OASIS Technical Work Status

1. Overview

The mission of OASIS is to promote and encourage the use of structured information standards such as XML, SGML, and CGM. An important part of this mission is the development of vertical industry applications, conformance tests, interoperability specifications, etc. that make those core standards useable and more useful. The XML standards developed under the auspices of W3C, for example, are made much more useful and valuable by the vertical applications and interoperability specifications created by OASIS. OASIS does not compete with, but rather builds upon and supplements the work done by other standards bodies. OASIS technical work includes such topics as:

• Vertical industry applications: Development of applications of XML or SGML, such as schemas/DTDs, name spaces, style sheets, etc. that may be used in specific vertical industries. OASIS provides a vendor-neutral home and an open, democratic process for this work; this gives all interested parties, regardless of their standing in a specific industry, an equal voice in the creation of this work.

• Interoperability: Development of specifications and standards that define how other standards will work together, or how earlier, non-XML standards can work in an XML world.

• Conformance testing: Development of test scenarios and cases that can determine what it means to conform to specific standards; e.g. what does it really mean to "be XML"? While specific vendors have produced sets of test cases, OASIS' conformance work is done in a vendor-neutral environment, and does not rely on any one vendor's software.

The OASIS TC Process ensures that all interested parties have the opportunity to participate in the standards development process; no interested organization individual is excluded or prevented from participation beyond the requirement of joining OASIS, where membership is also open to any interested party. Additionally, non-members may still participate in the TC process by reading the publicly-accessible TC discussion list archives and commenting on the public comment list.

OASIS has no agenda for technical work; the technical work done by OASIS TCs is determined by our members. Any group of OASIS members can request the formation of a TC as long as certain minimal requirements are met.

Within the TC itself voting is based on individuals: one person / one vote. After a TC has completed its work and submits a Committee Specification to the OASIS membership then each member organization has one vote towards the approval of that submission as an OASIS Standard.

At the time this paper was written OASIS TCs included the following:

1.1. Business Transactions TC

The goal of this TC is to develop an XML-based protocol for managing persistent, complex B2B transactions over the Internet. The OASIS Business Transactions TC is building an open specification for XML message interfaces to support the coordination and processing of Web services from different organizations. Initial work is based on the Business Transaction Protocol (BTP), submitted to OASIS by BEA Systems.

1.2. Customer Information Quality (CIQ) TC

The goal of this TC is to deliver XML standards for customer profile/information management. In the highly competitive world driven by the Internet, organizations must provide customers, vendors and potential employees with accurate, up-to-date, on-line information. This technical committee aims at delivering standards for managing critical customer profile information based on XML.

1.3. DocBook TC

The goal of this TC is to develop and maintain the DocBook DTD for computer documentation, technical manuals and books of all kinds. DocBook, one of the world's most widely used structured information applications, has been growing in popularity for more than a decade. In 1998, OASIS became the home for DocBook, and now this TC works both to enhance the application as an XML schema and an SGML DTD. DocBook V4.1 was recently certified by OASIS membership as an OASIS Standard.

1.4. Directory Services Markup Language (DSML)

The goal of this TC is to develop an XML specification for marking up directory services information. The OASIS DSML TC bridges the world of directory services with the world of XML. Participants work to enhance DSML, a specification initially created by Bowstreet, Netscape, IBM, Novell and others to provide a means of representing directory information in XML.

1.5. Entity Resolution TC

The goal of this TC is to develop an XML specification for handling catalog entities. The Entity Resolution TC updates the successful and widely implemented OASIS catalog mechanism that was originally developed for SGML, applying it as an XML specification.

1.6. Interoperability and Conformance TC

The goal of this TC is to provide guidelines for the interoperability and conformance of structured information standards. Members of the Interoperability and Conformance TC, all experts in the area of conformance testing, share conformance knowledge and experience with other OASIS TCs and with the public through discussions, white papers and guidance documents.

1.7. Regsitry & Repository TC

The goal of this TC is to create specifications for interoperable registries and repositories of XML entities. The OASIS Registry/Repository TC develops specifications based on ISO 11179 for storing and retrieving XML objects, including DTDs and schemas. The objective of this TC is to promote the proliferation of multiple registries and repositories that interoperate and cooperate with one another.

1.8. Security Serrvices TC

The goal of this TC is to advance a common XML security standard for exchanging authentication and authorization information. The OASIS Security Services TC defines an XML framework for sharing security information about transactions and end users between companies engaged in online B2B and B2B2C commerce. The TC unites the efforts of S2ML and AuthXML developers to identify a single security standard that will be accepted by the industry at-large.

1.9. TREX TC

The goal of this TC is to create a specification for an XML schema language based on the TREX proposal. The key features of TREX are that it is simple, easy to learn, uses XML syntax, does not change the information set of an XML document, supports XML namespaces, treats attributes uniformly with elements so far as possible, has unrestricted support for unordered content, has unrestricted support for mixed content, has a solid theoretical basis, and can partner with a separate datatyping language such W3C XML Schema Datatypes.

1.10. XML Conformance TC

The goal of this TC is to develop a suite of tests and associated documentation for determining how well products conform to the XML specification. The output of the OASIS XML Conformance TC can be used by both developers and users to identify whether a particular XML processor adheres to the XML 1.0 Recommendation. The TC provides a forum where XML vendors, content providers, and users can discuss matters pertinent to XML conformance and interoperability. Interpretation issues identified by the OASIS TC are communicated to the W3C XML Core Working Group for resolution.

1.11. XSLT Conformance TC

The goal of this TC is to collect, develop and document a suite of tests for XSLT and XPath processors. With major contributions from NIST and other companies, the OASIS XSLT Conformance TC establishes tests for measuring the conformance of processors to the W3C XSLT and XPath recommendations.

2. Get Involved

Details on all active OASIS TCs, as well as information on OASIS membership, can be found online at http://www.oasis-open.org. You may email specific questions or concerns to karl.best@oasis-open.org.

Design and Development by deepX Ltd.