Glossary for WSBPEL??

Title: Message

Dear 
Colleagues,

 

On the use case 
sub-group teleconference yesterday we stumbled across the issue of the need to 
define certain terms for our use.

 

Our desire in the 
use case group would be to use terms generally recognised in business in the Use 
Case document - rather than BPEL specific terms.  Unfortunately our 
suspicion is that this may depend on which person you ask and which industry 
they are in.

 

We therefore felt it 
necessary to specify certain terms so that we can use that language in the Use 
Case document, and attempt to use it consistently.  We noted that terms are 
used in the current 1.1 specification and specified in line explicitly or 
implicitly, but there is no Glossary / Definition of Key Terms chapter or 
Appendix.  We feel that such should exist and be maintained at the group 
level so that we all try to use terms consistently in our work, whether as part 
of the main group or any of the sub-groups.

 

I was actioned to 
make you all aware of this.  The Use Case sub-group is willing to initiate 
work on a Glossary / Definition of Key Terms  and leave it to the chairs / 
the main group to decide how and when to transition the work into the main 
group.

 

Please send 
suggestions for business terms, and their definitions, that we do already use or 
you think we may need to use in any of our documents to myself (  ) and Monica Martin ()

 

Please reply 
directly to this message if for some reason you think that this is not a good 
idea.

 

Some terms can be 
defined so that they overlap with others and part of the work overall will be to 
agree the set of terms that we will use while recognising others as synonyms or 
very similar terms (for instance 'party' and 'partner' ?).

 

The sort of terms 
that we were thinking of include (note these are examples generated by Tony for 
the purpose of this message - they are not the considered opinion of the use 
case group):

 

Party, 
Partner, Role, Transaction, Business Process, executable process, 
abstract process, enterprise, business protocol, cancel (cancellation), confirm 
(confirmation), compensate (compensation). activity, and many 
others.

 

We only need to 
define terms that we use in one, or more, of our documents, and where the common 
usage of the term is not sufficiently well known, or inadequate or not quite 
what we mean.

 

Other groups have 
also embarked on a similar exercise (e.g. UN/CEFACT and W3C 
WS-Choreography).  Could we / should we  make use of their terms and 
definitions (for saves effort and re-invention, against copyright 
problems).

 

Does anyone know of 
a publicly and readily available 'dictionary' of business terminology or 
any thing like that, that we could reference and make use of (and thus only need 
to have our own definition when the given one does not fit for our 
purpose.

 

I think it would be 
wise for the use case group to now await initial responses before going any 
further - maybe take up this work in earnest after the face to face meeting - if 
it is still deemed appropriate.

 

Best 
Regards,

Tony                           

  
  

    
      

    
      
Tony 
      Fletcher

      
Technical 
      Advisor 
      
Choreology 
      Ltd.
68, Lombard Street, London EC3V 9L J  
       UK

  

    
      
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