Re: Notation to support BPSS

[Todd Boyle <tboyle@rosehill.net>]

Tony Blazej, Director of Industry Programs, OAGI wrote, 

   Even though the semantic of the specification suit the needs of the
   project, we feel that lack of a standard (or de facto) notation is a
   major show stopper for us as we need to communicate the way
   collaborations operate to both business analysts and technical users.
   Relying on an XML document to solely communicate the details of the
   collaboration is far too limiting.

   In the absence of a standard, the OAGI and STAR/XML are planning to use
   the notation proposed by Jean-Jacques Dubray. However, we would prefer
   to use a "consensus" notation if we can converge on one quickly.

   Would this working group be interested in tackling this problem? If so
   can we agree on a time table?

Hi Tony, 

I would appreciate any comments you may have on ISO 10746 RM/ODP 
http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml-bp/200107/msg00049.html

The ISO/IEC ITU work looks good to me.
ftp://ftp.omg.org/pub/docs/ISO-stds/01-01-01.pdf

The ISO 10746-3 contains definitions and framework supporting the
enterprise viewpoint and "enterprise language".  It can be found at
http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/cs?cs=1&q=10746

For ecommerce to succeed, it must bring 10,000's of developers and 
implementers up to speed simultaneously, on the same sheet of music.

It seems to me the EWG BP project should use the same terminology as 
other work going on in IT.   These other international groups have 
gone to so much work agreeing on a glossary and framework.  Below 
are examples of terms from ISO/IEC 15414 draft sep.2000 - you see 
they overlap substantially with what is in BP. 

I also can admit to making many interesting conceptual errors such 
as the subject/object context, that can be very confusing in describing 
BP interactions.  These errors creep into the naming and phrasing 
within a specification.  We are finding that the framework in ISO 15414 
draft is very helpful to reduce these errors and ambiguity.  This
ISO stuff is good. 

I am just a new user of RM/ODP but I am baffled, why EWG BP needs a 
different glossary from ISO/IEC ITU.   I think the RM/ODP enterprise 
language covers the Business Process territory.  If there is some conflict,
then the EWG and ISO should go into a room someplace and sort out 
the problem.  Below are some of the terms which are defined normatively
in the enterprise language. I don't want to learn two languages especially
if they conflict.

My understanding is OMG's EDOC is presented with RM-ODP viewpoints,
which suggests its continuing currency and usefulness.

Todd  

www.netaccount.com
www.arapxml.net

...here are some terms in RM/ODP enterprise language.

<X> domain
<X> federation
<X> template
act
action
activity
activity structure
actor
actor role
agent
artefact
artefact role
authorisation
authority
behaviour
c-object
commitment
community
composite object
composition
computational interface
configuration (of objects)
conformance
conformance point
contract
contracting party
declaration
delegate
delegation
dynamic schema
entity
environment (of an object)
environment contract
epoch
establishing behaviour
incremental modification
instance (of a type)
instantiation (of a template)
interface
interface role
internal action
interworking reference point
invariant
invariant schema
liaison
location in space
location in time
machine
object
objective (of an <X>)
obligation
ODP standards
ODP system
owner (of an <X>)
party
perceptual reference point
permission
policy
postcondition
precondition
prescription
principal
process
programmatic refrnce point
prohibition
proposition
purpose (of a system)
purposeful selection
quality of service
reference point
refinement
resource
resource role
responding object
role
rule
s-community
scope
state (of an object)
static schema
step
subtype
system
template
type
type (of an <X>)
valuation
viewpoint (on a system)
violation
- action
- behaviour (of an object)
- composite object
- composition
- configuration (of objects)
- conformance
- conformance point
- contract
- <X> domain
- entity
- environment contract
- environment (of an object)
- epoch
- establishing behaviour
- incremental modification
- instance (of a type)
- instantiation (of a template)
- interface
- internal action
- interworking reference point
- invariant
- liaison
- location in space
- location in time
- object
- obligation
- ODP standards
- ODP system
- perceptual reference point
- permission
- policy
- postcondition
- precondition
- programmatic reference point
- prohibition
- proposition
- quality of service
- reference point
- refinement
- responding object
- role
- state (of an object)
- subtype
- system
- <X> template
- terminating behaviour
- type (of an <X>)
- viewpoint (on a system)