ebXML Minutes 010700 - Word 6.0 & Text

["Warner, Thomas" <thomas.warner@boeing.com>]

Mike, et al
I have not seen these get posted on the list serve this week so I'm
e-mailing them now.

>  <<ebxml-ReqGrp-Telcon-010700.doc>>    <<ebxml-ReqGrp-Telcon-010700.txt>> 
Need to confirm whether Ravi Kacker was on the call?

> Tom Warner
> Manager, Electronic Commerce Initiatives
> Integrated Digital Environment Program
> Aircraft and Missiles Systems
> The Boeing Company
> (T) 314-232-0615
> (F) 314-777-1704
> e-mail: thomas.warner@boeing.com
>

ebxml-ReqGrp-Telcon-010700.doc

01/07/00
UN/CEFACT -OASIS ebXML
ebXML Requirements Group
Teleconference 01/07/00
Summary Report 

Chair:    Mike Rawlins (972) 783-9573
Secty:   Tom Warner  (314) 232-0615
Editor :  Mark Crawford (703) 917-7177

Attendees / Members:                e-mail            Attended 1/7/00
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Rawlins, Team Leader     rawlins@metronet.com           Y
Tom Warner,   Secretary       thomas.warner@boeing.com       Y
Mark Crawford,(Editor)        mcrawford@lmi.org              Y 
Jon Bosak              	      bosak@eng.sun.com              Y                  
Tim Cochran                   tcochran@disa.org              Y                    
Turochas Fuad                 turochas.fuad@sun.com          Y              
Kenji Itoh                	kenji41@attglobal.net                                
Scott Hinkelman               srh@us.ibm.com                 Y                   
Doug Hopeman                 	hopeman@xmls.com               Y               
Ravi Kacker				rkacker@kraft.com              ?                    
Jean Kubler                   jean.kubler@unece.org                             
Kim Lambert                   klambert@air-transport.org                      
Kit Lueder                    kit@mitre.org                  Y                         
Murray Maloney				?
Marcia McLure			marcia.mclure@mmiec.com                    
Norbert Mikula			norbert@datachannel.com        Y              
Garret Minakawa               gminakaw@us.oracle.com         Y             
Dwayne Nickull 				?
Kathleen Tyson-Quah           jtq@granularity.co.uk                               
Don Rudie                     rudied@dnb.com                 Y                    
David Webber                  drrwebber@acm.org              Y                 

Agenda :
1)    Roll call, introduction of new participants
2)    Approval of Agenda
3)    Approval, corrections to minutes from previous meetings
4)    Review proposed work plan
5)    Pending approval of work plan, begin discussion of issues list
6)    Schedule next call (we need a sponsor for the next call)

Meeting Minutes Summary: 
* New members Intro: Turochas Fuad, Scott Hinkelman and David Webber 
* Agenda Approved - Don R. asked that Mike include any other work group 
input/reports that he has.
* Minutes Approved -  from San Jose and last Teleconference without correction

* Jon B announced that SUN will host the remainder of the Requirements Group 
* Teleconferences. He introduced Turochas Fuad, who sat in for him. [Turochas 
will now replace Jon as Sun's representative to our project team]

 
* Web Site Logistics:  Mike announced that OASIS is moving to a new web site and 
wants to wait until completed (by 1/17) [date added by Mike after the 
meeting]until providing a web page for posting Work Group Documents 
(contributions, minutes, specs, etc.)   Expect the site to 
have some public access and some for work group only. 

* Mike R. - Sent a request to all ebXML Work Group chairs requesting their 
Requirements Input.  Have gotten some to date but still awaiting others.  Our 
group will have to review and incorporate in our work.

* Dave W. - Requested that Mike R. inquire about effort to get a new ebXML logo
* Mike R. - Will raise question at new ebXML Steering Team meeting (1st 
teleconference 1/13/00) 

* Mike R. - Review of Proposed Work Plan:
- Thought that it might help to clarify what is and is not in the requirements
- Requirements in a Software Engineering circles are used as a "blue print" and 
a "guideline".  They are also used as a "contract" for defining:  "what you are 
going to do", "what you are about", and "how you interact". 
- Requirements need concise descriptive bullets
- Normative sections need to be imperative  (use the word "shall) with some 
context added.
- The Member Requirements Opinion Papers should be an appendix to our 
Requirements Document
- Don R. - Agreed that member opinions are good for level setting and should be 
retained.
- Dave W. - Agreed - opinions help define reason for using ebXML (business case)
- Mike R. - Will add (opinion paper) to the work plan.  Everyone should insure 
that they add their Requirements Opinion paper to the Listserve ASAP.

* Mike R. - Group Working Method: 
- We will use the Listserve to do our Requirements work and resolve issues.  
Expect that issues focus on challenges to work or to scope.
- We will reserve the conference calls for resolving issues.
- Mike R. and Mark C to produce the (strawman) draft Requirements Spec for group 
refinement. 
- In Orlando we will go over the Requirements Spec and get group consensus by 
mid week (2/2). 

* Mike R. - Schedule Concerns:  If we are going to produce a usable Requirements 
Document we will have to have our project team finalize all work by mid week 
(2/2) of the Orlando Meeting.  We need to be able to give our documents to the 
other work groups soon after or we've missed our deadline (and the other work 
groups will proceed without it). 

* Garret M. - Issues:  We need to add an "Open Issues Section"
* Mike R. - good suggestion - the issues may end up being included in the body 
of the Requirements 
documents as well as in a "Open Issues" section or an appendix.  

* Tom W. - Suggested using a topic/category "stack" model, like contributed by 
Garret M. (on list serve), in order to keep the various requirement subjects 
separated for logical discussion.   Too much subject overlap in our discussions. 
* Mike R. - Suggested following his original proposed outline . 
* All - Agreed
 
* Mike R. - Review / Resolve the  Outstanding Issues: 
* Issue 1 - Conflict - Maximize interoperability with existing EDI 
implementations, or maximize interoperability between ebXML applications.
- Mike R. - Sees this as "semantics versus presentation" issue.  X12 and EDIFACT 
have the same basic semantics but different presentations.
- Don R. - Requirements view question - we might have a single set of 
X12/EDIFACT semantics.  Can we do it?
- Mike R. - The Core Components Work Group recognized this.  Their direction is 
that they want to identify a single set of semantics and presentation.  They 
envision handing off this single set to all organizations like X12 and EDIFACT 
and have them map their existing EDI (semantics) to it.
- Tom W. - Lessons learned - We have worked 10+ years to align X12 and EDIFACT 
and still cannot dictate a common semantic set.  How can we believe that XML 
will solve that problem.
- Tom W. - The Core Component Group is just doing what all the other XML 
consortiums are doing.  They are trying to develop the ultimate harmonized 
single set of semantics that will work across all industries and countries.  It 
cant be done from the top down.  They should just put XML angle brackets around 
the existing different flavors of EDI in order to get everyone XML enabled.  
Then work toward the single harmonized ebXML semantic set.
- Mark C. - agreed - we are just doing what all the "other" consortium groups 
are doing if we go down that path.
- David W. - think I agree - (missed verbiage about ability to add / combine 
meta data from other sources during this phase.  (i.e. UN Data Layout Key,  UDEF 
Code  or Biz Code, etc..)
* Mike R. - 1st Attempt to Summarize all the above:   To get maximum 
interoperability for existing EDI implementations we should employ a simple 
XML/EDI mechanical transformation (without a lot of effort to reengineer the 
semantics etc.)  Then we can build the "standard bridges" from this XML/EDI to 
the new ebXML.  This would give us the short term maximum interoperability.  Do 
we have agreement?
- Mark C.  - There is still a question of consensus - asked Mike to produce a 
short description of the 2-3 options / approaches discussed above and put it on 
the Listserve for group resolution.
- David W.  -  Would like to see an option of - for new stuff use this and for 
old stuff use that.  Still would like to use the old stuff (EDI) to pre-populate 
(the XML for ebXML).
- Mark C. - Wants interoperability with his XML environment first and then with 
EDI second.
- Don R. -  Wants to pre-fill (with XML EDI)  
- Tom W. - After looking at all member Opinion Papers, we all seem to focus on 4 
basic objectives / categories for all Requirement Details:  1) A short term 
(EDI?) solution versus long term (ebXML) solution.  2) Business Documents 
Content Semantics (one or multiple?).  3) Documents delivery and management 
mechanisms. 4) Organizational and support issues. 
- Mike R. - OK - lets put on the Listserve those 2 approaches to the 
interoperability issue / solution discussed here.  Then we can at least have a 
group strawman vote on it.
- Kit L. - Is still confused about "level of Interoperability".
- Mike R. -  Thinks he had put something about interoperability on the Listserve 
already, but would expect the different work groups to define their own level of 
interoperability. Its easier to correlate enveloping structures...
- David W. - Trade Association still want to maintain documents content 
ownership
- Mike R. - agreed - Industry groups will own the content but we are talking 
about presentation here.
- David and Mike went into a loop to rehash the above.  Again, Mike will put 
the 2-3 options/ approaches on the Listserve for resolution  
- The end of issue 1

* Issue 2 - Conflict - Maximize interoperability between ebXML applications, or 
maximize internationalization by supporting multi-lingual ebXML components?  If 
the latter, which languages?
- David W. -  This should not be an issue.  Everyone expect the 1st cut to be in 
English and then it will 
be convertible into any other language.  We need a mechanism to insure 
consistency and control.
- All - Agreed - Not an issue

* Issue 3 -  Scope - Should the ebXML guidelines apply to business to consumer, 
or only business to business?
- Don R. - Wants only B2B, but should be no difference between B2C and B2B
- David W.  - It's a fuzzy line between B2B and B2C but want a line there.
- Tom W - 2 kinds of XML business documents are "static" (not modified) and 
"dynamic" (modifiable).  These should be the same whether they B2C or B2B.  The 
dynamic form may involve some human (or J-script) interaction but nothing to 
make it drastically different.  We just do not want the e-bay like interactive 
solution.  B2B should be the primary objective and B2C is the secondary.
- Mark C.  - Suggested that Mike put this issue out on the Listserve for group 
resolution.
- All - Agreed

* Issue 4 -  Scope - Should the ebXML guidelines provide universally applicable 
cross industry document definitions?
- Mike R. - Think that the discussions today indicate that we feel that ebXML 
should not do this
- All -Agreed 

* Actions:-
- Mike R. - Will re-issue all issues on Listserve with updates from above.
- Garret M - We need to add a General Glossary.  (Secty suggests that members 
submit terms with or without definition to Tom  W. or Mark C for consolidation / 
review.)  Tom W. - asked Mike to provide definition of "presentation" as used 
here. 
- All  - Mike R asked members to put any new issues on the Listserve.
- Mike R.and Mark C. - Produce strawman Requiremetns Spec
- Mike - Check with Steering Committee about new ebXML logo

* Mike R - Closed meeting - No additional items - So closed with agreement on 
next teleconference info below

* Next Meetings:
- 1/13/2000 (Thursday) -  Next Teleconference: 
 Time: 9:30 - 11:00 AM PST
 Dial-In Number: (304) 345-7506 - Participant#: 349072
 Host: Turochas Fuad, eBiz Program Manager, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
 PH:  510 574-7427   FAX:  510 574-7524
- 1/31-2/4/00   -   Orlando  - Full ebXML Meeting 
- 5/08-12/00    -   Brussels - Full ebXML Meeting