RETS 2.0 Workgroup Conference Call: March 2, 2004


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Roster

Laure Chipman
Sergio Del Rio
Maggie Diaz
Dave Dribin
Art Keating
Mark Scheel
Yogi Schultz
Bruce Toback
Steve Verba
Wantao Zhao

1. Outline for the Engineering Requirements Document

Three changes were suggested for the current document. First, the target audience should be expanded to include transaction system vendors. Second, it should be clarified that "Transaction Management" in section 7 refers to business transactions, not protocol transactions. Finally, a section needs to be added on communication of implementation limits. Bruce Toback agreed to have the first draft of the document available by Friday, March 5; reviewers will examine it and suggest changes in a follow-up conference call March 16.

2. Investigations

The group discussed the scope for each of the three investigations, and a fourth, query language, was added. The investigation groups will examine the task requirements, currently-available preexisting standards, and the current RETS standard and make specific recommendations for the technologies to be included in RETS 2.0 and on methods and guidelines for their use.

The Data investigation will be led initially by Steve Verba from Avantia. Avantia is currently engaged in creating a reference object model that will seed the data effort. They expect ot have that available by Friday, March 12. (Scope document)

The Transport investigation will be led by Dave Dribin of the Center for Realtor Technology. Dave has already done some work in this area, particularly with respect to doing large transactions with existing SOAP toolkits. (Scope document)

The Query Language investigation will be headed by Sergio Del Rio. Its charter will be to recommend a query language for RETS 2.0. Bruce specifically asked that the list of query languages investigated include DMQL2. A scope document will be posted soon.

Yogi volunteered Paul Stusiak to lead the Security investigation. (Scope document)

The initial tasks for each of the investigation teams will be to decide how best to use the face-to-face time that we will have in Cincinnati on the 23rd. It was agreed that the best way to coordinate investigation activity, at least initially, is with biweekly conference calls that have an agenda set in advance encompassing all four investigations. The reason for this is that we expect that there will be substantial overlap between investigation members, given the small size of the team working on the project. A single conference call time for all four, with a time-controlled agenda, will allow participants to meet with the least possible inconvenience to their schedules. The first such call will be on March 30, though that may be modified depending on what happens at the meeting.

3. Review of timeline

The group agreed to keep to the initial timeline, that is, a working draft delivered for the December RETS meeting. This may be reviewed at the August meeting.

4. Agenda for the March 24 meeting

It was suggested that we set aside half an hour at the beginning of the workgroup session for administrative use, including scheduling, discussion of required tools and so on, followed by 2-1/2 hours of time for the investigative teams, followed by an hour for whole-workgroup discussion of issues discovered by the investigative groups. We will also prepare an update for the plenary session the next day.

5. Next Activity

Bruce will set up a collaboration environment for each of the investigative workgroups so that leaders can begin to parcel out work. There will be a conference call on March 16, 8:30 AM PST/11:30 AM EST, to discuss progress on these issues and list any changes needed for the requirements document.