The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) is a global consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of e-business and web service standards. The W3C defines a Web service[1] as a software system designed to support interoperable Machine to Machine interaction over a network. ...

Members of the consortium decide how and what work is undertaken through an open, democratic process.

Technical work is happening in the following categories: Web Services, e-Commerce, Security, Law & Government, Supply Chain, Computing Management, Application Focus, Document-Centric, XML Processing, Conformance/Interop, and Industry Domains.

History

OASIS was first formed as SGML Open in 1993 as a trade association of SGML tool vendors to cooperatively promote the adoption of SGML through mainly educational activities, though some amount of technical activity was also pursued including an update of the CALS Table Model specification and specifications for fragment interchange and entity management. The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) is a metalanguage in which one can define markup languages for documents. ... The CALS Table Model is a standard for representing tables in SGML/XML. It was developed as part of the CALS DOD initiative. ...

In 1998, with the movement of the high tech industry to XML, SGML Open changed its emphasis from SGML to XML, and changed its name to OASIS Open to be inclusive of XML and any future structured information standards. The focus of the consortium's activities also moved from promoting adoption (as XML was getting lots of attention on its own) to developing technical specifications. In July 2000 a new technical committee process was approved. With the adoption of the process the manner in which technical committees were created, operated, and progressed their work was regularized. At the adoption of the process there were five technical committees; by 2004 there were nearly 70. The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a W3C-recommended general-purpose markup language that supports a wide variety of applications. ...

During 1999 OASIS was approached by UN/CEFACT, the committee of the United Nations dealing with standards for business, to jointly develop a new set of specifications for electronic business. The joint initiative, called "ebXML" and which first met in November 1999, was chartered for a three year period. At the final meeting under the original charter, in Vienna, UN/CEFACT and OASIS agreed to divide the remaining work between the two organizations and to coordinate the completion of the work through a coordinating committee. In 2004 OASIS submitted its completed ebXML specifications to ISO TC154 where they were approved as ISO 15000. The United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business, (UN/CEFACT) has a mission to improve the ability of business, trade and administrative organizations, from developed, developing and transitional economies, to exchange products and relevant services effectively - and so contribute to the growth of global commerce. ... The foundation of the U.N. The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate co-operation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues. ... Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language, commonly known as e-business XML, or ebXML (pronounced ee-bee-ex-em-el) as it is typically referred to as, is a family of XML based standards sponsored by OASIS and UN/CEFACT whose mission is to provide an open, XML-based infrastructure...

Specific standards under development by OASIS technical committees

• CAP - Common Alerting Protocol, an XML-based data format for exchanging public warnings and emergencies between alerting technologies.

• DocBook (DocBook) is a markup language for technical documentation. It was originally intended for authoring technical documents related to computer hardware and software but it can be used for any other sort of documentation.

• DITA (OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture) is a modular and extensible XML-based language for topic-based information, such as for online help, documentation, and training.

• OpenDocument (OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications) is an open document file format for saving office documents such as spreadsheets, memos, charts, and presentations.

• SAML - Security Assertion Markup Language, a standard XML-based framework for the secure exchange of authentication and authorization information.

• UBL - Universal Business Language, National effort to define a royalty-free library of standard electronic XML business documents. All invoices to the Danish government have to be in UBL electronic format since of February 2005.

• WSDM - Web Services Distributed Management

• XRI - eXtensible Resource Identifier, a URI-compatible scheme and resolution protocol for abstract identifiers used to identify and share resources across domains and applications.

• XDI - XRI Data Interchange, a standard for sharing, linking, and synchronizing data ("dataweb") across multiple domains and applications using XML documents, eXtensible Resource Identifiers (XRIs), and a new method of distributed data control called a link contract.

The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is an XML-based data format for exchanging emergency alerts and public warnings among different alerting technologies. ... DocBook is a markup language for technical documentation, originally intended for authoring technical documents related to computer hardware and software but which can be used for any other sort of documentation. ... DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) is an XML-based architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. ... OpenDocument or ODF, short for the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications, is a document file format used for exchanging electronic documents such as memos, reports, books, spreadsheets, charts, and presentations. ... Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) is an XML standard for exchanging authentication and authorization data between security domains, that is, between an identity provider and a service provider. ... The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a W3C-recommended general-purpose markup language that supports a wide variety of applications. ... Authentication (Greek: αυθεντικός = real or genuine, from authentes = author ) is the act of establishing or confirming something (or someone) as authentic, that is, that claims made by or about the thing are true. ... In security engineering and computer security, authorization, is a part of the operating system that protects computer resources by only allowing those resources to be used by resource consumers that have been granted authority to use them. ... From the OASIS Site: UBL, the Universal Business Language, is the product of an international effort to define a royalty-free library of standard electronic XML business documents such as purchase orders and invoices. ... Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM, pronounced wisdom) is a web service standard for managing and monitoring the status of other services. ... XRI (eXtensible Resource Identifier) is a scheme and resolution protocol for abstract identifiers compatible with Uniform Resource Identifiers and Internationalized Resource Identifiers, developed by the XRI Technical Committee at OASIS. The goal of XRIs is to provide a universal format for identifiers that are domain-, location-, application-, and transport-independent... A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), is a compact string of characters used to identify or name a resource. ... XDI (XRI Data Interchange) is a generalized, extensible service for sharing, linking, and synchronizing data over the Internet and other data networks using XML documents and XRIs (Extensible Resource Identifiers). ... The Dataweb is an open source project started in 1995 to provide access to statistical data in the same way that the current world wide web provides access to documents. ... The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a W3C-recommended general-purpose markup language that supports a wide variety of applications. ... A link contract is a new approach to data control in a distributed data sharing network. ...

Patent disclosure controversy

Like many bodies producing open standards, OASIS has a patent disclosure policy requiring participants to disclose intent to apply for software patents for technologies under consideration in the standard. Like the W3C, which requires participants to offer royalty-free licenses to anyone using the resulting standard, OASIS offers a similar Royalty Free on Limited Terms mode, along with a Royalty Free on RAND Terms mode and a RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory) mode for its committees [1] . Open standards are publicly available specifications for achieving a specific task. ... Software patent does not have a universally accepted definition. ... The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a consortium that produces standards—recommendations, as they call them—for the World Wide Web. ... Royalty free pictures It’s said that a picture is worth a thousand words. ... It has been suggested that Licensing (strategic alliance) be merged into this article or section. ... Reasonable and Non Discriminatory Licensing (RAND) is a term for a type of licensing typically used during standardisation processes. ...

Controversy has arisen because this licensing allows publication of standards requiring licensing fee payments to patent holders, the use of which would effectively eliminate the possibility of free/open source implementations of these standards. Further, contributors could initially offer royalty-free use of their patent, later imposing per-unit fees, after the standard becomes accepted. This article is about free software as defined by the sociopolitical free software movement; for information on software distributed without charge, see freeware. ... ...

Supporters of OASIS point out this could occur anyway since an agreement would not be binding on non-participants, discouraging contributions from potential participants. Supporters further argue that IBM and Microsoft shifting standardization efforts from the W3C to OASIS is evidence this is already occurring. International Business Machines Corporation (known as IBM or Big Blue; NYSE: IBM) is a multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. The company is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. ... Microsoft is one of few companies engaging itself in the console wars Where they are up against sony, nintendo, and of course sharps new console which may cause a threat. ... The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a consortium that produces standards—recommendations, as they call them—for the World Wide Web. ...

Events

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. This article has been tagged since January 2007.

Image File history File links Wiki_letter_w. ...

OASIS Adoption Forum

In 27-29 November 2006 the third annual OASIS Adoption Forum was held in London, focusing on security. ^{[citation needed]} This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ...

See also

• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) - international non-profit, professional organization for the advancement of technology related to electricity.
• World Wide Web Consortium

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE (pronounced as eye-triple-e) is an international non-profit, professional organization for the advancement of technology related to electricity. ... The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web (W3). ...

External links

• OASIS Homepage
• OASIS Specifications
• A Call to Action in OASIS