Requirements from Bob Miller

[Mike Rawlins <rawlins@metronet.com>]

Here are some requirements submitted by Bob Miller, who is project
leader for the Architecture team and chair of X12C.

Mike

--
Michael C. Rawlins, Rawlins EDI Consulting
http://www.metronet.com/~rawlins/

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• From: "Miller, Robert (GEIS)" <Robert.Miller@geis.ge.com>
• To: rawlins@metronet.com
• Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2000 12:06:35 -0500

Mike,

As your team addresses ebXML requirements, please give some thought to the
following:

Legal Requirements

*	In X12/EDIFACT, the version/release identifier references published
standards, and the semantic meaning of the conveyed information is defined
by those standards.  In XML, the version/release identifier may reference a
'point in time' semantic definition (e.g., a DTD) that is not published and
might not be capable of reconstruction at a later date.  Also, in an
X12/EDIFACT based system, the semantic interpretation of the transmitted
data is pre-defined by the referenced standard (as for example by a built-in
EDI translator table).  In an XML-based system, the semantic interpretation
of the transmitted data is not pre-defined, but rather is based upon the
behind-the-scene (and probably unsigned) transmission of the metadata.  From
a business/legal viewpoint, what constraints need we place on the XML based
system with respect to metadata?
			One possible solution to the metadata problem might
be to include a hash of the metadata along with the reference to it, and
place the responsibility of verifying the metadata hash and retaining a copy
of it for legal disputes upon the concerned parties.
*	In X12/EDIFACT, the facilities for signing/encrypting documents are
quite extensive (e.g., signature over signature), whereas existing work with
XML/EDI has only supported communication layer signatures/encryption.  From
a business/legal viewpoint, what are the security/privacy requirements?
			The expedient thing to do would be to accept the
communications level solution for now, but is it adequate for now?
*	In X12/EDIFACT, detailed metadata is associated with every
transmitted data field.  XML does not require that transmitted data be
associated with detailed metadata.  What are the business/legal metadata
requirements?  Must all transmitted data be defined by (some well-defined
minimal set of)metadata?  Are there 'completeness' requirements for
documents?   Are there value range requirements, Etc?

Interoperability Requirements (among disparate XML-capable systems)

*	Some business advice on this topic beyond 'must support
interoperability' is needed  (E.g., the scope of interoperability; upon
which party or parties does responsibility lie for achieving
interoperability; acceptability of non-XML based solutions)  
*	Scope might include some existing XML/EDI applications, such as a
RosettaNet application; some existing XML capable non-EDI applications, such
as ORACLE-based application products.   ebXML conformance could be defined
such that both a RosettaNet application and an X12 Technical Report  based
application were implicitly ebXML conformant, or ebXML could be defined such
that neither was conformant, but each could be transformed by some XML-based
process to be ebXML conformant and so to be interoperable.
*	Responsibility might be defined as the responsibility of the ebXML
non-conformant party (my recommendation) to provide an XML-based process to
convert between a non-conformant XML application format and an ebXML
conformant XML application format, or responsibility might simply be to
provide sufficient metadata information to support an algorithmic
conversion. 
*	Non-XML based systems (e.g., a hard-coded  application specific
translator) might or might not (my recommendation) be tolerated in an ebXML
conformant interoperable system.    


  Bob Miller
    615-371-6037

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