Re: UNSPSC - and code lists in general

[David RR Webber <Gnosis_@compuserve.com>]

Message text written by "Martin Bryan"
>There is no "one secretariat"! Lets be realistic here for a change.
Different code sets need to have different "owners". Some code sets clearly
need internationalization within the ebXML initiative (e.g. code sets
identifying code set defining agencies!): some are clearly already fully
internationalized and the existing registration bodies should not be
changed (e.g. 3166 country codes, 4137 currency codes, 31 SI measurement
units, etc) when someone creates an XML representation of the code set;
some are clearly national in scope, and need to be handled by national
standardization bodies (e.g. postcodes); others are the responsibility of
well respected organizations and businesses (e.g. EAN and Dun & Bradsheet)
and will need to be made available by them in an XML-compatible format,
while yet others are company specific and should clearly remain the
responsibility of one of the partners of a transaction.

Now which set of code sets are you thinking in terms of? You started
talking specifically about UNSPC and then went on to generalize this. If
what you are talking about is simply the classification of Standard
Products and Services into Segment, Family, Class, and Commodity then
clearly this remains the domain of the UN. However, if we are talking about
the use of a classification scheme such as this as the basis for
identifying the business segments that ebXML will use to differentiate
markets, players, etc, then clearly this is not enough. At present the Core
Components team has a list of 10 possible classification areas, though some
of us expect this to drop to between 6 and 8 factors in the final analysis.
We have been looking at the categorizations used by the European
Commission's Statistics office, which extend those used by UNSPC, but even
these need some extension. This is an area that needs to be discussed in
San Jose next month as part of the process of harmonizing the business
process and core co
mponents models within ebXML.

Martin Bryan

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Martin,

Excellent.  I'll relax now I know that the ball is really in play.  I'm not
trying to mix apples and
oranges and confuse people - its that 20:20 hind sight - I've internallized
this too much and
needed to get some external input.

Give the good start you've all been making we probably just need to have a
line item over
in ebXML-coord to desimminate this into the other WG groups?   That should
handle the 
internal side.   I was just using UN/SPSC codes as a example, clearly as
you note there's
two classes of these - general codes and specific vertical codes.  At this
point all I'm chiefly
looking for is a central location that people can reference.  Clearly the
xml.org site can act
in this role - a clearing house.

Anyway - I'm glad I raised the issue and furthered the understanding here. 
I look forward to
discussing more in San Jose next month - and then probably reporting back
on outcomes
within ebXML at least.

BTW - what is CEN/ISSS doing on this, if anything?

Thanks, DW.