. Status: This Last Call Working Draft is submitted for review by W3C members and other interested parties; the last call review period ends 31 October 2000. "Following this Last Call period, the Working Group intends to submit this specification for publication as a Candidate Recommendation." For related references, see "Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) Project."

[October 17, 2000]
Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML).

The Caltech ERATO Kitano Systems Biology Project is developing the Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML), using XML and UML for representation and modeling of the information components in the system. The research team is attempting to specify "a common, model-based description language for systems biology simulation software; we call this the Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML). The overall goal is to develop an open standard that will enable simulation software to communicate and exchange models, ultimately leading to the ability for researchers to run simulations and analyses across multiple software packages. SBML is the result of merging the most obvious modeling-language features of BioSpice, DBSolve, E-Cell, Gepasi, Jarnac, StochSim, and Virtual Cell. The description language is encoded in XML, the Extensible Markup Language. The XML encoding of the description language can define a file format; however, at this time, we are focusing on using the XML-based description language as an interchange format for use in communications between programs. Appendix B [in the principal specification] contains the current version of this XML schema. As XML Schemas are difficult to read and absorb by human readers, we define the proposed data structures using a succinct graphical notation based on a subset of UML, the Unified Modeling Language. . . The SBML representation language is organized around five categories of information: model, compartment, geometry, specie, and reaction. Not all ofthese will be needed by every simulation package; rather, the intent is to cover the range of data structures needed by the collection of all of the simulators examined so far..." For other description and references, see "Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML)."
[October 16, 2000]
Gnome XML Library's libxml-2.2.5 Supports XPointer and XPath.

Daniel Veillard (W3C) posted an announcement for the release of libxml-2.2.5 in the Gnome XML library with XPointer and XPath implementations, including an initial testsuite. "I usually don't post announces of new releases of libxml to xml-dev, but this this version has XPointer support which was requested previously here I think it makes sense: Libxml is the XML C library developped for the Gnome project, it allow to parse, manipulate, and save XML and HTML documents but it does not expose a GUI interface. Here are some key points about libxml (a.k.a. gnome-xml): (1) Libxml exports Push and Pull type parser interfaces for both XML and HTML. (2) Libxml can do DTD validation at parse time, using a parsed document instance, or with an arbitrary DTD. (3) Libxml now includes a nearly complete XPath and XPointer implementations. (4) It is written in plain C, making as few assumptions as possible, and sticking closely to ANSI C/POSIX for easy embedding. Works on Linux/Unix/Windows (5) Basic support for HTTP and FTP client allowing to fetch remote resources (6) The design is modular, most of the extensions can be compiled out. (7) The internal document repesentation is as close as possible to the DOM interfaces. (8) Libxml also has a SAX like interface; the interface is designed to be compatible with Expat. (9) This library is released both under the W3C IPR and the GNU LGPL; use either at your convenience. URLs for libxml include http://xmlsoft.org/ and ftp://xmlsoft.org." For related XLink/XPointer tools, see "XML Linking and Addressing Languages (XPath, XPointer, XLink)."

[October 16, 2000]
XML Developers' Day Call for Presentations.

Marion Elledge (GCA) has posted a call for presentations in connection with XML Developers' Day at the XML 2000 Conference. "Since 1984, the fall GCA SGML/XML conference has been the one annual must-attend event for the structured markup community. XML was first introduced to the world at this conference in 1996, and the event continues to be a focal point for meetings of XML-related OASIS, W3C, IDEAlliance, and ISO working groups. For information on the conference, held this year in Washington, D.C., see http://www.gca.org/attend/2000_conferences/XML_2000/. XML Developers' Day on Monday 4 December is intended for conference attendees with a special interest in the latest XML tools and advanced techniques. If you have applications that feature innovative uses of XML, this is your chance to share your accomplishments with other advanced workers. Proposals of 1-3 paragraphs clearly describing the presentation should be sent in plain text directly to the chair of the XML Dev Day track, Jon Bosak. Submissions must be mailed no later than Monday, 23-October-2000." See the text of the announcement for details.

[October 16, 2000]
HL7's Clinical Document Architecture (CDA).

A recent announcement from Health Level Seven reports on the progress of the Clinical Document Architecture (CDA): "Health Level Seven, Inc. (HL7) successfully balloted what it believes to be the first XML-based standard for healthcare -- the Clinical Document Architecture (CDA). The CDA, which was until recently known as the Patient Record Architecture (PRA), provides an exchange model for clinical documents (such as discharge summaries and progress notes) -- and brings the healthcare industry closer to the realization of an electronic medical record. The CDA Standard is expected to be published as an ANSI approved standard by the end of the year. By leveraging the use of XML, the HL7 Reference Information Model (RIM) and coded vocabularies, the CDA makes documents both machine-readable-so they are easily parsed and processed electronically-and human-readable-so they can be easily retrieved and used by the people that need them. CDA documents can be displayed using XML-aware Web browsers or wireless applications such as cell phones, as shown by Nokia at the HIMSS 2000 demonstration. The CDA is only the first example of HL7's commitment to the advancement of XML-based e-healthcare technologies within the clinical, patient care domain. Along with the CDA, HL7 is developing XML-based Version 3 messages. These Version 3 messages enhance the usability of HL7 by offering greater precision and less optionality, conformance profiles that will help guarantee compliance, coded attributes linked to standard vocabularies, and an explicit, comprehensive, and open information model-the HL7 RIM. All this, packaged in a standardized XML syntax for ease of interoperability. In 1999, HL7 also successfully balloted a recommendation for sending V2.3.1 messages using XML encoding. In 2001, HL7 will ballot, as a normative standard, a methodology for producing HL7 approved DTDs for Version 2.4 and previous versions. Said Stan Huff, chair of the HL7 board of directors: 'XML is an encoding that complements the semantic content provided by the HL7 RIM, allowing users to exploit all the possibilities of the Internet. The extensibility inherent in XML is resulting in an explosion of schemas and DTDs from diverse sources, which actually decreases the ability to provide plug and play applications. The development of a model-based, standardized and industry-accepted application of XML, as provided by HL7, will help decrease the cost of integration, and improve the reliability and consistency of communications between disparate systems and enterprises.' HL7's history with the Web and XML stretches back to the inception of the technologies. The organization is a long-standing and active member of the World Wide Web Consortium-the creators and keepers of XML. It has also exchanged sponsor memberships with OASIS, a non-profit, international consortium that operates XML.org, a global XML industry portal used to collect and distribute XML schemas." For other information, see "Health Level Seven XML Patient Record Architecture."

[October 14, 2000]
StarOffice Software 'Open' Source Available at OpenOffice.org.

A recent announcement from Sun announces the availability of StarOffice source code as 'open' source, and the decision to adopt XML to replace the old binary file format; the project is dedicated to establishing open productivity XML-based file formats and language-independent component APIs. "The source code for StarOffice software is now available under the GNU Public License at OpenOffice.org. Sun has also made the StarOffice APIs and XML file formats available as well, in an effort to drive standardization across office productivity suites. Developers around the world now have the freedom to use StarOffice technology to best suit their needs, whether to improve their own products, build new value-added products on top of the StarOffice suite, improve existing technology in StarOffice software, or contribute new StarOffice components to the open source community. This move opens up the office productivity market to unlimited possibilities for innovation. In one of the largest actions of its kind, Sun is working with the leaders of the free software and open source community to make the source code for its StarOffice software suite freely available under the GNU General Public License (GPL). In addition, Sun will commit the efforts of its development team, as well as the resources of a $14 billion global company, to work side by side with members of the community to continue to develop the code at OpenOffice.org, a site hosted and managed by CollabNet. No longer will any one company determine what is best for the market or the user, but the market will decide and users will choose. No longer will files and documents wear the cement shoes of a single vendor or operating system, but standards will flourish and compatibility reign across platforms. For the first time, a commercial grade, full-featured office suite will be opened up to the innovative input of the global developer community." [On the XML File Format:] "We adopted XML to replace the old binary file format and become the OpenOffice.org suite's new native file format. Our goals were twofold: to have a complete specification encompassing all components, and to provide an open standard for office documents. One single XML format applies to different types of documents -- e.g., the same definition applies for tables in texts and in spreadsheets. XML is ideal as an open standard because of the free availability of XML specifications and DTDs, and XML's support for XSL, XSLT, Xlink, SVG, MathML, and many other important and emerging standards. Beside replacing the binary file format with XML, the OpenOffice.org suite will use XML internal for exchanging any type of content between the different applications. OpenOffice.org provides today an infrastructure for using different XML components. The XML-Parser and the XML-Printer are all implemented as components. Every of these component support the Simple API for XML (SAX). This infrastructure will allow in the future to dynamically configure a pipelines of different XML components, like XML-Parser, XSLT-Processor, etc. to process XML-Input and Output. This will allow transformation of XML-Data into different formats on the fly, without storing intermediate files and parse them again for every transformation step. See the latest draft of the XML File Format Specification; the XML DTDs are available through the CVS access. There are many benefits to making StarOffice software open source, including: (1) Higher quality product. Since there are more developers on the project fixing bugs, there will be fewer bugs. (2) Faster development time. Leveraging the efficiencies of the open source model, the community will get access to new features sooner. (3) Ports to any platform. Since the code is open, anyone can port the StarOffice code to any platform. (4) Many languages. It will be possible to localize StarOffice software to any language the community has knowledge of. (5) Standard APIs. A single API set for manipulating and extending StarOffice software. (6) Standard file formats. XML will allow any XML-capable program to read StarOffice files. (7) More templates and sample documents. By building a community, users will be able to share sample documents, document templates, and macros, making it easier to produce professional-quality content. . . With XML file formats and language-independent APIs, OpenOffice.org ushers in an era of compatibility, giving developers the power to innovate and build new applications that easily work together, regardless of platform. End users will be able to choose from an array of powerful, free software, assured that their work is transportable and can be shared with anyone. Sun will continue to drive the development of the OpenOffice.org source code and distribute its own certified, StarOffice branded version of the OpenOffice.org software for free. To ensure consumer confidence and promote uniformity, OpenOffice.org will also allow other companies the opportunity to license the source for commercial release under a royalty-free Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL) that requires only that they maintain compatibility with the GPL reference implementation. Companies that meet this requirement may also qualify for and license the StarOffice brand for use on their product. . . As promised, Sun Microsystems and CollabNet have worked together to build the infrastructure to put the StarOffice code into the open source arena on October 13, 2000. The CVS repository is up and running, and the code is now available for checkout and download. A complete set of technical documentation is available, including a guide to the projects, whitepapers, a 'build guide,' and a porting guide..." See (1) the Technical Overview, (2) the main development web site, and (3) "StarOffice and XML."

[October 13, 2000]
W3C Acknowledges XML Messaging Specification (XMSG).

The W3C has acknowledged receipt of a submission for XMSG - XML Messaging Specification. Reference: W3C Note 13-October-2000, by R. Alexander Milowski (of Lexica, LLC). Document abstract: "XMSG is a specification for using XML to send messages that contain a set of XML documents, embedded non-XML data, and references to non-XML documents in a fashion that supports scalable transactions and operates on a participant model." The submission forms a multi-part document consisting of: (1) the XMSG (XML Messaging) Specification, (2) an XMSG DTD, (3) an XMSG Schema, and (4) the XMSG Schema Documentation. Lexica, LLC requests in the submission that the W3C Consortium include the submission as consideration in the XML Protocol Activity. Description: The XML messaging specification "is based on the basic principle of providing a simple way to transport multiple XML documents within one logical XML construct without dictating any layered semantics of a messaging protocol that might be layered on top. The general philosophy is to provide the general structure upon which messaging protocols for specific business or technological purposes can be layered allowing the identification of that messaging intent but not dictating the exact syntax and semantics of the subject message. In this way, manifests, metadata, and other messaging specific constructs can be tailored to specific vertical markets or technology applications. In general, the idea of an XML message presented by this specification is three-fold: (1) A pair or triplet of participants involved in the message are identified by URI values. (2) Metadata may be associated with the message itself. (3) A set of documents is contained and identified by URI allowing for document specific metadata. The goals of this specification are (1) To provide the ability to transport multiple documents and references to associated data objects within a single document (a 'message') and preserve their identity. (2) To provide the ability to associate metadata with both the documents and the message without modifying the original document or schemas for those documents. (3) To provide the ability to transport non-XML data as a document within the message. (4) To provide a simple way to accomplish XML messaging." W3C Team Comment on the NOTE has been provided by Yves Lafon, W3C lead for XML Protocol Activity: "The submission provides a description of using XML to send MIME mail like messages that contain XML documents, non-XML data and references to other documents. In XMSG, a message consists of information about the message itself, such as the origin, the destination, a unique ID used to identify and track it, as well as management-oriented information, such as its priority, expire time and receipt management. XML Documents are embedded using a special tag in the message format, with an ID to provide easy reference inside the message. Even if errors codes remain application-specific, having classes of errors may be helpful for intermediaries..." [cache]

[October 13, 2000]
Redfoot RDF Store/Viewer/Editor Framework.

James Tauber (Director XML Technology, Bowstreet) has posted an announcement to the W3C 'www-rdf-interest@w3.org' mailing list for the release of Redfoot Version 0.9.0. "Redfoot is a store/viewer/editor framework for RDF that includes peer-to-peer communication between stores. It is written in Python by James Tauber and Daniel Krech, with open source development hosted on SourgeForge. "At present, Redfoot includes: (1) an RDF database; (2) a query API for RDF with numerous higher-level query functions; (3) an RDF parser and serializer; (4) a simple HTTP server providing a web interface for viewing and editing RDF; (5) the beginnings of a peer-to-peer architecture for communication between different RDF databases. Although the peer-to-peer functionality is embryonic, the RDF viewing/editing capabilities are of beta quality... In the future, Redfoot will hopefully include: (1) a full peer-to-peer architecture for discovery of RDF statements; (2) an inference engine; (3) a fully customizable UI; (4) connectors for mapping non-RDF data into RDF triples; (5) sample applications built on top of Redfoot. Redfoot is written in pure Python and is being tested on Python 1.6 and 2.0b1 (soon 2.0b2). Redfoot makes extensive use of callbacks as a means of processing RDF structures rather than building large temporary data structures in memory. For other details, see the development documentation. For related resources, see "Resource Description Framework (RDF)."

[October 13, 2000]
JDF Specification Draft Spiral Version 4.0.

A level 4.0 draft specification has been published for the XML-based Job Definition Format (JDF) and its counterpart, the Job Messaging Format (JMF). JDF is an open, extensible, XML-based print workflow specification framework. "Four companies prominent in the graphic arts industry -- Adobe, Agfa, HEIDELBERG, and MAN Roland -- have united to create this extensible, XML-based format built upon the existing technologies of CIP3's Print Production Format (PPF) and Adobe's Portable Job Ticket Format (PJTF). JDF provides three primary benefits to the printing industry. Unlike any previous format, it has the ability to unify the pre-press, press, and post-press aspects of any printing job. It also provides the means to bridge the communication gap between production services and Management Information Systems (MIS). And finally, it is able to carry out both of these functions no matter what system architecture is already in place, and no matter what tools are being used to complete the job. In short, JDF is extremely versatile and comprehensive. JMF messages are most often encoded in pure XML, without an additional MIME/Multipart wrapper. Only controllers that support JDF job submission via the message channel must support MIME for messages. Appendix A of the 389-page specification lists a number of commonly used JDF data types and structures and their XML encoding, based upon the W3C XML Schema datatypes. Data types are simple data entities such as strings, numbers and dates. They have a very straightforward string representation and are used as XML attribute values. Data structures, on the other hand, describe more complex structures that are built from the defined data types, such as colors..." For references, see "Job Definition Format (JDF)." For related initiatives, see: (1) Printing Industry Markup Language (PrintML); (2) PML: Markup Language for Paper and Printing; (3) XML for Publishers and Printers (XPP). See also the PrintTalk Consortium and PrintCafe's eProduction eCommerce eXchange (PCX), now being described primarily as 'a framework for integrating industry standards' supporting XML-based specifications for the printing and publishing supply chain. The PrintTalk implementation supports use of the proposed Job Definition Format (JDF) standard for its job specification semantic and Commercial eXtensible Markup Language (cXML) to define the business objects; four of thirteen business objects have been defined so far.

[October 13, 2000]
Tutorials and Reference for XPointer and Extended-XLink.

Jiri Jirat recently announced the availability of tutorial resources for the W3C XML Linking specifications. These materials are posted on the Zvon.org web site along with a collection of related tutorials covering XSLT, SOAP, XUL, CSS, Namespaces, etc. The online XPointer reference "allows easy access to definitions of locations, errors and functions, with links to relevant examples in XPointer tutorial. The XPointer tutorial explains the concepts of XPointer using more than 30 examples. It is aimed at 'ordinary' user, who will use XPointer mainly in the href attribute of XLink. A tutorial for extended-type XLink has also been added. The Zvon XLink reference has been updated with cross-references to examples for extended-type XLink." In this connection, note Daniel Veillard's reminder that the W3C specifications for XPointer and XLink are currently in Candidate Recommendation stage at W3C, and that the XML Linking Working Group is seeking implementation reports for XPointer and XLink. The CR stage "is dedicated to implementors, and the specifications are allowed to pursue their way toward the final Recommendation status only if the prerequisite of implementability have been verified." Implementation feedback for XPointer and Xlink may be sent to the publicly archived mailing list www-xml-linking-comments@w3.org. Review comments may also be sent to the XML Linking Working Group co-chairs, Eve Maler and Daniel Veillard. Some examples of XLink/XPointer implementations are provided in "XML Linking Language."

[October 13, 2000]
W3C Publishes CSS Mobile Profile 1.0 for Mobile Devices.

W3C has issued CSS Mobile Profile 1.0 as a working draft to define a subset of CSS2 features that provides a minimal guarantee of interoperability on mobile devices. Reference: Working Draft 13-October-2000, by Ted Wugofski (Phone.com), Doug Dominiak (Motorola), and Peter StarkEricsson). Document abstract: "This specification defines a subset of the Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 specification tailored to the needs and constraints of mobile devices." The Working Draft of the CSS Mobile Profile specification has been published by the W3C CSS Working Group part of the Style activity. The document supplies a "profile of the Cascading Style Sheets, level 2 (CSS2) specification appropriate for mobile devices such as wireless phones. Conformance to this profile means that a user agent supports, at minimum, the features defined in this specification per the CSS2 conformance. CSS2 specifies how developers can author style sheets for presenting documents across multiple devices and media types. While this is very important, it is also important that authors have an understanding of what features are supported on these different devices. Likewise, it is important that similar devices operate in a similar manner. Otherwise, authors will need to develop style sheets for each version of each device -- raising the cost of content development and decreasing interoperability. The CSS Mobile Profile specifies a conformance profile for mobile devices, identifying a minimum set of properties, values, selectors, and cascading rules. The resulting CSS Mobile Profile is very similar to CSS1." Section 3 provides a tabular summary of CSS Mobile Profile selector syntax. The CSS Mobile Profile uses the same syntax as specified in CSS2, with a subset of values; in general, the CSS Mobile Profile uses the same cascading rules as in CSS2. A CSS Mobile Profile conforming user agent must also be able to process media-dependent stylesheets as specified in CSS2." For related specifications, see "W3C Cascading Style Sheets."

[October 12, 2000]
IBM Licenses New XML Technologies.

From an IBM announcement: "IBM today made seven new alpha technologies, including six based on the XML (eXtensible Markup Language) standard, available for licensing through alphaWorks, IBM's free, on-line resource for developers. Today's announcement brings the total number of alpha technologies available for licensing on the alphaWorks site to 13. The first six were launched together with the IBM licensing initiative in August. The move has been welcomed by developers who have requested that the free 90-day trial license model expand to commercial purchase rights. New technologies available for licensing include Xeena, a visual XML editor that can be used with XML document type descriptions (DTDs). The popular Xeena editor was downloaded tens of thousands of times with numerous requests for licenses through the alphaWorks home page. Other XML technologies now available as a part of alphaWorks' new licensing initiative include: (1) XML EditorMaker - A text-based XML document editor. This tool automatically creates visual, Java-based XML editors that developers can easily use to create and modify XML documents, increasing development and deployment speed of XML-based documents. (2) XML Productivity Kit, which allows for rapid integration of XML documents into a Java development environment. (3) XTransGen, which enables developers to easily define and store the mapping relationship between two XML document types (DTDs). Once this initial translation is completed, XML documents can be converted quickly. (4) XML Lightweight Extractor for defining sources of information for a particular XML document. This information can be stored and recalled dynamically to populate XML documents with the appropriate data. It works with any JDBC-compliant relational database. (5) XML Master, a tool for creating custom, Java-based logic for the manipulation of XML documents. Developers can build programming frameworks for a particular XML document type and then automatically generate Java code that can be imported into a Java development environment (e.g., VisualAge for Java). The seventh new technology is the Remote Method Invocation for Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.X (RMI for IE4), a package that provides support for the Microsoft JVM (Java Virtual Machine) not included in older versions of Explorer. . . developerWorks, IBM's free, on-line collection of content and resources, enables developers worldwide to build better software and to enhance their technical skills by offering a wealth of tools, tutorials, code, tips, news, white papers and how-to articles focused on open standards and cross platform development. Committed to providing the most informative, reliable and accurate technical information by tapping into IBM and industry leaders; developerWorks content is valuable to developers regardless of their application development tool of choice. A major component of developerWorks is alphaWorks, IBM's emerging technology broker. alphaWorks provides early adopters and innovators direct access to IBM's 'alpha' technologies through free download and commercial licenses. Both IBM sites respond to the needs of developers by providing relevant technical content and cutting-edge emerging technology."

[October 12, 2000]
IBM's Agent Building and Learning Environment (ABLE).

IBM's Agent Building and Learning Environment (ABLE) "is a toolkit from the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center for developing hybrid intelligent software agents and agent applications in Java. The update provides new neural and Bayesian learning algorithms, GUI enhancements, XML rule parsing, bug fixes, and documentation on adding custom beans. . . ABLE provides a set of reusable JavaBean components, called AbleBeans, along with several flexible interconnection methods for combining those components to create software agents. AbleBeans implement data access, filtering and transformation, learning, and reasoning capabilities. Function-specific AbleAgents are provided for classification, clustering, prediction, and genetic search. Application-specific agents can be constructed using one or more of these AbleBeans. AbleAgents are situated in their environment through the use of sensors and effectors, which provide a generic mechanism for linking them to Java applications. A GUI-based interactive development environment, the Able Agent Editor, is provided to assist in the construction of AbleAgents using AbleBean components. In the ABLE framework, an agent is an autonomous software component. It could be running on its own thread of control or could be called synchronously by another agent or process either through a direct method call or by sending an event. By combining one or more AbleBeans, agents can be extremely lightweight (e.g. a few lines of Java code) or can be relatively heavy weight, using multiple forms of inferencing (e.g. fuzzy rule systems, forward and backward chaining) and learning (e.g. neural classification, prediction, and clustering). . . ABLE is meant to make your life easier if (1) you are an application developer, by providing a set of intelligent beans, and a editor for combining them into agents. (2) you are doing research on intelligent agents, by providing a flexible Java framework for combining the ABLE beans with your algorithms or ideas about how agents should be constructed."

[October 12, 2000]
Proposed OASIS Technical Committee on Entity Resolution.

A recent announcement released by Karl Best (OASIS - Director, Technical Operations) describes a proposed 'Entity Resolution' technical committee, to be formed under the rules of the Technical Committee Process as announced in early October. The new committee would continue work begun under the SGML Open Technical Resolution on Entity Management (entity catalog formats, formal system identifiers, etc.), updating this work to cover XML. "A new OASIS technical committee is being formed. The Entity Resolution TC has been proposed by Lauren Wood, SoftQuad Software Inc.; Norman Walsh, Sun Microsystems; Paul Grosso, Arbortext, Inc.; and John Cowan, Reuters Health. The request for a new TC meets the requirements of the OASIS TC process. . . The objective of the Entity Resolution TC is to provide facilities to address issue A of the OASIS catalog specification (TR 9401). These facilities will take into account new XML features and delete those features of TR 9401 that are only applicable to SGML, as well as those features applicable only to issue B in TR 9401. Deliverables: The Entity Resolution TC will produce a Committee Specification that uses XML syntax and provides a DTD (potentially also an XML Schema) for that syntax. This specification will be ready by August 2001. The Entity Resolution TC intends to submit the Committee Specification as an OASIS Standard after sufficient implementation experience has been gathered." Note also that the formation of a technical committee for 'Customer Information Quality' was announced in February: "The objective of the Technical Committee (TC) on Customer Information Quality (CIQ) formed by OASIS is to deliver XML standards for customer profile/information management to the industry. The Customer Information Quality TC has been proposed by Ram Kumar, Cognito, Inc; Vincent Buller, AND Data Solutions; John Bennett, Parlo.com; and Graham Lobsey, Cognito, Inc." See also the list of active OASIS TCs. On entity resolution, see the topic "SGML/XML Entity Types, and Entity Management," and the following section "Catalogs, Formal Public Identifiers, Formal System Identifiers."

[October 12, 2000]
Revised IETF/W3C XML-Signature Syntax and Processing Specification.

The IETF/W3C XML Signature Working Group has issued an updated Last Call Working Draft for the XML-Signature Syntax and Processing specification. Reference: W3C Working Draft 12-October-2000, edited by Donald Eastlake, Joseph Reagle, and David Solo. The document "specifies XML digital signature processing rules and syntax. XML Signatures provide integrity, message authentication, and/or signer authentication services for data of any type, whether located within the XML that includes the signature or elsewhere. Enveloped or enveloping signatures are over data within the same XML document as the signature; detached signatures are over data external to the signature element. More specifically, this specification defines an XML signature element type and an XML signature application; conformance requirements for each are specified by way of schema definitions and prose respectively. This specification also includes other useful types that identify methods for referencing collections of resources, algorithms, and keying and management information. The XML Signature is a method of associating a key with referenced data (octets); it does not normatively specify how keys are associated with persons or institutions, nor the meaning of the data being referenced and signed. Consequently, while this specification is an important component of secure XML applications, it itself is not sufficient to address all application security/trust concerns, particularly with respect to using signed XML (or other data formats) as a basis of human-to-human communication and agreement. Such an application must specify additional key, algorithm, processing and rendering requirements." Document status: This WD represents an "update to the second last call version, with an abbreviated last call termination date of October 20, 2000 (5 weeks in total). This update includes minor editorial changes, reference to the latest Canonical XML, as well as an adoption of the latest XML Schema specification. Barring substantive comment, we will request Candidate Recommendation status as soon as possible following the Canonical XML request. However, we do wish to ensure that readers are aware of following three substantive changes in the second last call: (1) We've changed the Reference Processing Model (section 4.3.3.1). to permit the presentation and acceptance of XML node-sets between Transforms (and resulting from some URI References) when appropriate; we accomplish this by heavily relying upon the XPath specification but still do NOT require a conformant XPath implementation. (2) We've revised the treatment of pre-pended algorithm object identifier within the encoded RSA SignatureValue by the PKCS1 algorithm (section 6.4.2). (3) We've revised the X509Data element (section 4.4.4) to clarify the treatment of certificate 'bags' and CRLs within that structure." See references in "XML Digital Signature (Signed XML - IETF/W3C)."

[October 11, 2000]
XML Adoption in the UK's e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF).

One of the three key policy decisions in the UK 'e-GIF' program is identified as the "adoption of XML as the primary standard for data integration and presentation on all public sector systems...the adoption of XML (Extensible Mark-up Language) and XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language) form the cornerstone of the government data interoperability and integration strategy." Some details of the "Data integration policies" are highlighted in the "Policies and technical standards" section of the e-GIF report: The "UK Government policy is to use: (1) XML and XML schemas for data integration; (2) UML, RDF and XML for data modelling and description language; (3) XSL, DOM and XML for data presentation." The model also identifies the use of GML (Geospatial Markup Language) as defined by Open Geographic Council. "XML products will be written so as to comply with the recommendations of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Where necessary the government will base the work on the draft W3C standards but will avoid the use of any product specific XML extensions that are not being considered for open standardisation within the W3C. Centrally agreed XML schemas are approved through the UK GovTalk processes..." According to an announcement of the plan by Cabinet Office Minister Ian McCartney, "e-GIF is a key plank in the Government's drive to get all its services online by 2005 and cut bureaucracy within the public sector. Speaking at London's QE2 Centre, Mr McCartney launched the e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) - a piece of policy which will help IT systems across the whole public sector to communicate smoothly with each other. There are two main benefits the policy will bring: (1) Creating 24-hour one-stop Government: e-GIF is key to creating one-stop Government where services are available 24-hours a day from a single electronic point of access. For example, the UK online portal - built around e-GIF standards - will offer services around life episodes, giving the user information they need about a particular experience such as having a baby or learning to drive. (2) Banishing bureaucracy in Government: Step-up the red-tape revolution within Government, moving the public sector away from traditional paper-based ways of working by electronically joining up information across a range of Government departments and organisations. Again this is built around e-GIF standards... The main thrust of the framework is to adopt the Internet and World Wide Web standards for all government systems. There is a strategic decision to adopt XML and XSL as the core standard for data integration and presentation. This includes the definition and central provision of XML schemas for use throughout the public sector. The e-GIF also adopts standards that are well supported in the market place. It is a pragmatic strategy that aims to reduce cost and risk for government systems whilst aligning them to the global Internet revolution. Specifying policies and standards in themselves is not enough. Successful implementation will mean the provision of support, best practice guidance, toolkits and centrally agreed data schemas. To provide this, the government has launched the UK GovTalk initiative. This is a Cabinet Office led, joint government and industry forum for generating and agreeing XML data schemas for use throughout the public sector... The primary role of the UK GovTalk Group is to promote the production and management of the XML schemas necessary to support data interoperability requirements of the e-government strategy. XML schemas will be developed by specialist groups, established to support specific projects, or by open submission to the UK GovTalk web site either in response to a Request for Proposals or as an unsolicited proposal. In each case, the UK GovTalk Group will manage the acceptance, publication, and any subsequent change requests for the schema. XML schemas that have been accepted by the group will be published on www.govtalk.gov.uk and will be open for public comment and requests for change. The Portal Data Schemas Project has been established by the UK GovTalk Group to manage the generation and timely delivery of the agreed XML data schemas required for government services delivered through the Portal. The XML data schemas required for the portal services will be the first outputs of the Portal Data Schemas Project and will be agreed through the GovTalk processes as a prioritised delivery. The scope of the e-GIF includes intradepartmental systems and the interactions between: UK Government department and other UK Government departments, UK Government and wider public sector, UK Government and foreign governments (UK/EC, UK/US etc), UK Government and businesses world wide, and UK Government and citizens. UK Government includes central government departments and their agencies, local government and the devolved administrations. The wider public sector includes non departmental public bodies (NDPBs) and the National Health Service. The e-GIF standards are mandated on all new systems. Legacy systems which need to link to the Government Secure Intranet (GSI), Government Portal (Gateway and UK Online), the Knowledge Network or other systems, which are part of electronic service delivery, will need to comply with these standards." For other references, see "e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF)."

[October 11, 2000]
Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (ETAI) Features "The Semantic Web" Department.

Guus Schreiber (Department of Social Science Informatics, University of Amsterdam) posted an announcement inviting submissions for a new area of the electronic journal Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (ETAI) entitled "The Semantic Web." The new semantic Web area "is concerned with modeling semantics of web information, and covers theory, methods, and applications. . . Tim Berners-Lee coined the vision of a 'semantic web' in which background knowledge is stored on the meaning or content of web resources through the use of machine-processable metadata. The semantic web should be able to support automated services based on these descriptions of semantics. The semantic or "knowledge" web is seen as a key factor in finding a way out of the growing problems of traversing the expanding web space, where currently most web resources can only be found through syntactic matches (e.g., keyword search). This ETAI area is targeted at all research efforts aimed at constructing, maintaining and using such a knowledge-intensive information and service web. Not surprisingly, our field is interdisciplinary in its very nature covering various aspects dealt with in various communities of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science. It covers aspects from knowledge engineering, databases and information systems, knowledge representation, information retrieval, digital libraries, multi-agent systems, natural-language processing, and machine learning. We envisage paper submissions falling within at least one of the following categories: Metadata, knowledge markup, and formal annotations of web information; Information extraction, automatic and semi-automatic generation of meta data for web information; Knowledge representation for the web; Generic and heuristic reasoning methods for the web; Integration of databases in the knowledge web; Interoperability of web services at the semantic and pragmatic levels; Standard ontologies for content description of web information; Distributed ontologies, knowledge composition and transformation; Scalability of knowledge-intensive web services; Content-based information retrieval; Knowledge retrieval; Tool environments, development methodologies, case studies and applications for and of the knowledge web; Web-based knowledge management and electronic commerce. ETAI (Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence) makes submitted articles directly available on-line and promotes public discussions on the submissions. Each year, accepted articles are also collected in a printed volume, mainly for library use. Area editors include Dan Brickley (University of Bristol), Dieter Fensel (Free University of Amsterdam), Yolanda Gil (ISI), Jim Hendler (University of Maryland / DARPA), Ora Lassila (OKIA), Deborah McGuinness (Stanford University), Robert Meersman (Free University of Brussels), and Guus Schreiber (University of Amsterdam)." See: "XML and 'The Semantic Web'."

[October 11, 2000]
Extensible Programming Language (XPL).

Michael Lauzon posted an announcement for the development of Extensible Programming Language (XPL). "XPL is an open source initiative, and is also an application of XML, it is a new programming language that will be based on XML as an application of XML. XPL is conceived as a framework or meta-language for defining XML document types which operate as programming languages. [Rationale:] The practice of programming stands to benefit by exploiting the evident virtues of XML: its cross-platform availability, its open textual format, its extension over a very large class of data; structures, and the networking infrastructure available to it. The practice of XML document exchange stands to benefit by exploiting the public body of programming-language concepts and applications, by bringing programming architectures into XML itself; XML is a meta-data language: the goal of XPL is to be a meta-process language. . . To learn more about it please go to http://www.xplatypus.com/. The programming language will be partly derived from Miva & Cold Fusion. Interested parties may consult: (1) the eGroups mailing list, (2) the XPL draft specification, (3) the XPL FAQ document, (4) the [Jonathan Burns'] annotated version of Paul Prescod's document "Why the Web needs Groves" and (5) the list of script tags.

[October 11, 2000]
Reuters Presents NewsML Showcase.

Reuters, "the global information, news and technology group, is unveiling a showcase on www.about.reuters.com to demonstrate how its news delivery will be revolutionized by NewsML, the new industry standard for delivering news. NewsML, conceived by Reuters, was ratified by the IPTC on 6-October-2000. NewsML is a new Internet standard for the packaging of news. It provides the structure for the publication of multimedia content in XML. It is expected to become the lingua franca of news. Reuters have produced a showcase demonstrating the power of NewsML. NewsML is the structure used to publish news in any format. It can be used by news providers to combine their pictures, video, text, graphics and audio files in news output available on web sites, mobile phones, high end desktops, interactive television and any other device." The showcase describes the "values and benefits of this open standard news format. It provides a demonstration of how multimedia content can be pulled together. Advantages including multiple languages can be seamlessly provided for. The technical details and specifications are also available, along with the latest press details." According to a related Reuters announcement: "NewsML, based on the World Wide Web Council's (W3C) Extensible Markup Language (XML), provides a new standard framework to describe, package, store and deliver multimedia news. The technology is dedicated to the description of news in a standard structure, to facilitate the processing of news by computers. In April, Reuters launched a delivery mechanism for its media news products called Reuters Internet Delivery System (IDS). IDS enables Reuters to deliver its news content in XML. IDS utilizes a Reuters prototype NewsML DTD (Document Type Definition). Text news as well as photos and video files can be delivered either as independent media streams or as linked multimedia news packages. IDS is currently being used as the principal delivery mechanism for Reuters growing range of Online Report services. . . NewsML enables news publishers in all market sectors to create a higher quality product by: (1) providing access to all the available media to tell a story; (2) clearly identifying the details of a story leading to quicker production and editorial decisions; (3) allowing stories to be delivered to a range of different devices (mobile, desktop, PDA, etc.); (4) enabling greater description of data making it easier for publishers to provide updates as stories develop. NewsML will enhance the financial professional's news experience by creating more compelling stories: (1) Accuracy - improved search and information management capabilities increasing the relevance of stories received; (2) Personalized News - users can select the stories of most interest to them and have these delivered to their most preferred device (i.e., mobile phone, desktop PC, Palm Pilot, etc.); (3) Access to the bigger picture - stories will contain links to relevant background and related news... Reuters is an active advocate of using XML for news delivery. The concept was brought to life in 1999 when Reuters presented its initial proposals for NewsML to the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC). This evolved into an IPTC generated Document Type Definition (DTD), which was released by the IPTC on October 11, 2000. The IPTC's approval of a NewsML version 1.0 specification reinforces Reuters global vision for using NewsML as the industry standard for the delivery of news." For related NewsML description, see "NewsML and IPTC2000."

[October 11, 2000]
New W3C Working Draft for Canonical XML Version 1.0.

The IETF/W3C XML Signature Working Group has released a revised Working Draft for Canonical XML Version 1.0. Reference: W3C Working Draft 11-October-2000, edited by John Boyer (PureEdge Solutions Inc.). Document status: "This document is referred to the W3C Director for review and consideration as a Candidate Recommendation. It addresses all issues raised during the second Last Call. The list and disposition of last call issues is a living document maintained by the XML Signature Working Group. A draft interoperability matrix [Canonical XML Interoperability] is also provided. This specification includes editorial and technical clarifications and corrections suggested by last call reviewers. Additionally, this version also includes one substantive difference from the previous version: the recent XML plenary decision regarding deprecation of relative namespace URIs is represented in this specification." Document abstract: "Any XML document is part of a set of XML documents that are logically equivalent within an application context, but which vary in physical representation based on syntactic changes permitted by XML 1.0 and Namespaces in XML. This specification describes a method for generating a physical representation, the canonical form, of an XML document that accounts for the permissible changes. Except for limitations regarding a few unusual cases, if two documents have the same canonical form, then the two documents are logically equivalent within the given application context. Note that two documents may have differing canonical forms yet still be equivalent in a given context based on application-specific equivalence rules for which no generalized XML specification could account."

[October 11, 2000]
Release of Xalan-C++ Version 1.0.

A posting from David Marston announces the release of Apache's Xalan-C++, Version 1.0. "Xalan-C++ version 1.0 is a robust implementation of the W3C Recommendations for XSL Transformation(XSLT) and the XML Path Language (XPath). It uses version 1.3.0 of Apache's Xerces-C++ XML parser. Xalan (named after a rare musical instrument) takes input in the form of a file or URL, a stream, or a DOM. Xalan-C++ performs the transformations specified in the XSL stylesheet and produces a file, a stream, or a DOM as you specify when you set up the transformation. Along with a complete API for performing transformations in your C++ applications, Xalan-C++ provides a command line utility for convenient file-to-file transformations. Xalan-C++ also supports C++ extension functions." Major updates since version 0.40.0 include: "(1) Full support for namespace handling; (2) Full implementation of the format-number() function and support for the decimal-format element; (3) Integration with the International Components for Unicode (ICU) for number formatting, sorting, and output encoding; (4) Support for the exclude-result-prefixes attribute; (5) Support for the output encoding attribute. Download links are provided for Win32, Linux, and AIX versions. To build applications with Xalan and Xerces, you also need the Xerces-C++ binary distribution for your platform, which you can download from the Xerces-C++ distribution directory. Some people have been looking at porting issues for Solaris and HP-UX. Volunteers are more than welcome to help develop builds for other platforms..." For related resources, see "XSL/XSLT Software Support."

[October 10, 2000] LiveDTD Hypertext Tool for DTD Visualization.

Bob Stayton recently announced the availability of a 'LiveDTD' tool. LiveDTD is a perl program which converts an SGML/XML Document Type Definition (DTD) into a hypertext document. It parses the DTD files and generates a copy with HTML markup inserted. The result is the exact same text of the original DTD, but with live links that let you navigate through the DTD. Click on a name, and you are transported to where that name is declared in the DTD. Both elements and parameter entities are hot linked. For a simple DTD, this may not be very useful. But for complex DTDs like DocBook and TEI that use hundreds of elements and parameter entities, it's a great help. . . If you have ever worked with a highly parameterized DTD like DocBook or TEI, you know how much the indirection makes you jump around in the DTD to find where something is really defined. It gets worse if you add a customization layer, because then you have more than one declaration for the same name. You have to track down the 'live' one through the marked sections and customization modules. This program does that for you. In fact, I originally wrote it to keep from going crazy managing a customization layer for DocBook. Principal features: (1) Frames-based interface makes navigating easy since active names are listed in the left column. (2) Works with any XML or SGML DTD, in a single file or spread over multiple files. (3) Can use a catalog file to resolve PUBLIC or SYSTEM identifiers. (4) HTML version is an exact replica of the text of the DTD, preserving spacing, line breaks, and the multiple files (if any) of the original. (5) Respects marked sections, including those whose status keyword is a parameter entity. It only enlivens those marked sections whose status resolves to INCLUDE. (6) If a parameter entity name is declared more than once, only the first instance becomes live. (7) Marks the name in each live declaration in red. Marks all live references as hot links to the declared name. (8) Generates usage tables for element names and parameter entity names that shows all the locations where each name appears in the DTD. (9) You can specify the output directory to write the HTML files to, and a prefix for all the filesnames. That lets you put more than one version of a LiveDTD in one directory without filename conflicts." The latest DocBook DTDs (converted) are also available for download. See the documentation and download page.

[October 10, 2000]
Xyvision Enterprise Solutions Offers WorX SE XML Editing Tool.

A recent announcement from Xyvision Enterprise Solutions describes the availability of a 30-day free trial of the XyEnterprise WorX SE XML editing software. "WorX SE is a plug-in for Microsoft Word that allows users to author and edit valid XML from within the Word environment. By making use of predefined document templates, WorX SE users can begin authoring valid XML documents while continuing to utilize the familiar features, functionality and interface of Microsoft Word. A WorX SE user can seamlessly switch between authoring valid XML output to simply authoring Word binary files -- a factor that greatly reduces the normal learning curve associated with XML authoring and editing software. WorX SE contains a 'Tagger' that is context sensitive and guides users through creation of structured documents or the user can simply employ the Element Tab to markup selected information. The Tagger recognizes special document elements such as tables, pictures, and objects and provides an easy method to create valid markup. In fact, lists and list items are automatically recognized as XML elements. WorX SE does not soley rely upon the use of styles but a Word document that is created following structured style guidelines can easily be converted to XML using those styles as a basis. WorX SE is available for Word 2000 on Windows 98, 2000 and NT platforms. . ."

[October 10, 2000]
RELAX Core Specification Submitted to ISO.

MURATA Makoto reported on the 'reldeve@egroups.com' mailing list: "The English version of the RELAX Core specification has been sucessfully submitted to the fast track procedure of ISO. It will automatically become a Draft Technical Report of ISO. I will speak with the chair of SC34 about the possibility of disclosing the submitted document to the public." RELAX (REgular LAnguage description for XML), according to the developers, "is a combination of (1) features of DTD, and (2) rich datatypes of XML Schema represented in the XML syntax. RELAX also has some other mechanisms, but they have been eliminated from the conformance level 'classic'. RELAX helps migration from DTD to XML Schema. You can assume that RELAX is DTD combined with datatype information in the XML instance syntax and start to use RELAX right now. When XML Schema is available, migration from RELAX to XML Schema will be possible without loss of datatype information. RELAX consits of RELAX Core and RELAX Namespace. RELAX Core handles elements in a single namespace and their attributes. RELAX Namespace is concerned with multiple namespaces. RELAX Core has two conformance levels. Conformance level 'classic' restricts structural features of RELAX by eliminating features more advanced than DTD. Conformance level 'fully relaxed' allows all features of RELAX Core. It is hoped that conformance level 'classic' will be widely implemented, since it is so simple. See further: (1) the main RELAX Web site and (2) "REgular LAnguage description for XML (RELAX)."

[October 10, 2000]
Preview Release of 'repat' RDF Parser Toolkit.

Jason Diamond (injektilo.org) announced the preview release of an open source RDF Parser written in ANSI C. "The parser is dubbed repat since both its interface and implementation is a callback-based RDF parser based on James Clark's expat; it is available for download from http://injektilo.org/rdf/repat.html. While the parser is not quite ready for prime time, it does -- to the best of my knowledge -- correctly parse all of the examples in the W3C RDF Model & Syntax Specification. I'm looking for feedback on its usability and also on its stability. I'm hoping that it will compile on platforms other than my own (Windows) without any changes. In order to correctly handle all of the examples from the M&S, I took the liberty of 'enhancing' the syntax described therein but not strictly prescribed to by its authors. The syntax is much more flexible and -- in my opinion -- more internally consistent. For example, I've removed the somewhat arbitrary restrictions placed on container descriptions and rdf:li elements which can now contain embedded resources as objects. The web site documentation for 'repat' provides a brief overview of how the parser works and also details my list of issues with the syntax and how I resolved them; these are mostly rehashes of several of my messages to the list. I'm looking forward to your comments, criticisms, and patches. repat will be released under an open source license... 'repat' was originally based on David Megginson's RDFFilter but has changed signifigantly since its inception; any bugs or deficiencies were undoubtedly introduced by myself." Note also the XSLT RDF Parser on the injektilo.org web site. On RDF, see (1) RDF Developer Tools listed on the W3C web site, and (2) "Software Tools for RDF."

[October 09, 2000]
XML:DB Standards Initiative for XML Databases.
A standards initiative for XML databases was announced by Kimbro Staken (Chief Technology Officer, dbXML Group L.L.C) on the SourceForge DBXML list. From the announcement: "SMB GmbH, dbXML Group L.L.C, and The OpenHealth Care Group have joined together to create the XML:DB initiative. Our goal is to develop open standards for XML databases along with open source implementations of those standards. Our first project will be the development of an XML update language. It is our goal to fast track the development of this update language and a reference implementation leveraging the open source development model. All implementations will be licensed under the Apache open source license." The announcement was made on behalf of XML:DB, "an industry initiative chartered with the development of open specifications for the XML database industry. Currently all XML database vendors are forced to develop their own proprietary mechanism for managing the data stored by their product. We are concerned that, without some initiative to bring these efforts together, this will lead to considerable confusion and duplication among users and, that as a result, the opportunities that XML databases offer to the market will not be maximized. Standards will facilitate the growth of a knowledgeable work force comfortable with the use of XML database products and the tools associated with them. Current database workers assume the existence of standards for RDBMS products and will therefore expect the same to be available for XML databases. More information about XML:DB can be found on our Web site http://www.xmldb.org/. The W3C has been the primary force behind the development of XML standards and is currently in the process of specifying a standard for XML query. The XML:DB initiative is not a replacement for the efforts of the W3C; however, it is our feeling that the development of standards for XML databases falls outside the current charter for the W3C. In particular, the first task for XML:DB will be the development of a standard XML update language. The current specification for XML Query states that update languages will be considered in a future version of the XML Query standard. This presents a serious problem for XML database companies who require an update language that is available today." From the web site: "XML:DB is also supported by a growing list of organizations with interest in XML and XML databases. XML:DB provides a community for collaborative development of specifications for XML databases and data manipulation technologies. Along with each specification an open source reference implementation will be developed to validate the ideas put forth in the specification and to more rapidly drive acceptance of the specification in real products. XML:DB's long term goals are: (1) Development of standardized technologies for managing the data in XML Databases; (2) Contribution of reference implementations of those technologies under an Open Source License; (3) Evangelism of XML database products and technologies to raise the visibility of XML databases in the marketplace. Membership in XML:DB is free and all interested parties are invited and encouraged to participate." See further (1) the XML:DB FAQ document, the list of projects currently under development by the XML:DB initiative, and (3) "XML and Databases."
[October 09, 2000]
W3C Publishes XML 1.0 Second Edition.
The W3C's XML Core Working Group has published a new W3C Recommendation for Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Second Edition). Reference: W3C Recommendation 6-October-2000, edited by Tim Bray, Jean Paoli, C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, and Eve Maler. This REC specification follows the earlier publication of a public Review Version. "This second edition is not a new version of XML (first published 10-February-1998); it merely incorporates the changes dictated by the first-edition errata as a convenience to readers. The errata list for this second edition is available at http://www.w3.org/XML/xml-V10-2e-errata. The document abstract, unchanged from the 1998 first edition, appears to validate the hermeneutical theory that a text's intent escapes from the author and passes immediately into the control of the community upon utterance: "The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a subset of SGML that is completely described in this document. Its goal is to enable generic SGML to be served, received, and processed on the Web in the way that is now possible with HTML. XML has been designed for ease of implementation and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML." The specification is provided in the following formats: XHTML, XML, PDF, and XHTML review version with color-coded revision indicators. See also the (non-normative) "Production Notes" in Annex I: "This Second Edition was encoded in the XMLspec DTD (which has documentation available). The HTML versions were produced with a combination of the xmlspec.xsl, diffspec.xsl, and REC-xml-2e.xsl XSLT stylesheets. The PDF version was produced with the html2ps facility and a distiller program." For other references, see (1) "XML Specification DTD" and (2) "XML/XLink/XSL Specifications: Reference Documents" (translations, versions).
[October 09, 2000]
XSLT Stylesheets for TEI -> HTML/FO Conversion.
Sebastian Rahtz (of Oxford University Computing Services) announced two new tools for use of TEI and HTML. The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) is an international project to develop encoding guidelines for the preparation and interchange of electronic texts for scholarly research, and to satisfy a broad range of uses by the language industries; its SGML/XML DTDs are now used widely in digital library projects within academia and government. Sebastian writes of the new tools: "I have revised and expanded my XSLT stylesheets which transform TEI XML documents to HTML, and to XSL FO. They are documented at http://users.ox.ac.uk/~rahtz/tei/. I have also written a new utility which TEI HTML users may find helpful, at http://quirk.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/tei/stylebear. This is a web form for XSL TEI HTML stylesheet parameterization which asks you lots of question about how you want your HTML to look, and then generates an XSLT stylesheet for you. It does this by setting values for the 50 or so variables which are provided for customization of the main TEI HTML stylesheets. I'd be very happy to get feedback on the usefulness of this, and ideas on how to improve it..." These tools are part of the larger suite of "XSL stylesheets for TEI XML," described in the introduction thus: "I have prepared a set of XSLT specifications to transform TEI XML documents to HTML, and to XSL Formatting Objects. I have concentrated on TEI Lite, but adding support for other modules should be fairly easy. In the main, the setup has been used on `new' documents, ie reports and web pages that I have authored from scratch, rather than traditional TEI-encoded existing material. The stylesheets have been tested with the XT, Saxon, Xalan and Oracle XSLT processors; the last of these does not support multiple file output, which means that you cannot use the 'split' feature of the stylesheets to make multiple HTML files from one XML file." Note that Sebastian Rahtz also maintains PassiveTeX, a system using XSL formatting objects to render XML to PDF via LaTeX. On TEI, see "Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) - XML for TEI Lite."
[October 08, 2000]
Chess Markup Language (ChessML).
Chess Markup Language (ChessML) is an XML standard for chess currently under development by Oliver Sick of the Global Analysis Group in the Math Department, University of Bonn, Germany. Principal project goals are to: (1) Define a data storage format which preserves all abstract information; an important example is the PDB database developed by Gerd Wilts and others; (2) Build an interface to chess problem software such as Popeye, Alybadix, Natch and others; (3) Develop a flexible format providing simple export functions to LaTeX, HTML, PDF, RTF and others; (4) Provide simple interfaces for the data conversation between this hypothetical standard and other chess standard such as PGN and FEN. The ChessML web site provides a working draft specification for ChessML, with four XML DTDs, documentation, examples, and FAQ document. The ChessML sources, example and the documentation files are distributed under the Gnu Public License. ChessML design motivation: "...there is the well documented, non proprietary and very intuitive PGN format ['Portable Game Notation'] for chess which can be imported and exported by almost all chess databases and chess programs. PGN itself uses the ECO Codes as an internal encoding scheme for different chess openings. ECO Codes in PGN are an equivalent to ENTITIES in XML. Also XML documents usually are very easy to understand (if its DTD is 'good'). But PGN does not provide any of the features of a markup language like XML or SGML. So it is natural to look for an implementation of PGN in XML. Indeed ChessML is an extension of this idea. It uses the rich structure of XML and so it has many more capabilities than PGN itself." Using XML: "One of most important differences of XML and ChessML as an XML representation compared to PGN is its linking capabilities (called Xlink and Xpointer). This means there are very efficient ways to point to other parts of an ChessML document with respect to other parts. And this is indeed a very important fact if one remembers the citation of openings during an analysis or of a particular position of another game. My XSL file is called chess.xsl and is indeed very rudimentary, but I'm on the way... Combining the DTD and the Stylesheet with a ChessML document you can for example view the documnent in the Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x." Related efforts cited by Oliver Sick include (1) ChessGML - Chess Game Markup Language; (2) Caxton Chess XML (CaXML); (3) Board Game Markup Language (BGML); (4) SGFML, an XML DTD based on SGF [Smart Game Format]; and (5) Jago Client with XML format. Note also the Chess Viewer application from RenderX; it uses an XSL stylesheet to transform an XML source document into PDF. For other references, see "Chess Markup Language (ChessML)."
[October 08, 2000]
IPTC Membership Approves the NewsML Version 1.0 DTD.
David Allen of the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) announced the approval of the NewsML version 1.0 DTD for public release. Prose documentation is supplied in the DTD file within XML comments. Additional material will become available shortly and will be posted to the web site. NewsML is described as "an XML encoding for news which is intended to be used for the creation, transfer, delivery and archiving of news. NewsML is media independent, and allows equally for the representation of the evening TV news and a simple textual story. Specifically, NewsML provides the following features: (1) All formats and media types recognised equally; (2) Facilitates the development of NewsItems; (3) Collections of NewsItems; (4) Named relationships within and between NewsItems; (5) Structure consisting of ContentItems, NewsComponents and named relationships between NewsComponents; (6) Alternative representations within the same NewsComponent; (7) Explicit inclusion, inclusion by reference and exclusion of NewsComponents and alternatives; and (8) Attachment of metadata from standard and non-standard Controlled Vocabularies." See further references and related news metadata specifications in "NewsML and IPTC2000." Related endeavors include: (1) XMLNews: XMLNews-Story and XMLNews-Meta; (2) "News Markup Language (NML)": (3) "News Industry Text Format (NITF)"; (4) "Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata (PRISM)." Note also the posting of Daniel Rivers-Moore, who comments on the specification's "Confidence and Importance ratings" and on NewsML's "syntactic constructs of TopicSet, Topic, TopicSetRef, FormalName, Scheme, Property, Value, ValueRef, TopicOccurrence, TopicUse (among others), which are intended to map readily to constructs with similar names in the Topic Maps specification."
[October 06, 2000]
University of Virginia Ships over 600,000 XML EBooks.
From a recent UVA announcement: "From the Bible and Shakespeare to Jane Austen and Jules Verne, the University of Virginia Library's Electronic Text Center (Etext Center) is making more than 1,200 of its 50,000 online texts available as free e-books that may be downloaded from the World Wide Web and read using free Microsoft Reader software. With over 600,000 downloads since the project was launched in August, the Etext Center is the largest and busiest public e-book library in the world, library officials said. The Microsoft Reader software may be installed on a desktop or laptop computer, or on a Pocket PC hand-held computer. The software displays the electronic text on a computer screen so that it resembles the pages of a electronic text on a computer screen so that it resembles the pages of a traditional book. 'The goal is to read pages on the computer screen for extended periods of time, rather than to print them out,' said David Seaman, director of the Etext Center at the University of Virginia Library. The e-books are available free of charge at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/ and titles are added regularly. E-books currently available include the Bible, all of Shakespeare, and classics from Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Robert Frost, Arthur Conan Doyle, Shelley, Darwin, and Jane Austen. The collection also includes American fiction and history from Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Twain, Melville, Stowe, Hawthorne and Poe; early science fiction by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne, and others; writings from Native American and African-American authors; and illustrated children's classics. Aesop's Fables alone has been downloaded more than 4,000 times, Seaman said. Readers from more than 100 countries have downloaded e-books from the Etext Center. 'The use of our e-books is truly global, with users coming not only from North America, but also from Europe, New Zealand, Australia, and even a good many from Asia, Africa, and the Russian Federation. The enormous popularity of our e-book holdings does much to validate the concept of the e-book software as a reading environment,' said Seaman. The audience is broad, including high school and college students, teachers, parents, and the general reading public... E-books also retain some of the best features of paper books. Users can write notes on a page and even 'dog-ear' pages." The University of Virginia has used SGML/XML encoding in its humanities computing projects for many years; the Electronic Text Center 'combines an on-line archive of tens of thousands of SGML and XML-encoded electronic texts and images with a library service that offers hardware and software suitable for the creation and analysis of text'. See further (1) "Open Ebook Initiative"; (2) "University of Virginia Electronic Text Center"; and (3) "IATH - Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia at Charlottesville."
[October 06, 2000]
James Clark Releases expat Version 1.2.
James Clark has announced the release of expat version 1.2, now available for download from the jclark.com web site, togeher with the expat FAQ document. This version adds support for parsing external DTDs and parameter entities. Win32 executables and Win32 import libraries are included in the distribution. Clark's expat - XML Parser Toolkit is "an XML 1.0 parser written in C. It aims to be fully conforming. It is currently not a validating XML processor. Version 1.2 is a production version of expat. Compiling with -DXML_DTD enables this support. There's a new -p option for the xmlwf application which will cause it to process external DTDs and parameter entities; this implies the -x option. See the comment above XML_SetParamEntityParsing in xmlparse.h for the API addition that enables this. The directory xmlparse contains an XML parser library which is built on top of the xmltok library. The interface is documented in xmlparse/xmlparse.h. The directory sample contains a simple example program using this interface; sample/build.bat is a batch file to build the example using Visual C++. The directory xmlwf contains the xmlwf application, which uses the xmlparse library. The arguments to xmlwf are one or more files which are each to be checked for well-formedness. An option -d dir can be specified; for each well-formed input file the corresponding canonical XML will be written to dir/f, where 'f' is the filename (without any path) of the input file. An -x option will cause references to external general entities to be processed. An -s option will make documents that are not standalone cause an error (a document is considered standalone if either it is intrinsically standalone because it has no external subset and no references to parameter entities in the internal subset or it is declared as standalone in the XML declaration)." Version 1.2 of expat is now available under a more permissive license (the MIT license rather than the MPL/GPL). James Clark announces expat version 1.2 as his own "final major production release." He says: "I am happy to announce that I am handing over future development and maintenance of expat to a team led by Clark Cooper, hosted on sourceforge.net. Clark is working towards an expat 2.0 that adds several new features, including better support for use as a shared library under Linux and other Unix variants. A beta release is available already; see http://expat.sourceforge.net." For related tools, see "XML Parsers and Parsing Toolkits."
[October 05, 2000]
Java API for XML Processing Version 1.1 Available for Public Review.
Sun Microsystems has announced the availability of JSR-000063 Java API for XML Processing 1.1, accessible online and presented for 'Public Review' until November 6, 2000. The specification Java API for XML Processing Version 1.1. Public Review has been written by James Duncan Davidson and Rajiv Mordani (Sun Microsystems). Reference: JSR-000063, Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) Specification, October 2, 2000; 52 pages. The proposed JAXP specification, as presented in the project summary, "will define a set of implementation independent portable APIs supporting XML Processing. This specification will be a follow-on specification to the Java API for XML Parsing (JAXP) 1.0 which was produced under JSR-000005. This specification will update the JAXP 1.0 specification support for SAX and DOM by endorsing SAX2 and DOM Level 2 respectively. In addition, it will define a set of implementation independent APIs for supporting XML Stylesheet Language / Transformation (XSLT) processors as well as possibly utilizing the XML utility standards of XBase, XLink, XPath, and XPointer. This draft is available for Public Review as per Section 3.1 of the Java Community Process Program." Comments on the specification should be sent to jsr63-comments@eng.sun.com. Excerpts: "In many ways, XML and the Java Platform are a partnership made in heaven. XML defines a cross platform data format and Java provides a standard cross platform programming platform. Together, XML and Java technologies allow programmers to apply 'Write Once, Run Anywhere' fundamentals to the processing of data and documents generated by both Java based programs and non-Java based programs. . . This document describes the Java API for XML Processing, Version 1.1. This version of the specification introduces basic support for parsing and manipulating XML documents through a standardized set of Java Platform APIs. When this specification is final there will be a Reference Implementation which will demonstrate the capabilities of this API and will provide an operational definition of the specification. A Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK) will also be available that will verify whether an implementation of this specification is compliant. These are required as per the Java Community Process 2.0 (JCP 2.0). The specification is intended for use by: (1) Parser Developers wishing to implement this version of the specification in their parser, and (2) Application Developers who use the APIs described in this specification and wish to have a more complete understanding of the API." The JAXP specification builds upon several others, including the W3C XML 1.0 Recommendation, the W3C XML Namespaces 1.0 Recommendation, Simple API for XML Parsing (SAX) 2.0, W3C Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2, and XSLT 1.0. "This [JSR-000063] version of the Java API for XML Processing includes the basic facilities for working with XML documents using either the SAX, DOM and XSLT APIs; however, there is always more to be done. [Plans for future versions include:] (1) As future versions of SAX and DOM evolve it will be incorporated into the future version of this API; (2) In a future version of the specification, we would like to provide a plugability API to allow an application programmer to provide an XML document and an XSLT document to a wrapped XSLT processor and obtain a transformed result." For related work, see (1) "Java API for XML Parsing (JAXP)" and (2) the XML section on java.sun.com. [cache]
[October 05, 2000]
Revised CSS3 Module on W3C Selectors.
As part of the W3C style activity, the W3C CSS & FP working group has released a new working draft specification for the CSS3 Module on W3C Selectors. Reference: W3C Working Draft 5-October-2000, edited by Tantek Çelik (Microsoft Corporation), Daniel Glazman, Peter Linss (formerly of Netscape Communications), and John Williams (Quark, Inc.). This WD updates the previous draft of 2000-04-10; section 12 supplies a list of changes from previous versions. Document abstract: "CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a language for describing the rendering of HTML and XML documents on screen, on paper, in speech, etc. To bind style properties to elements in the document, it uses selectors, which are patterns that match to elements. This draft describes the selectors that are proposed for CSS level 3. It includes and extends the selectors of CSS level 2." Description: "This document is a draft of one of the 'modules' for the upcoming CSS3 specification. It not only describes the selectors that already exist in CSS1 and CSS2, but also proposes new selectors for CSS3 as well as for other languages that may need them. The Working Group doesn't expect that all implementations of CSS3 will have to implement all types of selectors. Instead, there will probably be a small number of variants of CSS3, so-called 'profiles'. For example, it may be that only the profile for non-interactive user agents will include all of the proposed selectors. . .The modularization of CSS and the externalization of the general syntax will reduce the size of the specification and allow new types of specifications to use selectors and/or CSS general syntax -- for instance behaviours or tree transformations. A W3C selector represents a structure. This structure can be understood for instance as a condition (e.g., in a CSS rule) that determines which elements in the document tree are matched by this selector, or as a flat description of the HTML or XML fragment corresponding to that structure." For description of other CSS3 modules, see (1) the CSS3 Roadmap and (2) "W3C Cascading Style Sheets."
[October 05, 2000]
Linux Documentation Project to Use DocBook XML for Authoring.
A thread on the LDP DocBook mailing list (noted by Michael Smith) indicates the decision of the Linux Documentation Project (LDP) to officially support authoring and publishing technical documentation using the XML version (4.1.2) of the DocBook -- in addition to the SGML DTDs (Linuxdoc, DocBook v3.x, DocBook v4.x) they already support. The Linux Documentation Project "is working on developing free, high quality documentation for the GNU/Linux operating system. The overall goal of the LDP is to collaborate in all of the issues of Linux documentation. This includes the creation of 'HOWTOs' and 'Guides'. The LDP's Author Guide has specified (hitherto) that all HOWTO documents must be in one of the two SGML formats: LinuxDoc or DocBook; in the current mode of production, DSSSL stylesheets are used to create output from the DocBook SGML source. The DocBook DTD, maintained in SGML and XML versions by the DocBook Technical Committee of OASIS, "has been adopted by a large and growing community of authors writing books of all kinds. DocBook is supported 'out of the box' by a number of commercial tools, and there is rapidly expanding support for it in a number of free software environments. These features have combined to make DocBook a generally easy to understand, widely useful, and very popular DTD. Dozens of organizations are using DocBook for millions of pages of documentation, in various print and online formats, worldwide." In this connection, note also the recent announcement from Karl Best (OASIS - Director, Technical Operations) that the DocBook Technical Committee has submitted the latest version of the DocBook DTD to OASIS, requesting that the OASIS membership vote to approve the Committee Specification as an OASIS standard. "The submission meets the requirements of the OASIS technical committee process. The DocBook Technical Committee has submitted DocBook v4.1.2, an XML version of the DTD, and v4.1, an SGML version of the DTD, and certifies that these are valid DTDs of their type. The DTDs may be found at http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/ and http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/sgml/4.1/. The submission is documented. DocBook 3.1 was fully documented by DocBook: The Definitive Guide at http://docbook.org/tdg/. The changes introduced in DocBook 4 have not yet been integrated into TDG, but they are available at http://docbook.org/tdg/40updates/... As specified by the Technical Committee Process, balloting takes place as follows: The OASIS membership has 30 days to respond to this ballot; balloting will close on 31 October 2000. One vote from each OASIS member organization is allowed; an organization may change its vote by sending in another vote up until the close of balloting..." See further references in "DocBook XML DTD."
[October 04, 2000]
Megginson Releases SAX2-ext Package.
David Megginson has announced the final 1.0 release of the SAX2-ext Java package at http://www.megginson.com/Software/. The handler classes in the SAX2-ext 1.0 disribution "have been spun off from the main SAX2 distribution to allow for separate development and easier updating. The handlers provide optional reporting comments, CDATA sections, entity references, the DOCTYPE declaration, and several types of DTD declarations. This package provides optional extension interfaces that XML parsers can use to report non-core information like comments, CDATA section boundaries, and attribute and element type declarations. In addition to the SAX2-ext package, you need a parser with a SAX2 driver that supports these extensions (Apache's Xerces 1.2 currently supports SAX2-ext, and JAXP will do so in its 1.1 release). Microsoft's MSXML parser supports a C++ or BASIC translation of these interfaces as well (I cannot tell which one -- it's not clear from their download page); [Note 2000-10-05 from Eldar Musayev: 'Microsoft's MSXML parser supports both a C++ and Visual Basic translation of these interfaces..."] There are no changes from the 1.0pre release except for version numbers in the documentation." Note in this connection that David Megginson has announced his intention to hand off SAX maintenance to another party: "I'm planning to put out a SAX2/Java bug-fix release this fall, and I may still try to help with a C++ version, but other than that, I think that I'm done with SAX. SAX needs a new maintainer. Since SAX is through its initial rapid-development stage, I'm inclined to hand it over to an institution rather than to an individual. I've considered the W3C and OASIS, but since SAX is really a developers' project rather than a standards-writers' project, I wondered if the Apache Project might not make the best home -- they're well set up to deal with this sort of thing, and have demonstrated a high degree of technical competence. The alternative is to find someone who can continue to maintain SAX through XML-Dev, and who can win the support of enough XML-Devvers to make real progress. I'll be happy to listen to nominations. SAX is in the Public Domain, but morally, at least, XML-Dev owns it, and the members should collectively decide what's going to happen to it." Post to XML-DEV 2000-09-29. [See the suggestion of Jon Bosak in light of a new OASIS Technical Committee Process.]
[October 04, 2000]
PassiveTeX XSL FO Implementation Version 1.1.
Sebastian Rahtz (Oxford University Computing Services) has announced a new release of his PassiveTeX XSL FO processor. PassiveTeX is "a library of TeX macros which can be used to process an XML document which results from an XSL transformation to formatting objects. It provides a rapid development environment for experimenting with XSL FO, using a reliable pre-existing formatter. Running PassiveTeX with the pdfTeX variant of TeX generates high-quality PDF files in a single operation. PassiveTeX shows how TeX can remain the formatter of choice for XML, while hiding the details of its operation from the user." Sebastian writes of version 1.1: "There are a variety of bug fixes (nothing too dramatic), and some new implementations of FO elements and characteristics. One important addition is that fo:marker and fo:retrieve-marker now work, more or less, allowing dynamic headers and footers. I have tested this by formatting the XSL FO spec itself, with satisfactory results. As ever, PassiveTeX is for you if: (1) you have an existing TeX system which you understand; (2) you need decent hyphenation, justification and page-breaking now; (3) you want MathML support; (4) you want high-quality PDF [compressed, bookmarks, links etc.]; and (5) you are into big files and long batch processing. PassiveTeX isn't for you if: (1) you want a Java solution which you can embed; (2) you have never seen TeX and dont want to; (3) you want SVG support; and (4) your life revolves around complex tables. See http://users.ox.ac.uk/~rahtz/passivetex/coursebook.pdf [which] is a typical example of what I use this system for. I expect, by the way, to share TeX details with the Unicorn XSL FO processor in the future; and possibly move to a comparable method myself." For related resources, see "XSL/XSLT Software Support."
[October 03, 2000]
W3C Revised Working Draft for the Modularization of XHTML.
As part of the W3C HTML Activity, the HTML Working Group has published a new Working Draft specification for the Modularization of XHTML. Reference: W3C Working Draft 4-October-2000, edited by Robert Adams (Intel Corporation), Murray Altheim (Sun Microsystems), Frank Boumphrey (HTML Writers Guild), Sam Dooley (IBM), Shane McCarron (Applied Testing and Technology), Sebastian Schnitzenbaumer (Mozquito Technologies), and Ted Wugofski (Phone.com, formerly Gateway). Document abstract: "This Working Draft specifies an abstract modularization of XHTML and an implementation of the abstraction using XML Document Type Definitions (DTDs). This modularization provide a means for subsetting and extending XHTML, a feature needed for extending XHTML's reach onto emerging platforms." Document status: "This is the Working Draft of 'Modularization of XHTML'. It is a version that incorporates some comments from the Last Call Working Draft review period. The Working Group anticipates asking the W3C Director to advance this document to Candidate Recommendation after the Working Group processes Last Call review comments and incorporates resolutions into the Guidelines. A diff-marked version from the previous Last Call draft is available for comparison purposes. Major changes in this version include: (1) Re-integration of the Building document into this document; (2) Incorporation of the Henry Thompson/Dan Connolly XML Namespace handling process with substantial additions by the Math and HTML working groups; (3) Complete worked examples including modules and miniature DTDs; (4) Minor restructuring of abstract module definitions, including the creation of a 'style attribute module' and a 'name identification module'; (5) Tweaking of some of the module contents based on review comments, including the addition of a 'target' module to separate the 'target' attribute from the frame module." Changes from the previous 'Last Call' Working Draft version may be inspected in the diff-marked version; the new WD is also available as a single HTML file, a Postscript version, a PDF version, and a ZIP archive. For the development context, see "XHTML and 'XML-Based' HTML Modules." [Note: the CR was published, then apparently retracted and replaced by a "Working Draft" version. Description in this news item may now be out of sync, though I have attempted to correct the URLs to reflect the ersatz WD version. 2000-10-05.]
[October 03, 2000]
Knowledge Technologies 2001 Conference.
Marion L. Elledge (Senior VP/IT, Graphic Communications Association) recently posted an initial announcement for a GCA-sponsored 'Knowledge Technologies 2001 Conference.' "Knowledge Technologies 2001 will replace XTech in Austin, Texas, March 4-7, 2001. Throughout the GCA events in 2000, there has been growing interest in technologies that support knowledge management. In Europe there were 250-300 attendees in the sessions on topic maps. At Extreme there was tremendous interest in RDF and Topic Maps. Ontologies and semantics have also proven to be major topics thus far. Based on the papers received for XML 2000, one full track is devoted to Knowledge Technologies. Therefore, we at GCA, agree that the next revolution for the Web will be the shift from an information base to a knowledge base. And the revolution will be grounded by emerging knowledge technologies to make the semantic web a reality. To achieve the goal of a quality conference to address these issues, the conference will be structured based on the input of the papers received and on the insight of the Conference Board of Advisors. If you have suggestions for the program, would like to submit a paper, or possibly serve on the Board of Advisors, please contact me." See the GCA Web site for related conferences, and "XML and 'The Semantic Web'."
[October 02, 2000]
Extensible Name Service (XNS).
XNS Public Trust Organization (XNSORG) recently announced the Extensible Name Service (XNS) as "a new open protocol and open-source platform for universal addressing, automated data exchange, and privacy control. XNS is based on two key technologies: XML, the new global standard for platform-independent information exchange, and web agents, a patented new technology that automates the exchange, linking, and synchronization of information between publishers and subscribers over digital networks. XNS combines XML and web agents to create a complete integrated infrastructure for automated information exchange between consumers and businesses anywhere on the wired or wireless Internet. The architects of XNS set out to solve three primary design objectives. (1) Universal Addresses: true 'universal address,' e.g., a single human-friendly name that can function as an address for all types of digital communications. Because this address can be resolved into an XML document containing any other communications network address (phone number, fax number, email address, URL, etc.), it is completely 'abstracted' from any particular communications network. This has three key advantages: The address never needs to change for the life of the resource it represents, or longer; Links to the address never have to break; the address doesn't need to follow any special formatting or syntactic restrictions -- it can be as simply as any name or phrase in XML (i.e., Unicode). (2) Automatic Linking and Synchronization: web agents [need] to create them automatically when information is exchanged and update them automatically when information changes. (3) Negotiated Control and Privacy Protection: provide negotiated control over any information exchange between two web agents using an extensible control vocabulary. . . Like DNS, XNS is a globally distributed network that can be implemented by any ISP, portal, corporation, university, or other network service provider. Unlike DNS, however, all XNS agencies and agents enter into registration agreements incorporating global terms specified by the XNS Public Trust Organization (XNSORG), an independent non-profit organization responsible for governance of the XNS global trust community. . . The next evolutionary step beyond a domain name, an XNS address is not just an email address, a phone number, a fax number, or a Web page, but a single 'superaddress' which consolidates all other addressing and profile data into a single XML digital container. This container is managed by an XNS agent following the owner's privacy and security rules. The beauty of XNS addresses is that they never have to change for the lifetime of a person, product, service, or company, no matter how often any other contact data changes. Furthermore, an XNS address can be as simple as your name-up to 64 characters, in any Unicode language, with no awkward syntax or punctuation. . . XNS provides the first open-source, globally distributed solution to universal registration. One click on the XNS login button at any XNS-enabled web site and your personal web agent instantly negotiates a private login key, so all you ever need to remember is your own XNS name and password. Every XNS form negotiated between two XNS agents results in an XNS contract stored by each agent. Besides recording the applicable privacy and security policies (including support for new W3C P3P privacy policies), XNS contracts record each XNS privacy permission granted by the agent owner for the user of their data. XNS privacy contracts are the missing foundation in a global privacy framework, giving consumers easy, immediate access to their permission records and businesses a simple, global vocabulary for true permission marketing. . . "XNS data schemas are defined using XML itself, following the proposed W3C XML Schemas specification. XNS is designed to resolve a name into any type of attribute which can be defined in an XML schema and exchanged using XML. In addition, XNS schemas are themselves registered in XNS. This means schema definitions are easily named, addressed, and synchronized just like any other XNS data instance. As with XML documents, XNS objects are a nested tree of component objects which are all one of two types: schema objects, which represent registered XNS schema definitions, and instance objects containing the attributes values for the resource. Following the rules of XML Schemas, all instance objects must be valid instances of schema objects. Because all XNS schema objects are themselves registered in XNS, XNS acts as one completely self-referential logical XML document." Phase Two of the will also introduce user-defined schemas: "as it is with XML, distributed schema authoring is one of the key extensibility features of XNS. In Phase Two agencies, businesses, and individuals will be able to define, publish, subscribe, and update their own XNS schemas in addition to those defined by XNSORG." For other description, see: "Extensible Name Service (XNS)."
[October 02, 2000]
COSCA/NACM JTC XML Court Filing Project.

The Electronic Filing Standards sub-committee of the COSCA/NACM Joint Technology XML Standards Committee is working with LegalXML.org to develop an XML standard for electronic court filing via the Internet. Within the framework of LegalXML.org, "the Court Filing Workgroup focuses on document and information exchange formats for electronic court filing applications. The chair of the Court Filing Workgroup is John Greacen (email: aocjmg@nmcourts.com). In July 2000, a second revised version of a proposed XML Standards Development Project Electronic Court Filing Draft Specification was issued, together with the XML DTDs. Reference: PS_10001_2000_07_24 (July 24, 2000); by Marty Halvorson and Richard Himes, edited by Winchel 'Todd' Vincent III. Document abstract: "This Draft Specification provides the XML DTD required for Court Filing. The document is intended to describe the information required for electronic court filing, and the structure of that information. No information regarding the content of the pleading or other legal device (e.g., contracts, orders, judgments, etc.) is included, other than that required to accomplish the task. This document is a Proposed Standard collaboratively developed by the COSCA/NACM Joint Technology Committee and the Legal XML Court Filing Workgroup. Portions of this document were derived from the Court Filing Strawman collaboratively developed by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico; New Mexico Administrative Office of the Courts; SCT Global Government Solutions, Inc.; and West Group." Background: Following a planning meeting in Santa Fe, NM on August 30-31, 1999, the Joint Technology Committee (JTC) of the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) and the National Association of Court Managers (NACM) formed an Electronic Filing Standards sub-committee to define a court XML national Standard to allow electronic filing via the Internet. The Electronic Filing Standards sub-committee of the JTC has sponsored a series of meetings, beginning November 4, 1999. Further description and references are available in "COSCA/NACM JTC XML Court Filing Project." Related work on XML-based legal applications may be found in: (1) "Legal XML Working Group", (2) "Open XML Court Interface (OXCI)", (3) "New Mexico District Court XML Interface (XCI)", (4)

"Georgia State University Electronic Court Filing Project", and (5) "University of Cincinnati College of Law, Center for Electronic Text in the Law."

[October 02, 2000]
AxKit Version 1.0 Released.
A communiqué from Matt Sergeant (Director and CTO, AxKit.com Ltd.) announces the release of AxKit Version 1.0. "AxKit, A mod_perl-based XML Application Server for Apache, has reached version 1.0 and has been officially released to the public via the project website at http://axkit.org. Employing a rich set of standards-compliant techniques as well as extensible scripting options, AxKit provides on-the-fly conversion from XML to a variety of other formats including HTML, WAP, and plain text. AxKit's notable technical features include the introduction of XPathScript, a powerful, Perl-based transformation language, built-in support for XSLT, 'smart' caching and the easy creation of dynamic XML documents. In addition to its broad set of XML transformation choices, AxKit also provides developers with an impressive configuration interface that allows fine-grained control over such advanced options as dynamic stylesheet chaining, selection of alternate stylesheets based on a variety of conditions, and control over the output character sets of transformed documents. AxKit is open source, free software, available under either the GNU GPL Version 2.0, or the Perl Artistic License." See also the "AxKit Quickstart Guide" and "An Introduction to AxKit."
[October 02, 2000]
Creating Barcodes Using XSL.
In the category of creative applications: the 'XSL Barcode Generator' from RenderX. Nikolai Grigoriev recently announced the XSL-based barcode generator on the Mulberry XSL-List: "As a byproduct of our main activity, we have developed an XSL stylesheet that draws barcodes from digit sequences. We hope a thing like this may be useful for people wishing to add barcode labelling to their XSL-based publishing solutions. Barcodes implemented are the most popular ones that you can see on items in stores and groceries - UPC/EAN, to be precise; other systems can be easily added. The output is an XSL FO table that can be rendered to PDF. As most of the barcode-drawing logic is independent of the output graphical format, modifying the stylesheet to produce SVG or something similar should be a relatively simple task. The stylesheet and examples are freely available from http://www.renderx.com/Demos/barcode/." The RenderX web site document "Creating Barcodes in XSL" supplies additional description: "Barcodes are very simple in physical structure - just rectangular black bars separated by white spaces. Representing such a structure in XSL Formatting Objects is easy, but a really challenging problem is to calculate bar widths starting from a string of symbols to encode. However, with XSLT, it becomes plausible. To confirm this claim, a stylesheet was designed to draw UPC/EAN barcodes. UPC/EAN (Universal Product Code / European Article Numbering) is probably the most widespread barcode system: virtually every item found in stores bears a characteristic bars-and-digits label stamped on its back. EAN codes (8 and 13 digit) are used in all European countries, while UPC ones (8 and 12 digit) are more frequent in the North America. The encoding scheme for both barcode types is the same (12-digit UPC is a subset of 13-digit EAN). Representation of digits by bars in UPC/EAN has some peculiarities: (1) every digit can be represented by two alternative bar patterns; (2) some digits may be encoded by the alternation of bar patterns of other digits; (3) the last digit serves as check digit, calculated by a tricky algorithm... An exhaustive description of the encoding algorithm can be found on the web site. No wonder that it took several hundred lines of XSLT code to get from a sequence of digits to the corresponding bar pattern. The result is a fairly complete XSL implementation of barcode drawing component. The stylesheet handles EAN codes (8-digit and 13-digit) and UPC codes (versions A and E). It provides for checksum calculation (including the trickiest UPC E case), and builds a complete pattern with numbers written at the bottom. The stylesheet does more than just creating a sequence of bars: it also chooses the most traditional format for each type of code. There are subtle differences between EAN and UPC concerning digit grouping, bar lengths etc; all these are taken into account in the stylesheet."
[October 02, 2000]
QARE: An Open Source XML/Java Portal.
Bill la Forge posted an announcement for the alpha release of QARE -- 'Quick Agent Runtime Environment'. "QARE (pronounced 'care') is an XML/Java Portal, providing an easy-to-use platform for processing XML over HTTP. QARE, which runs as a simple Java Servlet, is now complete, except for plugins (jar file extensions), though testing has been minimal. The documentation is currently limited to the API. QARE can handle any number of different markup languages. The type of markup language is specified in the file info portion of the URL used to invoke the servlet. QARE processes POSTed XML documents by converting them into agents. These agents then perform the request specified by the XML document and respond with an object which is converted back into XML and returned to the requestor. These agents are safe and virus-proof, as they are built using code resident on the server. Agents are composed using the incoming XML documents, which are validated prior to invoking the agent. With appropriate content validation, incoming documents are constrained to only those which create proper agents. While most agents are transitory, agents can also be persistent. A snapshot facility is provided so that persistent agents can be restarted after the web server has crashed. Local agent/agent communication is supported, so that transient agents can make use of the services provided by persistent agents. This makes QARE extensible through the use of appropriate persistent agents. And while plugins (jar files) are not yet supported, agent/agent communication uses the Quick Transcribe capability, allowing each agent to use its own classes for messages passed between agents. QARE builds on Quick. [Quick, as a tool for Java programmers who need to work with XML, is a collection of utilities and Java packages with a very small API; Quick does not use XML DTDs, but uses a schema language, QJML, to define markup languages and their relationship to Java classes.] QARE is Open Source (development is hosted on SourceForge) and is licensed under LGPL." For other information, see the developers' forum, the QARE API documentation, and the download.
[October 02, 2000]
DOM Level 1 Second Edition Working Draft Released.

A communiqué from Philippe Le Hégaret (World Wide Web Consortium, DOM Activity Lead) announces the release of DOM Level 1 Second Edition from the W3C DOM Activity: Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification (Second Edition) Version 1.0. Reference: W3C Working Draft 29-September-2000, edited by Lauren Wood, Arnaud Le Hors, Vidur Apparao, Steve Byrne, Mike Champion, Scott Isaacs, Ian Jacobs, Gavin Nicol, Jonathan Robie, Robert Sutor, and Chris Wilson. Note that DOM Level 2 is now a W3C Proposed Recommendation, and that DOM Level 3 Specifications are available. Document status: "This second edition is not a new version of the DOM Level 1; it merely incorporates the changes dictated by the first-edition errata list. [It] is a version of the DOM Level 1 Recommendation incorporating the errata changes as of September 29, 2000. It is released by the DOM Working Group as a W3C Working Draft to gather public feedback before its final release as the DOM Level 1 second edition W3C Recommendation (as these changes are editorials, there will be no Candidate Recommendation or Proposed Recommendation stages). The review period for this Working Draft is 4 weeks ending October 27 2000." Abstract: "This specification defines the Document Object Model Level 1, a platform- and language-neutral interface that allows programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure and style of documents. The Document Object Model provides a standard set of objects for representing HTML and XML documents, a standard model of how these objects can be combined, and a standard interface for accessing and manipulating them. Vendors can support the DOM as an interface to their proprietary data structures and APIs, and content authors can write to the standard DOM interfaces rather than product-specific APIs, thus increasing interoperability on the Web." For other references, see: "W3C Document Object Model (DOM)."