[Coin-standards] moving the offline XML discussion over to the mailing list

[Robin Lougee-Heimer]

Leo:
Since be both agreed that we should move our discussion over to the mailing
list...here I am.

Yes, I did talk to Alan King at IBM Research and he expressed interest and
willingness to participate in the XML standard for exchanging mathematical
programs (you know,  we need a snappy name).   Alan's currently subscribed
to the coin-standards mailing list as a digest-member.

You like the e-optimization idea. A contact person for e-optimization.com
the  web seminars is Annette Stransky (j-astransky at msn.com). She is a
marketing consultant for e-optimization.com.

You asked who to go to for the IOL Practice Portal.  I'm the current
editor, and would love to promote this effort on that channel (and else
where on IOL).   IMHO efforts in this direction are of real interest and
use to the practice community.  For more ideas on IOL channels, ping the
IOL editor, Matthew Saltzman.  Matt is currently subscribed to the
coin-standards mailing.  Why not something on the INFORMS E-News
Announcements?  Also, have you posted a link to your website off Michael
Trick's OR Webpage (now reincarnated as the INFORMS OR/MS Resource
Collection  http://www.informs.org/Resources/)

You sounded positive about my suggestion to write an article for ORMS
Today.   I'd say even a short news item to let people know about your
webpage and the mailing list would be good to do.  I had suggested talking
to Mohan Sodhi, who writes the IOL Cyberspace column.  If you want to write
an independent article, send a note to Pete Horner (horner at lionhrtpub.com)
with a short description of your idea.

I was hoping to announce the phone seminar by Angel Diaz today on  MathML
and his experience in creating the W3C standard, but it looks like it'll be
next week.  I think conference calls on subjects related to the standard,
hosted and run by different companies/people,  would be wonderful way to
get going.   I hope you're able to do one through Northwestern.  Anyone
else?

I've talked to Len Berman, IBM Research, and he's agreed to participate in
the mailing list.  Len has XML expertise and has work in other standards
committee.

Nothing more since Monday on the intellectual property issue  of working
with standards bodies.

Brady had kicked off the discussion on some very fundamental questions
which we need to decide.   For one example of how standard bodies are run,
check out http://www.oasis-open.org.  Oasis is a not-for-profit consortium
that designs and develops industry specifications for interoperability
based on XML.  I've heard that W3C doesn't not do vertical standards. Oasis
does.  (Note: mathML is under W3C, but this occurred because it was the
first of its kind).   Participating in Oasis costs money, and provides
structure.  I'm not suggesting we work under Oasis, I'm just throwing it
out as one example for those who want background on the way other groups
have structured standards body.

more later,
Robin

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robin Lougee-Heimer
IBM TJ Watson Research Center
ph: 914-945-3032   fax: 914-945-3434
robinlh at us.ibm.com
http://www.coin-or.org