Re: [all] readiness and translation process parameters

Hi Dave,

The translation parameters are defined in ISO TS/11669, which was just published as an ISO technical specification. So those parameters are normative (at least if they apply to a task). Implementation is still a bit thin since the Technical Specification was only published a few weeks ago. However, they are the parameters that go into Linport, so there is increasing traction via Linport.

The fact that the parameter descriptions were published by ISO as part of TS/11669 (which has strict copyright restrictions and is sold), access would be a problem. But in this case Alan Melby negotiated an exception to general ISO copyright policy to allow the parameters only (not the rest of the Technical Specification) to be published openly. The URL is:

http://ttt.org/specs/

Right now these are not easily retrieved in a usable form (i.e., there should be a unique URI that retrieves the details for each parameter and nothing else, rather than the HTML page that is there now), but I can actually take care of that directly if I know what should be retrieved from a URI (e.g., the name, description, etc.) since I have access to the server to make these changes. Ideally, however, these would be referred to via ISOCat rather than from Alan's server, so I can see about how to add them to ISOCat (in which case the issue of access becomes part of the broader question of best practice for referring to ISOCat).

Note that you would still need name-value pairs at some level (although you might instead point to a URI with a full set of specifications [specifications = parameters + values]). So for the present, the reference to the URI would only give you the definition of the category, but not its value. So I would envision something more like this:

> <its:rules
>   xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its"  version="2.0">
>  <its:transParam selector="/html/body" transParamRef="http://www.ex.com/register.txt" transParamValue="formal"/>
> </its:rules>
Not sure on that particular syntax, but it should get the idea across.

Note that ISO TS/11669 also does not define permissible values: Its categories were intended for human consumption, so if we want machine-processing interoperability, we would sill need a way to point to the permissible values in a given scenario. So the problem is only removed by a step, but we gain in this scenario in that we don't need to replicate anything in ISO TS/11669 and we open up whatever power is available from TS/11669.

Best,

-Arle

On Jul 4, 2012, at 14:08 , Dave Lewis wrote:

> Hi Arle,
> I agree, leaving this to Linport and ISO was the broad intent of that transParam proposal - they are the right people to do this.
> 
> Further, I agree a dumb pointer to an external doc would be a reasonable alternative to name-value pairs - what do the LSP and client people think? Is this something people would be interested in implementing?
> 
> As with the earlier transParam suggestion, this is soft on conformance, but a bit more specific in referring to Linport/ISO to solve this. But like the standoff provenance and PROV WG discussion, the maturity of this external work is a factor. Could you say a bit more about this normative status you mention? Can the documents be made available to the WG?
> 
> I guess it would look like
> <its:rules
>   xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its"  version="2.0">
>  <its:transParam selector="/html/body" transParamRef="http://www.ex.com/transParam.txt"/>
> </its:rules>
> cheers,
> Dave