All posts by : The XML Cover Pages

1 of 115 | Office Open XML File Formats Published as ISO/IEC 29500:2008 Final Standard - ISO announced the publication of the Office Open XML File Formats specification as an ISO/IEC joint standard. ISO/IEC 29500 specifies a family of XML schemas, collectively called Office Open XML, which define the XML vocabularies for word-processing, spreadsheet, and presentation documents, as well as the packaging of documents that conform to these schemas. A new Document Interoperability WG will help align ISO/IEC 29500 with ISO/IEC 26300 (OpenDocument)....

2 of 115 | W3C Forms New Web Services Resource Access (WS-RA) Working Group - W3C has launched the Web Services Resource Access (WS-RA) Working Group, chartered to standardize a general mechanism for accessing and updating the XML representation of a resource-oriented Web Service and metadata of a Web Service, as well as a mechanism to subscribe to events from a Web Service. W3C Recommendations will be produced based upon five Member Submissions: WS-Transfer, WS-ResourceTransfer, WS-Enumeration, WS-MetadataExchange, and WS-Eventing....

3 of 115 | Microsoft 'Geneva' Framework Supports SAML 2.0, WS-Federation, and WS-Trust - Microsoft has announced a new identify management strategy under code-name 'Geneva'. This single, simplified, claims-based identity model includes support for several standards in the federated identity space, including SAML 2.0, WS-Federation, and WS-Trust. Components include Geneva Framework for building claims-aware .NET applications, Geneva' Server, and Windows CardSpace 'Geneva'. A Beta release was unveiled at the Microsoft PDC, available for download....

4 of 115 | Vendors Publish Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) Standard - EMC, IBM, and Microsoft have published "Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS)", distributed as four prose documents with supporting XML schemas. The CMIS standard defines a domain model and set of bindings, such as Web Service and REST/Atom, that can be used by applications to work with one or more Content Management repositories/systems. Alfresco, Open Text, Oracle, and SAP collaborated on CMIS, now proposed for submisssion to an OASIS TC....

5 of 115 | W3C Member Submission for Creative Commons Rights Expression Language (ccREL) - W3C has published the text of a Member Submission from Creative Commons: "ccREL: The Creative Commons Rights Expression Language." ccREL builds upon the astronomical success of Creative Commons licenses, which are embeddable machine-readable legal instruments allowing authors to express permissions for others to share, remix, and reuse content. ccREL is a new XML/RDF machine-readable language to express copyright licensing terms and related information....

6 of 115 | OASIS/ITU-T Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) Receives Support from FEMA and WMO - Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announcements highlight adoption of the XML-based Common Alerting Protocol. CAP defines a format for exchanging all-hazard emergency alerts and public warnings over multiple networks. FEMA announced a CAP Profile for the Integrated Public Alert and Warnings System. WMO issued a CFP for a December 2008 CAP Implementers Workshop in Geneva, co-sponsored by OASIS and ITU-T....

7 of 115 | Balisage 2008 Conference in Montreal Continues Extreme Markup Tradition - "Balisage 2008: The Markup Conference" continues the popular Montreal series (formerly "Extreme Markup Languages") under a new title "Balisage." Organizers have published the complete program for the main conference (August 12-15, 2008) and for the "International Symposium on Versioning XML Vocabularies and Systems" (August 11). Topics: Semantic Web, ontology design, schema mashups, constraint management, topic maps, annotating overlap, digital libraries......

8 of 115 | W3C Publishes Approved TAG Finding on Associating Resources with Namespaces - W3C has published "Associating Resources with Namespaces" as an Approved TAG Finding from the W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG). The document addresses the question of how ancillary information (schemas, stylesheets, documentation) can be associated with an XML namespace. It offers guidance on how a namespace document can be optimally designed for humans and machines such that information at the namespace URI conforms to web architecture good practice....

9 of 115 | OGC Approves Sensor Web Observations and Measurements Encoding Standard - The Open Geospatial Consortium announced the approval of the Observations and Measurements Encoding V1.0 specification as a final OpenGIS Implementation Standard. The standard defines an abstract model and an XML schema encoding for observations and measurements as part of a framework required for use by other OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standards and for support of OGC compliant systems dealing in technical measurements in science and engineering....

10 of 115 | OASIS Members Propose Charter for WS-BPEL Extension for People (BPEL4People) TC - OASIS member companies have submitted a charter proposal for a WS-BPEL Extension for People (BPEL4People) Technical Committee. Companies sponsoring the proposal include Active Endpoints, Adobe, BEA, IBM, Oracle, SAP, Software AG, and Sun Microsystems. Building upon the June 2007 two-part industry BPEL4People specification, this TC would define extensions to WS-BPEL 2.0 to enable human interactions, along with a model enabling the definition of human tasks....

11 of 115 | W3C Web Services Policy 1.5 Primer and Guidelines for Policy Assertion Authors - W3C has published WS-Policy "Primer" and "Guidelines for Policy Assertion Authors" documents supporting the recently approved Web Services Policy 1.5 Recommendations (Framework, Attachment). WS-Policy defines a general policy framework for expressing Web service capabilities and requirements, including a policy data model, processing model (for combining/comparing Web service capabilities), and XML Information Set representation for the policy data model....

12 of 115 | SNIA Demonstrates Extensible Access Method (XAM) Interoperability - SNIA announced successful interoperability demonstrations of the Extensible Access Method (XAM) specification. XAM addresses management of reference information, viz., fixed content, as distinct from transactional content. XAM defines an XML-based XSet Canonical Format to support interoperability. XAM features globally unique names for objects, metadata as a first class object, pluggable storage architecture, and a standard XAM storage provider interface....

13 of 115 | XForms 1.0 Third Edition Published as a W3C Recommendation - W3C has published "XForms 1.0 (Third Edition)" as a W3C Recommendation based upon positive feedback from W3C Members, software developers, and other interested parties. XForms is an XML application representing the next generation of forms for the Web. It splits traditional XHTML forms into three parts: XForms model, instance data, and user interface. The separation of presentation from content enhances reuse, strong typing, accessibility, and usability....

14 of 115 | Muradora GUI for Fedora Repository Uses SAML and XACML for Federated Identity - The DRAMA team at Macquarie University has released Muradora V1.0, described as a turnkey GUI for the Fedora Repository supporting federated identity and flexible access control. Key Muradora modules include Shibboleth (SAML) authentication for federated identity/single-sign-on, a Fedora authorization framework based on XACML, an extended XACML engine using DB XML for policy enforcement, and web service interfaces for XACML requests and responses....

15 of 115 | Major Revision of Massachusetts Enterprise Technical Reference Model (ETRM) - Massachusetts ITD announced a new major release of the Enterprise Technical Reference Model. ETRM Version 4.0 identifies four specification changes in the "Summary of Technology Specifications" table. Newly added specifications include "WS-I Basic Security Profile v1.0" and "Ecma 376: Office Open XML Formats (Open XML)". Specification updates are listed for OpenDocument v1.1 and XPath v2.0. A new Management Domain document covers Web Services and Systems....

16 of 115 | BPEL4People Specifications Integrate Human Interactions Into Business Process - Six technology vendors (Active Endpoints, Adobe, BEA Systems, IBM, Oracle, SAP AG) have announced the publication of "BPEL4People" specifications which define an approach for integrating human interactions such as concrete tasks and workflow using Web Services Business Process Execution Language 2.0. The 'WS-BPEL Extension for People (BPEL4People)' and 'Web Services Human Task (WS-HumanTask)' specifications will be contributed to OASIS for standardization....

17 of 115 | OGC Public Review for GeoXACML and OpenGIS Image Geopositioning Service (IGS) - The Open Geospatial Consortium announced a call for public comment on two draft OpenGIS Implementation Specifications: GeoXACML and OpenGIS Image Geopositioning Service (IGS). The GeoXACML policy language defines a geo-specific extension to OASIS standard "Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) Version 2.0." The IGS Draft is an OGC Web Service (OWS) that performs triangulation; it uses the new Image Geopositioning Metadata GML Application Schema....

18 of 115 | WS-ReliableMessaging Version 1.1 Submitted for Ballot as an OASIS Standard - "WS-ReliableMessaging V1.1" has been submitted for ballot as an OASIS Standard. Four years in development, WS-RM now has three parts. Core "WS-ReliableMessaging V1.1" defines a protocol for reliable message exchange even in the presence of network/system failures. "WS-ReliableMessaging Policy 1.1" defines a supporting XML policy language. "WS-MakeConnection" defines a protocol for 2-way communication when only a transport specific back-channel is available....

19 of 115 | First W3C Working Draft for Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0 - W3C has announced the publication of a First Public Working Draft the Mathematical Markup Language (MathML 3.0). The Working Group was re-chartered to enhance MathML to better support internationalization of mathematics, accessibility, semantic encoding of mathematics, Unicode alignment, and precise control of rendering for print publishing. MathML is an XML application for encoding both mathematical notation and semantic structure of mathematical content....

20 of 115 | UN/CEFACT Releases XML Schema for Cross Industry Electronic Invoice (CII) - The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) announced the release of an International e-Invoice designed for use by the Steel, Automotive, or Electronic industries, as well as in the retail sector or Customs and other Government Authorities. The Cross Industry Invoice (CII) is an important accounting document having potential legal implications for sender and receiver. It supports EU VAT declaration and reclamation, and statistics declaration....

21 of 115 | W3C Publishes Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Version 1.0 as Recommendation - W3C has released "Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Version 1.0" as a Recommendation, supporting internationalized XML content. ITS identifies concepts such as directionality important for I18N and L10N; it also defines implementations of these concepts as sets of elements and attributes to enable internationalization of existing XML documents without modifying them. Implementations are given for three schema languages: XML DTD, XML Schema, and RELAX NG....

22 of 115 | WS-I Basic Security Profile Version 1.0 Published as Final Material - The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) announced the release of "Basic Security Profile V1.0" as Final Material. The Profile consists of a set of non-proprietary Web services specifications, along with clarifications to and amplifications of those specifications which promote interoperability. Publication of BSP 1.0 has been praised by Web Services security experts as a key technology enabler to enhance interoperability and improve security....

23 of 115 | Member Submission of Service Modeling Language (SML) Specification to W3C - W3C has acknowledged receipt of a Member Submission for the Service Modeling Language (SML) specification. SML, with its SML Interchange Format (SML-IF), enables modeling of complex IT services and systems, including structure, constraints, policies, and best practices. Rules and constraints are expressed using W3C XML Schema, Schematron grammars, and XPath 1.0. SML's authors include BEA, CA, Cisco, EMC, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems....

24 of 115 | DMTF Desktop and Mobile Architecture for System Hardware (DASH) Initiative - The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) announced a new DASH Initiative (Desktop and Mobile Architecture for System Hardware) designed to produce a suite of specifications leveraging Web Services for Management (WS-Management). One of several DMTF Management Initiatives, DASH provides a comprehensive framework for syntax and semantics necessary to manage desktop and mobile client systems, independent of machine state, operating platform, or vendor....

25 of 115 | Open SOA Collaboration Vendors Advance SCA and SDO Specs for Standardization - The OSOA Collaboration represented by eighteen leading technology vendors announced that key Service Component Architecture (SCA) and Service Data Objects (SDO) Final Specifications have completed incubation and will be submitted to OASIS and the Java Community Process (JCP) for standardization. SCA provides an executable model for composition of individual service components into a service network. SDO supports format-independent handling of business data....

26 of 115 | Proposed Charter: OASIS Web Services Federation (WSFED) Technical Committee - OASIS acknowledged receipt of a draft TC charter proposal to create a Web Services Federation (WSFED) Technical Committee. The TC would accept as input the "WS-Federation" specification (Version 1.1) published by BEA Systems, BMC Software, CA, IBM, Layer 7 Technologies, Microsoft, Novell, and VeriSign. The revised "WS-Federation" v1.2 would extend basic federation capabilities enabled by WS-Security, WS-SecureConversation, WS-Trust, and WS-SecurityPolicy....

27 of 115 | Microsoft's Open Specification Promise Eases Web Services Patent Concerns - Microsoft has announced a broad irrevocable declaration promising not to assert Microsoft patent claims against anyone developing or distributing implementations for key Web Services specifications. The "Microsoft Open Specification Promise" applies individually to each of thirty-five (35) Covered Specifications, including many being developed at OASIS, W3C, WS-I, and elsewhere. The OSP addresses several concerns voiced by open-source software developers....

28 of 115 | WS-Transfer, WS-Eventing, and WS-Enumeration Specifications Submitted to W3C - Concurrent with the release of a White Paper "Toward Converging Web Service Standards for Resources, Events, and Management" by HP, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft, W3C has acknowledged receipt of three related WS-* specifications as Member Submissions. The roadmap outlines planned development and support for WS-Transfer Addendum, WS-ResourceTransfer, WS-EventNotification, a new common Web services management specification, and updating of WS-MetadataExchange....

29 of 115 | U.S. Federal Enterprise Architecture Data Reference Model (DRM) Version 2.0 - The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has released the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) Data Reference Model (DRM) Final Version 2.0. The FEA DRM framework is designed to enable information sharing and reuse across the federal government via standard description and discovery of common data, and the promotion of uniform data management practices. An updated draft DRM XML Schema and sample XML instance document have been posted for inspection....

30 of 115 | IT Vendors Promote Service Component Architecture (SCA) - Several vendors have announced a broad industry effort to develop specifications and resulting collaborative technologies that simplify how organizations create and implement applications in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). The Service Component Architecture (SCA) aims to simplify the development of creating business services; the companion Service Data Objects (SDO) specification provides for accessing data residing in multiple locations and formats....

31 of 115 | Business Rules and Web Architecture: W3C Creates Rule Interchange Format WG - W3C announced the formation of a Rule Interchange Format (RIF) Working Group to specify a standard means for exchanging rules on the Web so they can be used across diverse systems. This format/language will function as an interlingua into which established and new rule languages can be mapped, allowing rules written for one application to be published, shared, and re-used in other applications and other rule engines. Work is chartered through November 2007....

32 of 115 | IBM Submits Web Services Polling (WS-Polling) Specification to W3C - W3C has published a Member Submission from IBM presenting the "Web Services Polling (WS-Polling)" specification. WS-Polling defines a mechanism to deliver messages destined to an unreachable endpoint by allowing the destination to `poll` the source for messages targeted for it. WS-Polling belongs to the WS-* Composable Architecture which uses the XML, SOAP, and WSDL extensibility models. One of the use cases is asynchronous message delivery with firewalls....

33 of 115 | Free OpenOffice.org 2.0 Office Suite Supports OASIS OpenDocument Format - OpenOffice.org Version 2.0 has been released as a multiplatform and multilingual office suite which provides support for OASIS OpenDocument format, standardized in April 2005. The OpenOffice.org Project is an open source community dedicated to building a leading international office suite which is entirely free, will run on all major platforms, and provides access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format....

34 of 115 | First Release of the U.S. National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and their associated domains have announced a first release of the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM). Based upon the GJXDM, NIEM establishes a single standard XML foundation for exchanging information between DHS, DOJ, and supporting domains such as Justice, Emergency Management, and Intelligence. NIEM 0.1 contains 54 XML schemas and a Component Mapping Template....

35 of 115 | IBM and SAP AG Release WS-BPEL Extension for Sub-Processes (BPEL-SPE) - A technical white paper "WS-BPEL Extension for Sub-Processes: BPEL-SPE" published by IBM and SAP proposes an extension to WS-BPEL that allows for the definition of sub-processes that can be reused within the same or across multiple WS-BPEL processes. A formal language specification defining the precise syntax and semantics of the BPEL-SPE extension is planned for later release. WS-BPEL v2.0 defines a model for web services composition through aggregation....

36 of 115 | OASIS Members Form Web Services Transaction (WS-TX) Technical Committee - A new OASIS Technical Committee has been chartered to define a set of protocols to coordinate the outcomes of distributed application actions. The OASIS Web Services Transaction (WS-TX) TC will continue work on technologies now represented by the Web Services Transactions Specifications published by Arjuna, BEA, Hitachi, IBM, IONA, and Microsoft. These include the August 2005 versions of WS-Coordination, WS-AtomicTransaction, and WS-BusinessActivity....

37 of 115 | WS-Management Specifications Submitted to DMTF for Standardization - Microsoft and eleven industry partners have submitted the Web Services for Management (WS-Management) specification (V1, Edition 3) to DMTF for further refinement and finalization as a Web services-based management standard. WS-Management describes a general SOAP-based protocol for managing systems such as PCs, servers, devices, Web services, and other manageable entities. The Catalog describes default metadata formats used with the WS-Management Protocol....

38 of 115 | OASIS Standardizes Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) Specifications - The OASIS Emergency Management TC has advanced two specifications toward standardization, and commences work on a third XML-related standard for messaging within the Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) suite. CAP v1.1 defines a simple/general format for exchanging all-hazard emergency alerts and public warnings over any network. EDXL Distribution Element standardizes a message distribution framework for data sharing across emergency information systems....

39 of 115 | IBM and SAP AG Propose WS-BPEL Extension for People (BPEL4People) - An initial informal specification describing a proposed extension to the Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL) has been released by IBM and SAP AG in the form of a while paper "WS-BPEL Extension for People -- BPEL4People." The paper describes business scenarios where users are involved in business processes and defines extensions to WS-BPEL to address these. A formal specification defining BPEL4People syntax and semantics will follow....

40 of 115 | DITA Open Toolkit 1.1: A Reference Implementation for OASIS DITA 1.0 - The open source DITA Open Toolkit being developed at SourceForge.Net has been released as a major upgrade in Version 1.1. The DITA Open Toolkit application transforms XML-based DITA content (maps and topics) into deliverable formats including XHTML, Eclipse Help, HTML Help, and JavaHelp. The highlight of the V1.1 release is adaptation of Toolkit code to provide reference implementation support for OASIS DITA 1.0, approved as an OASIS Standard in April 2005....

41 of 115 | Initiatives Ramp Up Work on XML Naming and Design Rules Specifications - Several industry and government initiatives are now gaining momentum in related efforts to create formal rules/guidelines for naming XML components: XML namespace names, types, elements, attributes, code list enumerations, domain models, etc. The naming specifications are aimed optimizing semantic interoperability, modularity, extensibility, maintainability, and data element re-use through best-practice design of XML Schemas and related business components....

42 of 115 | Business Narrative Markup Language (BNML) Proposed for eContracts - Members of the OASIS LegalXML eContracts Technical Committee are considering approval of Elkera`s Business Narrative Markup Language (BNML) as a host schema to serve as a base structural markup language for eContract documents. BNML, currently defined in RELAX NG Compact syntax, is a general purpose XML Schema capable of marking up most technical, legal and business narrative documents. BNML uses just a few markup elements and recursive authoring patterns....

43 of 115 | OASIS Members Form SOA Adoption Blueprints Technical Committee - A Call for Participation has been issued for a new OASIS Service-Oriented Architecture Adoption Blueprints Technical Committee. The TC will continue work begun within the SOA Blueprints Initiative, originally founded by The Middleware Company and BEA Systems. The group is chartered to develop, circulate, maintain, and update a set of example business profiles ("adoption blueprints") which illustrate the practical deployment of services using SOA methods....

44 of 115 | IETF Atom Syndication Format Specification Declared Ready for Implementation - The IETF has released "The Atom Syndication Format" version -10 with a notice from the Atom Publishing Format and Protocol WG Co-Chairs that the specification now provides an appropriate basis for implementation of Atom 1.0. Designed to improve upon RSS, Atom is an XML-based Web content and metadata syndication format that defines "feeds" and "entries" for the syndicated publication of content like Weblogs and news headlines to Web sites and to user agents....

45 of 115 | Microsoft and IBM Announce Submission of Security Specifications to OASIS - A revised "Web Services Security Policy Language (WS-SecurityPolicy)" specification defining security policy assertions for the WS-Policy framework has been released by IBM, Microsoft, RSA Security, and VeriSign. IBM and Microsoft also announced that WS-SecurityPolicy, along with "Web Services Trust Language (WS-Trust)" and "Web Services Secure Conversation Language (WS-SecureConversation)", will be submitted to OASIS for standardization in September 2005....

46 of 115 | Final Release of the Java XML Digital Signature API Specification (JSR 105) - Developers from Sun, IBM, and other companies have announced a final release of "Java XML Digital Signature API Specification (JSR 105)" Version 1.0, produced under the Java Community Process (JCP). The purpose of this JSR is to define a standard Java API for generating and validating XML signatures. The APIs implement W3C`s "XML-Signature Syntax and Processing" Recommendation, as well as "XML-Signature XPath Filter 2.0" and "Exclusive XML Canonicalization."...

47 of 115 | OGC Releases GML Simple Features Profile Specification for Review - The Open Geospatial Consortium invites public review of a new "GML Simple Features Profile" specification. OGC`s Geography Markup Language, now being published as ISO/IEC 19136, defines an XML grammar written in XML Schema for the modelling, transport, and storage of geographic information. The Profile defines a GML subset of schema encoding rules that allows simple features such as points, lines, and polygons to be described using GML application schemas....

48 of 115 | W3C Publishes XML Key Management Specification (XKMS) 2.0 Recommendation - The XML Key Management Specification V2.0 has completed interoperability testing and has been approved as a W3C Recommendation. XKMS joins the XML Signature, XML Encryption, and Canonical XML Recommendations as part of W3C`s XML Security Framework. XKMS defines functionality essential for Web Services Security, as many Web applications rely upon management and processing of public keys in order to sign, seal, encrypt, and exchange electronic documents....

49 of 115 | U.S. Interagency FEA DRM Working Group Releases Updated XML Schema - As part of an ongoing revision of the Data Reference Model (DRM) for the U.S. Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA), the DRM Working Group has issued a new DRM XML Schema for public review. The revised W3C XML Schema for the FEA DRM serves as an abstract metamodel for the DRM, representing all three of the DRM`s major standardization areas (categorization of data, exchange of data, structure of data). DRM is one of five interrelated FEA reference models....

50 of 115 | DERI Announces Submission of Web Services Modeling Ontology (WSMO) to W3C - The Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI), a leading European research institute in the field of Semantic Web and Semantic Web services technology, has announced the submission of its Web Services Modeling Ontology (WSMO) to W3C. WSMO provides a conceptual framework and a formal language for semantically describing all relevant aspects of Web services to facilitate the automation of discovering, combining and invoking electronic services over the Web....