Last week the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) released the first working draft of the Web Services Description Usage Scenarios.
The XML 1.0 (Second Edition) W3C Conformance Test Suite is designed to allow developers to test an XML processor for conformance with the consortium's recommendations.
Australian organisations have been working on research, products and getting involved in specifications, according to Hoylen Sue, technical manager at W3C's Australian office.
"There's representatives in the XML Query group, XML Schema group...in the past we've also been involved in other groups such as CC/PP [Composite Capabilities Preference Profile]," he said.
There are about 500 companies and organisations involved in the standards body worldwide. The National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) and the Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) are amongst its Australian members, according to its Web site.
According to Hoylen, being involved in these initiatives had given Australian organisations early access to technology, as well as being able to contribute their own technical expertise.
W3C's release of the XML test suite last week gives developers access to more than 2000 test files. There's also a set of metrics to allow them to work out conformance to the XML 1.0 (Second Edition) recommendation.
The test suite is the latest push by W3C to promote interoperability on the Web, according to a statement about the recently released test suite.
W3C is a consortium run by the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science in the US, the National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control in France, and Keio University in Japan, according to the organisation's Web site.
Last time I checked NONE of the home pages of Australian members of the W3C validated.
Making new standards is good, using them is better.