Minutes of UBL TC meeting 16 August 2006

UBL TC MINUTES FOR WEDNESDAY 16 AUGUST 2006

Members attending the Montr�al meeting in person:

Jon Bosak (chair)

Mikkel Brun

Mavis Cournane

Mike Grimley

G. Ken Holman

Andy Schoka

Paul Thorpe

Observer attending in person:

Christian Lanng

Members attending by phone:

Tim McGrath (vice chair)

Peter Borresen

Issue review

As in Tuesday's meeting, TM recorded all the dispositions in

the issues spreadsheet, flagging the ones that are candidates

for revision if we do another public review.

AGREED to put the instance rules (former IND1-IND7) in a new

Section 7 of the UBL spec.

ACTION: NDR editors to create a first draft for this section.

ACTION: TM to pass on PSC/TSC issues for ratification by them

next week.

TM: Note that we may need to convene a special TC meeting

toward the end of next week to finally resolve these things.

JB: Issues possibly requiring an unavoidable substantive change

to the spec: 11 and 15.

TM: Plus many others that could be included in another public

review if we're forced to have one.

JB: How critical would another month's delay be to our user

community?  Note that we will have a CS earlier than an OASIS

Standard.

PB: Will check on this.

MG/MC: There are too many small issues outstanding to feel

comfortable with approving the spec in its present form.  We

won't vote no but will strongly object to its release.

UN/CEFACT status

TM referred to his report posted at

http://www.oasis-open.org/archives/ubl/200608/msg00047.html

Key points of the discussion:

- Recent mail on the UBL TC list raises questions about the

objective of collaboration.  Is it convergence or

assimilation?  We understand it to mean convergence, that

is, the creation of a common solution incorporating the best

technical thinking, regardless of positions previously taken

in each organization and its impact on each organization's

current technical direction.

- Invitations such as the one recently received from ATG2 are

welcome.  Unfortunately, we were given too little notice for

our members to attend face-to-face.  It was noted that

engagement needs to be recognized as one of the tasks

identified in the "Summary of the agreed current activities

and next steps" agreed with CEFACT management. We should

take this opportunity to establish a clear plan for

convergence with ATG2 on a single set of NDRs.

Conclusion: To enable UBL to commit adequate resources to this

effort, we would like develop a formal statement of intention

to back up the collaboration agreement and project plans. The

principles of this should be along the lines of:

- The discussions are to be open to all ideas from both

parties.

- The objective is to develop the best possible common

solution without regard for the positions previously taken

in either community.

ACTION: TM to discuss these issues with Mark Palmer.

AGREED that TM will represent UBL in moving forward with the

UN/CEFACT relationship.

ACTION: UBL TC chairs and UBL NDR editors to create a response

to the ATG2 invitation following determination of our 2007

meeting schedule.

UBL adoption in Denmark

We took advantage of their presence at the meeting to ask MB

and CL about their presentation earlier this week in the B2B

eCommerce track of the ICEC '06 conference in Fredericton.

They will also be presenting at the December XML 2006

conference in Boston.  Two interesting tidbits:

- After one year of implementation, UBL penetration in Denmark

equals the level it took EDI 18 years to achieve

- The Danish government intends to use UBL as the basis for a

national B2B program that is projected to save businesses in

Denmark 550 to 700 million euros annually when fully

implemented

Jon Bosak
Chair, OASIS UBL TC