XML 2001, opened by its new chair Lauren Wood, marks the arrival of XML schema languages
and a new competition between the W3C and ISO for XML standardization.
XML 2001 has been a successful start in the attempt to give new momentum to the IDEAlliance
(ex GCA) conferences, by appointing new chairs Lauren Wood and Edd Dumbill (XML Europe 2002).
XML 2001 was also a personal success for Lauren Wood, who able to keep the conference
buoyant -- unlike a number of conferences held in the US since September 11 -- by bringing back key contributors
such as James Clark and Rick Jelliffe, who were absent from previous conferences.
Among the memorable themes from the conference was the surprising persistence
of the quarrel between RDF (W3C) and Topic Maps (ISO) efforts, whose convergence seems to be
taking longer than expected. XML schema languages also had a significant presence in many
of the presentations.
Despite the recognition of the importance of XML schema languages in XML 2000, the
view this year was much more open: only six months old, RELAX NG is already being considered
as a credible alternative to W3C XML Schema. One presentation even demonstrated that
RELAX NG may be more generic, and can be used as a basis for a layered implementation
of W3C XML Schemas.
Progress at the W3C towards specifying a processing model for XML
that includes multiple operations such as validation, inclusion, transformation
and querying seems to be slowing under the weight of existing specifications,
allowing ISO to take the initiative. James Mason announced the start of
an effort to rationalize the range of existing schema languages. This
will unite a basic processing model with grammar based (RELAX NG),
rule based (Schematron), and object-oriented (W3C XML
Schema) languages. James Clark, Murata MAKOTO, Rick Jelliffe and Ken Holman
will all be participating in this effort.
The W3C "startup," propelled by the initial success of XML, seems to have reached the point where its
size and the weight of its legacy places it in the same category as the major
standard organizations, and makes it therefore less competitive.
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