Simon St.Laurent has published, for the SML-DEV community, the first complete draft of a Common XML specification.

Subscribers of XML-DEV and readers of xmlhack will remember the manifesto issued by Don Park on November 11, 1999 for a "Simple Markup Language".

Five months later the initiative is still going strong, summarized by Don Park as a "Simpler information model, simpler syntax, still XML. Barebone data language foundation for layering of modular standards" or, even shorter, as "all about normalizing various XML markups into elements".

SML being trademarked as "Spacecraft Markup Language", the new markup language had to change its name to "MinXML" or "Minimal XML".

The first complete draft of a Common XML specification is not about MinXML, and targets a wider audience than the SML-DEV community.

Simon St.Laurent describes Common XML as "A Middle Ground Between XML and SML", a set of best-practice rules which could be used as rules by every XML developer to write documents that can be safely used by the various XML tools.

The publication of Common XML is very timely, a few days after a post by Peter Murray-Rust on XML-DEV showing a new evidence for the need of such a best practice rules document.

Comments and suggestions on Common XML should be sent to SML-DEV.

• Related story: Reductio ad absurdum: Jelliffe, Park and the Stupid Markup Language