Re: BSR - the Basic Semantic Register

["William J. Kammerer" <wkammerer@foresightcorp.com>]

Martin Bryan was glad that I not only enjoyed his paper, but that I also
found it despite his typo in the URL.  Martin may rest assured that I
regard his site - The SGML Centre - as one of my favorites and have
bookmarked http://www.sgml.u-net.com/, whence I found the paper via the
"Helpful Papers" link.

But Martin asks "If BSR is only available to paying customers should
ebXML adopt it as its base?"  The BSR standard does seem pricey at
around $70, but it would probably only be needed by ebXML software
developers, if at all.

Actually, the standard itself, ISO/TS 16668:2000 Basic Semantics
Register (BSR)  - Rules, Guidelines and Methodology, just describes the
process for building the names, which Martin has probably already
figured out.  The valuable part is the Proposed BSR content, including
the Semantic components and the Semantic Units, freely available at
http://forum.afnor.fr/afnor/WORK/AFNOR/GPN2/TC154WG1/. Also check out
the stuff at the BSR Consortium, at http://www.ubsr.org/.

All the ISO standards cost money, but that hasn't kept us from using
others, like ISO/IEC 11179 Specification and standardization of data
elements,  ISO 8601:1988  Representations of dates and times, ISO 3166
Country Codes, ISO 6093:1985 Representation of numerical values in
character strings, ISO 5218:1977 Representation of Human Sexes, ISO
639-2 language code, and ISO 4217 3-Letter Alphabetic Currency Code.
We've talked about these enough in the past - and most of the coded
lists are free at their respective Registration Authorities.  To find
some of them, go to http://www.foresightcorp.com/, and click on
"Resources," then "Code Lists" for a list of External Code Lists used in
EDI.

Even EDIFACT relies on ISO 9735 for describing its syntax and control
structures.  And the ISO 6523 ICDs, which I've talked about in TR&P, are
free.  As are the S.W.I.F.T. BICs, based on the ISO 9362 Bank Identifier
Code.

If the standard is not free, usually the important things we want
are: the codes and their formats.  Never pay retail.

William J. Kammerer
FORESIGHT Corp.
4950 Blazer Memorial Pkwy.
Dublin, OH USA 43017-3305
+1 614 791-1600

Visit FORESIGHT Corp. at http://www.foresightcorp.com/
"Commerce for a New World"