Summary on the XML-Meeting

[Ekkart Kindler <kindler@informatik.hu-berlin.de>]

Dear all,

during the Petri Net Conference, two meetings on an
interchange format for Petri nets took place -- a
formal one and an informal one.

Below there is a brief summary of the outcome and open
issues of this meeting.  Everybody interested in the
ongoing discussion may join the mailing list, which was
established at Humboldt-University and is moderated
by Michael Weber. See http://www2.informatik.hu-berlin.de/top/PNX/
for details.

The summary covers the discussion only.  For information on
the regular presentations, see the online proceedings:
  http://www.daimi.au.dk/pn2000/Interchange/


Kind regards,
Ekkart Kindler
--
Ekkart Kindler                    kindler@informatik.hu-berlin.de
Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin   www2.informatik.hu-berlin.de/~kindler
Institut fuer Informatik          Tel.:  +49 30-2093-3086
D-10099 Berlin                    Fax:   +49 30-2093-3067
Germany
--


              Summary of the discussions on an
              Interchange Format for Petri Nets
                    during ICATPN 2000



Organizational matters
======================

  Contributors
  ------------

    Countries that are willing to contribute to an ISO-Standard:

    * Australia        (J. Billington)
    * Denmark          (K. Jensen)
    * Finland          (N. Husberg)
    * France           (R. Bastide, F. Kordon)
    * Germany          (E. Kindler, M. Weber)
    * The Netherlands  (W.M.P. van der Aalst)
    * United Kingdom   (A. M. Koelmans)
    * ...

    * NO EDITOR found yet!

  Mailing list
  ------------

    A mailing list and a home page for the discussion on the
    interchange format will be established at Humboldt-University.
    See http://www2.informatik.hu-berlin.de/top/PNX/ for details
    on subscribing to the mailing list.

  Schedule
  --------

    * Preliminary interchange format by the end of 2000

    * The group of Humboldt-University (E. Kindler and M. Weber), Berlin
      will put forward the standardisation effort by a draft proposal by
      Oct. 2000

    * Proposals for features and requirements should be sent
      to the mailing list (see above) by August 1st, 2000.


Requirements
============

  Mandatory
  ---------

    * Compatible with ISO/IEC 15909

    * Extensible

    * XML based / easy to parse

    * Graphical (cf. open issues)

    * Concept for structuring nets

    * Crossing Petri net classes
      (as much compatibility between different tools as possible)

    * Pragmatic

  Desirable
  ---------

    * Format for analysis results

    * Format for net properties

    * Semantics


Open Issues and Ideas
=====================

  Editor for the ISO-Standard
  ---------------------------

    We did not yet find an editor!!  


  Ideas
  -----

    * Standard could be in several levels:

      Level 0: Layout, structuring, multi-set notation (BTERMS),
               meaning of different arcs (normal, inhibitor, read, ...)

               Semantics of token domains and expressions left open.

               All kinds of labels may be added as pure text.


      Level 1: Fixed semantics for tokens, etc.
               Syntax for labels

      ...


  To be discussed
  ---------------

    * How much graphics?

    * Which structuring concepts?

    * What is style? What is content?

    * How to represent labels?
      (structure vs. plain text; mixed content?)


Email-Addresses
===============

  Here is the list of participants of the informal meeting:

    Jonathan Billington   j.billington@unisa.edu.au
    Nisse Husberg         Nisse.Husberg@hut.fi
    Olaf Kummer           kummer@renew.de
    Michael Weber         mweber@informatik.hu-berlin.de
    Karsten Schmidt       kschmidt@informatik.hu-berlin.de
    Ekkart Kindler        kindler@informatik.hu-berlin.de
    Didier Buchs          Didier.Buchs@epfl.ch
    Fabrice Kordon        Fabrice.Kordon@lip6.fr
    Rudof Keller          keller@iro.umontreal.ca
    Kjeld H. Mortensen    khm@daimi.au.dk