OASIS Universal Business Language 1.0
While we are thinking about various domain ontologies, I
would like to suggest UBL, which is an XML-based language
for specifying business documents that is being defined
by OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured
Information Standards). Following is a brief description
from their web site:
> The purpose of the OASIS UBL TC is to develop a standard
> library of XML business documents (purchase orders, invoices,
> etc.) by modifying an already existing library of XML schemas
> to incorporate the best features of other existing XML
> business libraries. The TC will then design a mechanism for
> the generation of context-specific business schemas through
> the application of transformation rules to the common UBL
> source library. UBL is intended to become an international
> standard for electronic commerce freely available to everyone
> without licensing or other fees.
Following is the main web site for the UBL Technical Committee:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=ubl
OASIS Universal Business Language TC
And following is the May 2004 draft of the UBL specification:
http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/cd-UBL-1.0/
Universal Business Language 1.0
This draft defines terms by short English sentences, which are
not sufficiently precise or detailed to be used in the kinds
of ontologies we envision for the SUO. However, it shows
promise of becoming an important subdomain for many mainstream
business applications.
Although UBL would not be part of an upper-level ontology,
any general-purpose ontology should have the ability to define
and include the UBL categories (and other business-related
categories) as subtypes of its upper-level categories.
John Sowa