RE: Open Document Management API Version 1.5

%To:	w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
	Charlie Brooks
%Cc:	Jim Donahue at Documentum
	DMA Tech
	ODMASPT
%From:	Dennis E. Hamilton
%Date:	November 8, 1996
%Re:	Open Document Management API Version 1.5

Yes, the ODMA specification Version 1.5 is a brand new draft, ODMA is 
vibrant and alive, the code for the connection manager was just distributed 
by E-mail, and the organization is meeting today, November 8, in Boston, to 
consider proposals around ODMA and the Internet.

I believe they are being encouraged to bring that discussion here.

ODMA has no versioning model or much presence of document management 
functions.  It is an integration model for bridging between desktop 
applications that know content and DMS front-ends that know 
document-management.  As such it is primarily focused around the transfer 
of document content (e.g., WordPerfect 7.0 documents, Excel spreadsheets, 
and Netscape 3.0 templates) between applications and a DMS presence that 
has the application be able to handle document identifiers as easily as 
local (and remoted) file identifiers are handled now.

The dma URL that Judith Slein described here earlier becomes an ODMA 
Identifier when it has a form such as

	::ODMA\DMA\dma-url

Don't test me on the exact syntax.  The ::ODMA is the discriminator that 
avoids file-system confusions and cues the application to use functions of 
ODMA rather than the file system to get its hands on and subsequently 
return the material.  All of the delivery of document material is in the 
local file-system namespace and the application does not see anything to do 
with distribution, and not much to do with versioning.  (there are analogs 
of Save and Save As ... basically).  Most of what the DMS front-end and 
system provide is opaque to the desktop application.

There may be expansion of the territory covered by ODMA as they move to 
2.0, whatever it will cover.  I just learned that the chairmanship moved 
from Brian Phelps of PC Docs to someone from Documentum, here in the Bay 
Area, so maybe they'll join us next week in Palo Alto.

Dennis E. Hamilton

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From: 	Charlie Brooks[SMTP:cbrooks@osf.org]
Sent: 	Friday, November 08, 1996 13:02
To: 	w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
Subject: 	Open Document Management API Version 1.5

All -

In rummaging around the Web attempting to cure my ignorance regarding
Document Management Systems, I stumbled across the AIIM site at
http://ww.aiim.org/, and located a document there entitled "Open Document
Management API 1.5" The URL for the home page is

	http://www.aiim.org/odma/odma.htm

I'm hoping that someone from this working group can answer the following
questions:

1) is this "standard" live? i.e., is the Document Management community
actually using this specification?

2) if the answer is yes, then I would suggest that it might be a useful
exercise to determine whether the extensions proposed in "Extensions for
Distributed Authoring and Versioning for World Wide Web" are sufficent to
implement the functionality expressed in this API.

Just a thought ...

Charlie



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Charlie Brooks                           The OpenGroup Research Institute
11 Cambridge Center, 4th Floor           Cambridge, MA 02142
(617) 621 8758                           (617) 225 2943 (FAX)
http://www.osf.org/~cbrooks              c.brooks@opengroup.org

Received on Friday, 8 November 1996 17:09:30 UTC