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Localization World Silicon Valley11 October 2011A Buyers Guide to the Localization Standards Landscape

Session Agenda

Experts3Session goalsEntice Interest in understandingEducate Awareness of issues and possibilitiesEncourage Insight into local applicabilityEngage Impact on global business performanceWe will not . . . Pass judgment on what standards are good or bad.We suggest a free market approach. Preach about which standards are most important.Pain points vary widely.Argue about approachesPanelists are happy to pick up discussions for those who are interested.Attempt to sort out overlapping initiatives.See free market approach above.

Characterizing standards successReasons for failureToo narrow, too obviously political, no value (doesnt solve a real problem), not sustainableMany boutique efforts reach first flush. But companies move on in marketing focus, and funding gets cut.After initial success, no platform for broader dissemination. Serious efforts want the benefit of interrelated standards liaison (e.g., OASIS/ISO).Standards development requires both technical and marketing work, including education and the right IP approach for the target market.Adoption activities shoehorned into technical committee work.DITA as a model:Success factors for standards adoptionWidespread need: move to structured content management without burdenSimple in theory, but allows for complexity in application and implementationFormed subcommittees to deal with application-level use cases: agile development (get the basics down, then iterate)Solve a common set of problems, but allow for extensions and specializationSerious, conscious adoption: market education, strong vendor support from the beginning

8Interoperability standards XLIFF 2.0Program Charter, Process, & TimelineDF as the liaison officer on behalf of XLIFF TCTerminologyXLIFF XML Localization Interchange File FormatOAXAL Open Architecture for XML Authoring and Localization (Reference Model) (TC)MLW-LT MultilingualWeb Language TechnologyW3C World Wide Web consortiumOASIS Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information StandardsULI Unicode Localization Interoperability (TC)OASIS Charter Clarification or Re-Chartering?Core characteristics and goals of XLIFF standardization. Potential to develop the pivotal standard for Language Technology, Localization and Internationalization. What role should the XLIFF standard play in the overall Language Technology, Localization, and Internationalization standards architecture?The current statement of Purpose may need to be clarified/changed (extended in scope). The current aim is interchange, but the standard can naturally expand to covering storage, legacy content leveraging, annotations and tagging etc.Core vs. ModuleCriteria for elements being in core or notCriteria for modules being developedPrioritization and timeline for XLIFF 2.0 and XLIFFs 2.x throughout 2011 and 2012Role of Customers, i.e. Toolmakers and Enterprise Users vs. End UsersMembership Section and its fundingFunding of Open Source Reference Implementations (Open Toolkit OKAPI, M4Loc, etc.)Reviewing Toolmakers extensions as source of industry wisdom?XLIFF TC policy towards ULI, W3C ITS, ISO TC 37, ETSI ISG LISStandardization that is needed in Language Technology (LT), Localization (L10n) and Internationalization (I18n). Overall architecture of localization process infrastructure standardization

General OptionsEITHER Breadth OR DepthEITHER Normative Processing Requirements OR Informal RecommendationsEITHER Publish minimal core quickly OR try to address long tail of feature requestsEITHER improved functionality OR backwards compatibilityExtensibility?Description of Business Needs the Program should address

Customers voice:The 1.x standard is too complexThe 1.x standard has too generous extensibilityThe 1.x standard lacks explicit conformance criteriaThe overall goal is to ensure interoperability throughout Language Technology related content transformations during the whole content lifecycle.Although the XLIFF 1.x standard was intended primarily as an exchange format the industry practice shows that the defined format is also suitable for storage and legacy content leverage purposes.

Description of the desired state

The XLIFF TC commits to addressing the customer needs as under the Description of Business Needs. In particular XLIFF TC resolved via previous ballots to create a 2.0 standard that willBe modularContain non-negotiable coreBe created with conformance and processing requirements in mindWill allow for extensibility at predefined points. Extensibility will be allowed only for functionality that cannot be achieved through core or module.Although backwards compatibility with the 1.x standards is perceived as a value per se by the XLIFF TC and its customers, backwards compatibility has lesser priority than serving the business needs stated above.XLIFF TC will prioritize the non-negotiable core and its release over the long tail wish list.

XLIFF 2.0 SWOT Analysis

Persistent StrengthsBeing well addressed by influx of new manpower. Toolmakers want to participate.Good progress on collection of implementers' extension points, semantics etc. In 2011 the TC should finish the initial requirements gathering and features definitions. Q12012 should see the new committee draft and Q2 the 2.0 standardConformance ClauseAn opportunityMake processing requirements integral part of the spec as normative, obligatory part of each element (including attributes) specStrict Process for Feature inclusion in 2.xConformance ClauseStrict Process for Feature inclusion in 2.xOwners must demonstrate to the TC not only the technical appropriateness of the feature but also explain what resources and timeframe is needed for elaboration and if those resources are available.Core vs. ModulesCore Basic part of the specification that contains all and only substantial elements that cannot possibly be excluded without negatively affecting the standards capability to allow for basic language technology related transformations. [ongoing discussion on this concept, DavidF will work on deriving this concept from main success scenario rather than the vague notion of a basic LT transformation]Core vs. Modules ctd.Meaningful functional whole elements that are critical for performing certain types of language technology transformations, all and only such elements and their respective processing rules.Module a part of the specification that fulfills all of the following conditionsDoes not overlap with CoreIs compatible with CoreComprises all elements and their processing rules that form a meaningful functional wholeXLIFF Promotion and Liaison SCBilateral relationships and liaisons Formal liaisons: ULI, ETSI ISG LIS (in progress), MLW-LT (W3C WG in creation) Watching: IN!, Linport, OAXAL, GALA, TAUS XLIFF Symposium (1st Limerick 2010, 2nd Warsaw 2011)OASIS organizational ballotsState of the art researchEtc. XLIFF 2.0 momentum15 Voting Members! And counting..Heavy Hitters: Yves Savourel (ENLASO), Rodolfo Raya (Maxprograms), Bryan SchnabelTraditional contributors: SAP, SDL, LRC, PSBTNew Entrants: GALA, Multicorpora, Tom CommerfordRejoined TC recently: IBM, LIOXOn their way: Oracle, Kilgray, Welocalize, TAUSInterested: Atril, Microsoft, WordbeeXLIFF 2.0 momentum - 15XLIFF 2.0 momentum - 20XLIFF 2.0 momentum - 23How to Influence XLIFF?XLIFF is an open standard: TRANSPARENT AND RFArchives publicly accessiblehttp://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/xliff/http://markmail.org/search/?q=list%3A%20xliffAny one can subscribe for comment listhttp://www.oasis-open.org/committees/comments/index.php?wg_abbrev=xliffFeature Tracking publicly viewable: http://wiki.oasis-open.org/xliff/XLIFF2.0/FeatureTracking#XLIFF2.0.2BAC8-Feature.2BAC8-ChangeTracking.ChangeTracking.2BAC8VersionControlQuestions for the panel?Key takeawaysNot standards for the sake of standards . . . But what becomes possible with standardization.Compelling business cases are critical. Not just technology issues.Homework is essential. Where are your points of friction in the global content value chain, and what standards address your pain?Vote with your money!

MLW-LT Call For ParticipationDavid FilipDave LewisFelix SasakiTerminologyCSA Coordination and Support ActionW3C Worldwide Web ConsortiumWG Working Group (in W3C)Deep Web, Surface WebLSP Language Service ProviderTM, MT, TMSCMS, CCMSOASIS DITA, XLIFFWho is in?

We want your logo here Standardization focus - MetadataMultilingual Web must be aware of linguistic and localisation processingProcess and Qulaity, Translatability, Legal, Terminology & Semantics.. Three main in scope scenariosDeep Web LSPSurface Web Real Time MTDeep Web MT TrainingAll other scenarios are out of scopeReference implementations, XLIFF roundtrip prototypes, and test suits for all three

QualityDeep Web LSPDeep Web is mostly XML and is being managed by CMS, ideally CCMS.Cocomore is involved in Drupal and Sharepoint based CMS and CCMS solutionsPassing process, terminology, and translatability metadata from CCMS onto down stream localisation chain actors Surface Web Real Time MTEnsure that relevant Deep Web metadata will resurface in the rendered HTML, so that real time MT services can make use of them to improve their outputAgain, translatability or terminology metadata will be passed onto MT to improve resultsDeep Web MT TrainingImprove MT training through passing domain and processing related metadataThis will allow for rapid creation of relevant training corpora, excluding ufront out-of-domain content, raw MT output etc.upfrontMetadata"data categories" based on "W3C Internationalization Tag Set 1.0" relevant for the three scenarios:Translate, Localization Note, Terminology, Language InformationFurther data categories:Translation provenance, human post-editing, QA provenance, legal metadata, topic / domain informationEverything is currently under consideration your input counts!

Approach and MethodologyOpen Standard within W3C Internationalization Activity: Transparent and Royalty FreeNormative Processing RequirementsBased on in scope process modelsMethodology how to expand toCreate conformant extensionsEnable future development Robust roundtrip implementations and test suits bias for open sourceClose collaboration with OASIS XLIFF TC

Open Question(s)Breadth or Depth?Scope? Too broad? Too Narrow? Additions? Generalized Process Models as base for Normative Processing Requirements?Vs.Define only data categories and give non-normative advice on processing?More user scenarios?Missed a critical category?

IPR modesMailing listsFeesMidsize LSP cost of membership(illustrative)proportional voteCan non-members vote?Individual or other low cost option?with TC voting rights?ETSIFRANDrestrictedhttp://www.etsi.org/WebSite/membership/fees.aspx 6,000 yes* NOfreenoOASISRF on RANDpublichttp://www.oasis-open.org/join/categories-dues$7500 (~5300)NONO$300/$1200yesW3CRFpublichttp://www.w3.org/Consortium/fees 7,800 NONOfreeyesUnicodeRANDpublichttp://www.unicode.org/consortium/levels.html$7500 (~5300)yesNO$75 noComparison of Possible LT-Standardization homes

* Does not apply for ISG LIS39