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XML and Web Services In The News - 11 January 2007
Provided by OASIS |
Edited by Robin Cover
This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by Innodata Isogen
HEADLINES:
Closing Keynote, XML 2006
Jon Bosak, Sun Microsystems
IDEAlliance has published the full text of the Closing Keynote given at
the XML 2006 Conference in Boston, MA, on 7-December-2006. The keynote
was presented by Jon Bosak, Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems
and Chair of the original W3C XML Working Group. Excerpt: "When David
Megginson asked me to give you this closing keynote tonight, I think
he knew that I couldn't refuse an opportunity to come back to the same
conference, in the same hotel, at which I had the honor of introducing
the SGML community to a product initially known as 'SGML for the Web'
but by then repackaged under the name 'XML.'... How far we've drifted
from the attitudes that created XML was demonstrated to me recently in
the revision to the OASIS UBL Standard for business documents, which
is the product of the OASIS technical committee I chair. [UBL story]...
The way we actually publish the [UBL] package is as a reasonably
well-structured directory tree together with an HTML file that explains
the contents and links all this stuff together. The original of this
HTML file is a DocBook version from which the HTML is generated using
OASIS XSL stylesheets... I'm pleased to report, by the way, that the
DocBook original, which we include in the downloadable version of the
package, is viewable in both Firefox and Internet Explorer, so you can
browse the DocBook version directly, which I think is pretty cool.
Yuri Rubinsky would have been pleased. There's actually a name for the
kind of stucture we adopted for publishing UBL: it's called a hypertext.
The document by which the UBL spec is served out over the web is
written in the Hypertext Markup Language and the mechanism by which
it's transmitted over the web is called the Hypertext Transfer Protocol.
There's a reason that XML was originally called 'SGML for the web.' A
large part of the motivation for creating XML was to further the
vision of pioneers like Doug Engelbart, Ted Nelson, Tim Berners-Lee,
and Yuri Rubinsky. Somewhere in attempting to realize this vision
we've gotten hung up in implementing the very first step along the way.
We've wandered off into the weeds of commercialization and forgotten
that the web we've got is the most primitive form of hypertext that
could be imagined — which is why it works, and I don't want to deny
that. But this focus on the money to be made right at the start has
led us into an explosion of XML applications that focus purely on the
exchange of data between computer systems. We've lost track of the
human aspect of this to the point where even an organization whose
very purpose is the advancement of XML considers it unsuitable for
human consumption and requires its specifications to be issued in forms
tied to the printed page."
See also: the author's web site
Content Selection for Device Independence: Primer 1.0 Updated
Rhys Lewis and Roland Merrick (eds), W3C Technical Report
Members of the W3C Device Independence Working Group have published an
updated Working Draft of Content Selection Primer 1.0. The Primer
provides the reader with the basic knowledge required to make effective
use of the Content Selection for Device Independence Specification,
illustrating how to use features of that language in a variety of
scenarios. t is widely recognized, within the computer science
community, that a good approach to solving a problem is to break it
down into a set of sub-problems that overlap as little as possible. In
the context of web page creation, one of the best examples of this is
the decoupling of content from look and feel. This is typically achieved
by using Cascading Style Sheets with a markup language, such as XHTML
Version 2. This principle is commonly known as "Separation of Concerns".
Generally, solutions that follow this approach are less costly to
develop and maintain and more flexible in use. In addition, the highly
decoupled solution components that tend to result from the approach
are more likely to be reusable. For example, changing the CSS style
sheet used with a particular web page may make it possible to use the
page in different circumstances without the need to change the markup.
Introduction of new features, such as DISelect, into a markup language
can provide facilities that lead to the principle of separation of
concerns being compromised. This is by no means restricted to DISelect,
of course. For a long time, authors have been able to choose to use the
'style' element, available throughout most of the family of HTML and
XHTML markup languages, to embed their styling directly within their
markup. This clearly breaches the principle. Adaptation by selection
involves choosing between different versions of materials according to
some set of criteria. Often, selection involves picking one particular
variant of a specific resource. For example, several different variants
of a particular image might have been prepared to support different
delivery contexts. During adaptation, one particular variant might be
selected as the most appropriate to use on a particular mobile device.
See also: W3C Device Independence Activity
Tibco Backs BPEL 2.0 in ESB
Paul Krill, InfoWorld
Tibco Software on Wednesday is upgrading its BusinessWorks enterprise
service bus to leverage the Web Services BPEL (Business Process
Execution Language) 2.0 specification. This makes Tibco's the first ESB
to back the OASIS specification, the company said. The new ESB, which
has the version number 5.4, also features expanded security capabilities
and 64-bit platform support. Tibco categorizes BusinessWorks as a suite
of technologies constituting an ESB. As an ESB, BusinessWorks can be
used in enterprise SOA deployments. It provides such functions as
mediation of messages, in which a SOAP message, for example, could be
received over HTTP and sent back out via Java Message Service. Full-scale
orchestration for specifying process flows for activities also is enabled.
BPEL provides a common framework for orchestration of processes, akin to
how SQL is used in working with databases, according to Tibco. It features
a language for specifying business-process behavior based on Web services.
Version 1.1 of BPEL, which has been available for deployment, was never
formally ratified as an OASIS standard, a status soon to be bestowed on
the 2.0 version of the specification. BPEL 2.0, or WS-BPEL, which is the
official OASIS acronym, is undergoing a public review period. It could be
approved as an official OASIS standard by April 1, an OASIS representative
said. With BPEL 2.0, the use of global variables in Web services calls is
no longer required. Global variables added complexity to BPEL because they
were visible throughout a system rather than just where they were needed,
McNamara said. Examples of variables include a customer processing ID or
a response code from a credit check.
See also: the WS-BPEL v2.0 15 day review
Internet Society Announces New Program to Encourage Developing World
Participation in Internet Standards Setting
Staff, Internet Society Announcement
"Continuing its longstanding commitment to build technical capacity in
less developed countries, the Internet Society (ISOC) today announced a
new program, the ISOC Fellowship to the IETF. The program offers
fellowships that fund the cost of attending an Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF) meeting for technologists from developing countries.
The IETF is the Internet's premier standards-making body, responsible
for the development of protocols used in IP-based networks. IETF
participants represent an international community of network designers,
operators, vendors, and researchers involved in the technical operation
of the Internet and the continuing evolution of Internet architecture.
Fellowships will be awarded through a competitive application process.
ISOC is currently accepting fellowship applications for two IETF
meetings: (1) IETF 68 being held in Prague, Czech Republic, 18 - 23
March 2007, and (2) IETF 69 being held in Chicago, USA on 22 - 27 July
2007. Up to five fellowships will be awarded for each IETF meeting. In
addition, the Internet Society is welcoming multiple corporate
sponsorships for the ISOC Fellowship to the IETF and is proud to
recognize Google Inc. as the program's first corporate sponsor. The
Internet Society is a not-for-profit membership organization founded
in 1992 to provide leadership in Internet related standards, education,
and policy. With offices in Washington, DC, and Geneva, Switzerland, it
is dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of
the Internet for the benefit of people throughout the world. ISOC is
the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
and other Internet-related bodies who together play a critical role in
ensuring that the Internet develops in a stable and open manner.
OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.1
Submitted for Standardization
Staff, OASIS Announcement
OASIS announced that the Open Document Format for Office Applications
(OpenDocument) Technical Committee had submitted a specification set,
which is an approved OASIS Committee Specification, to be considered
as an OASIS Standard. The OpenDocument specification Version 1.1
defines an XML schema for office applications and its semantics. The
schema is suitable for office documents, including text documents,
spreadsheets, charts and graphical documents like drawings or
presentations, but is not restricted to these kinds of documents. The
schema provides for high-level information suitable for editing
documents. It defines suitable XML structures for office documents and
is friendly to transformations using XSLT or similar XML-based tools.
The OpenDocument v1.1 specification is a minor update to the
OpenDocument v1.0 OASIS Standard. Compared to the OpenDocument v1.0
specification, the OpenDocument v1.1 specification contains a couple
of accessibility-related enhancements, error corrections and
clarifications, and very few other minor enhancements. OpenDocument
v1.1 supersedes an existing OASIS Standard, OpenDocument v1.0. In
addition to the prose specification text, three schemas defined by
the OpenDocument v1.1 specification are also available separately:
(1) OpenDocument v1.1 Relax-NG Schema; (2) OpenDocument v1.1 Manifest
Relax-NG Schema; (3) OpenDocument v1.1 Strict Relax-NG Schema. Several
OASIS member companies have provided certification that they are
successfully using the specification (IBM, Novell, OpenDocument
Foundation, Royal National Institute for the Blind, and Sun
Microsystems).
See also: ODF references
FrontPage News: Microsoft Revamps Design Tools
Troy Dreier, IntranetJournal.com
With little fanfare, Microsoft FrontPage has slipped away, never to
return. That's probably not a concern to you, since it was never a
strong choice for professional site developers, but you might be
interested in its replacement. Microsoft has created a new site design
tool, one that produces better, tighter code, offers a much better
range of features, and has a visual side that designers will
appreciate: meet Microsoft Expression Web. Users will find that
Expression Web offers strong support for cascading style sheets (CSS),
even more so than Dreamweaver, something applauded by early testers.
The CSS rendering engine lets designers instantly see how their
creations will look, and users can easily move styles from individual
pages to a central location. Microsoft has also emphasized standards
compliance with Expression Web, which will come as a relief to those
familiar with FrontPage. You can ensure that your pages will render
correctly across all major browsers, and create pages that work with
all levels of HTML, XHTML, and CSS. You can even validate your pages,
to be sure that they conform to current accessibility guidelines.
Pricing is $299 for Expression Web. Some FrontPage users can qualify
for a $99 upgrade. [From the web site: "Reduce complexity and ease
data integration by using powerful design tools and task panes to
quickly incorporate XML data. Seamlessly integrate Web design and
development teams with Expression Web and Visual Studio's superior
support for XML, ASP.NET, and XHTML. Passionate about Standards: Build
dynamic, interactive pages that harness the power of the Web to deliver
superior quality. Built-in support for today's modern Web standards
makes it easy to optimize your sites for accessibility and cross-
browser compatibility."]
See also: the web site
yax: A Java XProc XML Pipeline Implementation
Joerg Moebius, Open Source Software Announcement
A "first experimental version" of yax has been announced as available
from SourceForge. Yhe software and documentation are released under
the terms of the GNU LGPL license. yax is an Java implementation of
the XProc Specification, an XML Pipeline Language. An XML Pipeline
specifies a sequence of operations to be performed on a collection of
input documents. Pipelines take zero or more XML documents as their
input and produce zero or more XML documents as their output. Steps
in the pipeline may read or write non-XML resources as well. A
pipeline consists of components. Like pipelines, components take zero
or more XML documents as their input and produce zero or more XML
documents as their output. The inputs to a component come from the
web, from the pipeline document, from the inputs to the pipeline
itself, or from the outputs of other components in the pipeline. The
outputs from a component are consumed by other components, are outputs
of the pipeline as a whole, or are discarded. The core idea of yax is
to implement the XProc specification in a way that: (a) makes it easy
to follow the 'evolution' of the specification, (b) makes it easy to
implement custom extentions, and (c) makes some suggestions to the
specification possible. As to Inputs / Outputs, the author assumes
for the majority of pipeline use cases the position of steps (and
constructs) the chaining of input and output ports in the sequence of
its appearance. That in mind it would be the easiest way to omit the
explicit port entries where the intention of chaining the input and
output ports is expressed by position of the components. Going this
way it is necessary to write port entries only for the situation in
which one want deviate the ordinary sequence." New features include:
property and property files; passing properties to xproc script;
passing properties through xproc script to xsl script; run without
referring to input and output documents (i/o kept within pipeline).
See also: XProc, An XML Pipeline Language
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