Releasing Invisible XML

Hi folks,

Recently we have heard from a number of would-be users in the XML community that invisible XML is somewhat... invisible!

There are a number of reasons for this, of course, in my opinion chiefly because:

• iXML has been a proposal rather than a released specification for such a long time (no criticism intended!)
• There have not been readily available, useful and/or publicised implementations of iXML that are available for those users.

I also note that XML Prague has now been confirmed, and that a call for papers has been announced: https://www.xmlprague.cz/cfp/.

So, I would like to propose that we ought to set ourselves a goal of releasing (and announcing) a version 1 of the iXML specification at XML Prague, preferably as an addition to the agendum for the meeting on the 14th of December.  This should give us time to work towards a proposal for the January meeting in time for consensus as to whether or not we will be able to do so in time for XML Prague!

I think that there are a few requirements that we should set ourselves for such a release:

• Include some rudimentary rules about pragmas: at least enough so that conforming parsers can ignore the pragma information.  This depends on the pragma proposal that Michael and I are working on, that we are intending to complete and present for the December meeting.  It also decouples any functionality that may be provided by pragma from the specification itself.
• Publish a visible, curated and maintained list of all known parsers, perhaps with some indication of conformity to follow at a later date (see below).
• Reach agreement that the specification is releasable.

I *don't* think we ought to include a complete test suite as part of such a release; we should aim for this to follow soon afterwards: I'm sure there will be other conferences to aim for!

Can we add this to the agenda for the next meeting, please?  And are there any comments that folks would like to make in addition to my own looking forward to that meeting?

Thanks,
Tom

_________________
Tomos Hillman
eXpertML Ltd
+44 7793 242058