xmlhack: Clark takes TREX to OASIS

OASIS have announced the formation of a new technical committee to oversee the development of James Clark's XML schema language, TREX, into a standard specification.

TREX is an alternative to the W3C's XML Schema Definition Language, widely seen as easier to learn and use, and with sound theoretical foundations.

Announcing the new TC on the XML-DEV mailing list, Karl Best of OASIS said:

To become a member of this new TC by the first meeting you must notify the committee chair, James Clark (jjc@jclark.com), of your intent to participate at least 15 days prior to the first meeting and then you must participate in that first meeting, which is scheduled for 5 April, 2001. You should also subscribe to the TC's discussion list. Note that you must be eligible to participate before you may become a member of the TC or subscribe to the TC mail list; the eligibility rules require that you belong to an OASIS member organization or be an Individual OASIS member.

As well as Clark himself, initial members of the Technical Comittee include well known and respected members of the XML community: Norm Walsh, Eric van der Vlist, John Cowan, Arjun Ray, Michael Fitzgerald and Michael Smith. (Disclosure: Smith and van der Vlist are contributors to xmlhack).

This move now gives every significant "standards body" in XML a schema specification: the W3C's XML Schema, ISO's RELAX, and now OASIS has TREX--and a significant cadre of respected XML developers. It's not at all certain that there'll be such a thing as the "Schema Language Wars," but it's highly likely that there'll be a lot of confusion among developers about which technology to use.