Welcome to the Web Services I18N Task Force!

Dear List Participant:

I would like to welcome you all to the W3C Internationalization Working Group [W3C-I18N-WG] Web Services Task Force [WS-TF]. 

This is a little premature in some respects, since I know there are several people still going through the sign up process, but since the discussion needs to start I thought I ought to send this out now and let latecomers read it in the archive.

Goals
=====

You can read in-depth about our goals here: http://www.w3.org/2002/05/i18n-recharter/WG-charter.html#web-services

This Task Force has two main goals. 

Our short term goal is to produce a set of use cases that describe internationalization issues in Web services. These documents will help identify i18n issues in Web services and may also to provide templates for implementers to address these issues.

  -- This particular area will be one that we need to focus on quickly. We need to decide how to solicit, organize, and present this information. Thus, this will be a (if not "the") major topic of our first meeting (where we hope to progress to actually assembling some of the use cases.)

Our second goal is to produce feedback (in the form of requirements) to the WS work groups to address any areas of concern that are identified. In this way we hope to support the actual WS working groups with the feedback and information they need to produce standards that will best serve international users.

A particular area that many of us have identified as being of special concern is that of locale exchange on the Internet. For example, there are mechanisms for language identifiers (xml:lang, RFC3066, etc.) that are well defined, but locales do not enjoy the same support. The WS-TF will include locales and locale identifiers as one of the main areas of concern.

Rules and Behavior
==================

This public list, as well at the Task Force lists and meetings, are forums in which we will discuss issues and topics that are be of great interest to all of us. As such, it is common for people to have high-spirited discussions and even disagreements. Above all, I think we each expect our fellow participants to behave professionally and to limit our comments and behavior to appropriate, on-topic commentary. Let's leave our personal and petty disagreements for other fora.

Since this is an international group, I urge each of you to communicate as clearly as possible, bearing in mind that not all of us speak English primarily and that cultural difference may make it harder to be understood.

I would encourage you to send in some biographical details to this list so that we get to know each other better.  Please also state your key interests in working with the group.

Groups and Web Sites
====================
The WS-TF is currently in the current part of the Internationalization Activity of the W3C (which falls under the Document Formats Domain, for those of you who follow such things).  It is one of three Task Forces in the I18N WG. One or more of these may become WGs in their own right at some point.  The task forces are described at http://www.w3.org/International/about.html#scope .  

Please bear in mind that all WS-TF information is in the public domain and much of our activity (such as many of our technical discussions) will take place in a public forum.  Because of the nature of our work, we have both an internal (private) mailing list and activities as well as a public mail list. The public list archives and documents can be read by any member of the public.  Please use care when posting information to ensure that there is no "leakage" of private information into the public space.

The Core TF operates almost wholly within the member-only space, and the GEO TF is entirely public.  If you are on one of the other task forces or a member of another working group, please do not cross-post member-confidential information to the public-i18n-ws list.

The W3C Internationalization Activity pages are found at http://www.w3.org/International .  

The WS-TF home page starts at  http://www.w3.org/International/ws - you should be able to find any information you need about the task force from here. I currently maintain the task force's pages.  I am always open to suggestions for improving them, or reminders of things I have forgotten. These pages will mirror the fact that the WS-TF is a work-in-progress, so feedback and additions are always welcome.

The full list of working group members is in member-only space at http://www.w3.org/International/Group/members.

Meetings
========

As announced on the WS home page (http://www.w3.org/International/ws)  the WG will hold its kick-off meeting in November in Boston.  The WS Task Force will hold its Face-to-Face/kick-off meeting as part of this meeting. Our meeting is scheduled for 22-23 November, 2002. You can find specific information on attending the meeting here: http://www.w3.org/International/ws/2002/11/ftf200211.html

We will hold other FTF meetings from time-to-time, possibly in conjunction with other Web services working groups or to coincide with other activities that the task force agrees are relevent to our mission.

We will also establish regular weekly or bi-weekly teleconferences soon.  These will be useful for complex discussions, and for reaching agreement/consensus.  Since we already have members from many countries it will be interesting trying to decide on a time for the telecon.  

Mailing lists
=============

Please note that the public-i18n-ws list is supposed to be focussed on discussions related to moving forward our work projects.  Please use the www-international list for any general discussion topics (you should all be subscribed to that list).  

Since the archives of this list are public, it is quite possible for people who are only subscribed to www-international to follow our discussions and offer some comments or feedback on the www-international list, so we should bear that in mind.  We can also look to the www-international list for help with cultural information, linguistic or script questions, and the like.  There are currently 376 subscribers to that list, from many places around the world.

W3C Culture and Process
=======================

The World Wide Web Consortium has a unique culture, and a process.  It may take a while to get an idea of this, but if you have time, having a look at the web site (http://www.w3.org/) would be a good idea.  For general information, see (http://www.w3.org/Consortium).  If you want to, you can read all of the process document http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process-20010719/, but you probably have better ways of spending your time.  If any process problems come up in our work, the W3C team members will be able to help us.

I am the Chair for the Task Force. Martin Dürst is the Team Contact.  Martin is also the Internationalization Activity Lead. Feel free to contact either of us concerning this task force and its activities.

That is a long enough message for one day.  Please feel free to contact me with any questions. 

I look forward to working closely with you in the future.

Best Regards,

Addison

Addison P. Phillips
Director, Globalization Architecture
webMethods, Inc.

+1 408.962.5487 (phone)  +1 408.210.3569 (mobile)
-------------------------------------------------
Internationalization is an architecture.
It is not a feature. 

Chair, W3C-I18N-WG Web Services Task Force
Participate Today! http://www.w3.org/International/ws

Received on Friday, 1 November 2002 18:36:16 UTC