xmlhack: Editors' Newswire for 2 April, 2003

A collected summary of items that ran on the xmlhack newswire on 2 April, 2003.

XMill 0.8, a user-configurable XML compressor
from Uche Ogbuji at 22:19, 2 Apr

XMill separates structure, layout and data in an XML document and distributes data elements into separate data streams (int, char, string, base64, etc), which are then compressed using gzip, bzip2 or ppmdi.

IBM Informix XSLT DataBlade
from Uche Ogbuji at 22:16, 2 Apr

"The IBM Informix XSLT DataBlade module creates new SQL functions (which are called user-defined routines (UDRs)) that allow transformation of documents from one format to another using XSLT style sheets and libxslt (the Gnome C XSLT library)."

IsaViz 1.2, a visual environment for browsing and authoring RDF models represented as graphs
from Uche Ogbuji at 22:09, 2 Apr

Now supports the RDF Core Working Group's Last Call Working, adds N3 support and printing capabilities. i18n and graphical features are improved.

Redland RDF Application Framework 0.9.12
from Uche Ogbuji at 22:04, 2 Apr

Redland is a C library that provides a high-level interface for RDF, allowing the RDF graph to be parsed from XML, stored, queried and manipulated. Major changes include typed literal support, Python, Perl and Java API improvements, and experimental Ruby and PHP APIs.

Samizdat: RDF-based engine for building collaboration and open publishing web sites
from Uche Ogbuji at 21:57, 2 Apr

Samizdat allows users to publish, view, comment, edit, and aggregate text and multimedia resources, vote on ratings and classifications, filter resources, and collaborate. Samizdat's data model is RDF-based and defines a schema of resource classes and properties for site members, messages, threads, tags, propositions, votes, versions, etc.

Large changes in the Mozilla roadmap
from Micah Dubinko at 21:35, 2 Apr

Mozilla.org announces a potential roadmap change, in order to address architecture problems and "to support emerging XML and related standards, some experimentally and conditionally".

Report on the W3C XForms Implementation Workshop
from Micah Dubinko at 18:00, 2 Apr

Public report on a recent gathering of XForms implementers, representing over 20 ongoing implementations of XForms.

W3C TAG updates web architecture document
from Edd Dumbill at 10:18, 2 Apr

Comments welcome for the document that tells it how it should be. This draft "addresses some social issues that contribute to the shared information space."

W3C NOTE on SOAP 1.2 Message Normalization
from Edd Dumbill at 10:17, 2 Apr

Defines transformation algorithm that renders all logically equivalent SOAP messages identically.

W3C unleashes parliament of OWLs
from Edd Dumbill at 10:13, 2 Apr

W3C have published six new specs for the OWL Web Ontology Language 1.0 (guide, features, semantics, ref, test, requirements).
Five of these are last call working drafts, comment period closes 9 May 2003.

DOM Level 3 Events last call working draft
from Edd Dumbill at 10:09, 2 Apr

Describes event handling and event flow through DOM trees, Comments welcome through 1 May 2003.

W3C DOM Level 3 XPath moves to CR stage
from Edd Dumbill at 10:08, 2 Apr

The spec describing how XPath 1.0 can access a DOM tree moves to candidate recommendation stage. Reviews welcome through 26 May 2003.