Reviewed charter

Hi 
all,

 

The following is the 
draft of Charter after our review yesterday. There are a couple of things which 
we need to complete. I have left in the original IPR paragraphs for Tony to 
comment on. There was a proposal that would be taken out. We have yet to provide 
any text on audience as suggested in Karl's mail.

 

Tony, I will brief 
you on this tomorrow.

 

Thanks,

 

Peter.

 

Name

XML 
Localisation Interchange File Format (XLIFF)

Statement of Purpose

The 
purpose of the OASIS XLIFF TC is to define, through XML vocabularies, and 
promote the adoption of, an extensible specification for the interchange of 
localization information. To date,  the committee has published two 
specifications - XLIFF 1.0  and XLIFF 1.1 - that define how to mark up and 
capture localizable data and interoperate with different processes or phases 
without loss of information. The vocabularies are tool-neutral, support the 
localization-related aspects of internationalization and the entire localization 
process. The vocabularies support common software and content data formats. The 
specifications provide an extensibility mechanism to allow the development of 
tools compatible with an implementer's own proprietary data formats and workflow 
requirements.

The state of affairs in software and documentation localisation before 
XLIFF was that a software or documentation provider delivered their localisable 
resources to a localisation service provider in a number of disparate file 
formats. Once software providers and technical communicators commenced 
implementing XLIFF, the task of interchanging localisation data became simpler. 
Using proprietary and nonstandard resource formats force either the source 
provider or the localisation service provider to implement a costly and 
inefficient bespoke process for localising their content. For  publishers with many proprietary or 
nonstandard formats, this requirement becomes a major hurdle when attempting to 
localise their software.  For 
software developers and technical communicators employing enterprise 
localisation tools and processes,  
XLIFF defines a standard but extensible vocabulary that captures relevant 
metadata at any point of the lifecycle which can be exchanged between a variety 
of  commercial and open-source 
tools.

 

The 
state of affairs in software localisation before XLIFF was that a software 
provider delivered their localisable resources to a localisation service 
provider in a number of disparate file formats. Once software providers 
commenced implementing XLIFF, the task of interchanging localisation data became 
simpler. Using proprietary and nonstandard resource formats force either the 
software provider or the localisation service provider to implement a costly and 
inefficient bespoke process for localising their content. For a software 
publishers with many proprietary or nonstandard formats, this requirement 
becomes a major hurdle when attempting to localise their software.  For 
software developers employing enterprise localisation tools and processes,  
XLIFF defines a standard but extensible vocabulary that captures relevant 
metadata at any point of the lifecycle which can be exchanged between a variety 
of commercial and open-source tools.

<>The first phase,  now completed,  
created a committee specification that concentrated on software UI file 
requirements. The next phase consists of promoting the adoption of XLIFF 
throughout the industry through additional collateral and specifications, 
continuing to advance the committee specification  towards a full  
OASIS standard, contributing to the development of standard localisation 
directives tag library and consuming it when available, and defining and 
publishing an implementation guide for document based content that addresses 
segmentation and alignment requirements. To encourage adoption of XLIFF,  
the TC will define and publish implementation guides for the most commonly used 
resource formats (HTML,  RTF, Window Resources, Java Resource Bundles, 
.NET),  and will include reference implementations of XLIFF 
1.1.

XLIFF 1.0 included work done prior to the formation of the Oasis TC 
and was submitted with the following intellectual property rights 
statement:

Each of 
the submitting companies, referenced in section (vii), below, agrees to offer a 
license, on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, to use any patent claim it 
owns or controls and which is necessarily infringed by use of the XLIFF format 
described in this submission or any Committee Specification or OASIS standard 
based thereon. Such a license will be for the limited purpose of implementing 
the XLIFF format described in this submission or in any Committee Specification 
or OASIS standard based thereon, and may be conditioned on the licensee's 
agreement to grant a reciprocal license on reasonable and non-discriminatory 
terms to use any patent claim it owns or controls and which is necessarily 
infringed by use of the XLIFF format described in this submission or in any 
Committee Specification or OASIS standard based 
thereon.

All 
subsequent work is covered by OASIS IPR 
policy.

The 
archive for previous discussions can be found at the following 
URL:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DataDefinition

The 
white paper, the specification, and the DTD and can be found at this 
URL:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DataDefinition/files/Final

List 
of Deliverables

  
XLIFF 1.1 XHTML/HTML Representation Guide 
  – April 22, 2005

  
XLIFF 1.1 RTF Representation Guide  – April 22, 
  2005

  
XLIFF 1.1 .NET Representation Guide  – April 22, 
  2005

  
XLIFF 1.1 Java Resource Bundle 
  Representation Guide  – April 22, 
  2005

  
XLIFF 1.1 Windows Resources Representation 
  Guide  – April 22, 
  2005

  
XLIFF 1.1  PO File Representation Guide  – April 22, 
  2005

  
Submit XLIFF 1.1 for consideration as 
  OASIS Standard – April 22, 2005

In addition we 
will also endeavour to provide the 
following:

  
XLIFF 1.1 Reference Implementation (as 
  Open Source?  In collaboration with Trans-WS?) 
  

  
XLIFF 1.1 Document-based Content Implementation Guide 
  (Segmentation & Alignment)

  
Review and input to development of 
  Standard Localisation Directives Tag Library 

  
XLIFF 1.1: Consume / Implement Standard 
  Localisation Directives Tag Library

 

 

Peter Reynolds, Software Development 
Manager
Bowne 
Global Solutions
3, West Pier 
Business Campus, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin, Ireland
Tel: 
+353-1-202-1280
Fax: +353-1- 202-1299
 

Web Site: http//www.bowneglobal.com
http://elcano.bowneglobal.com/