• UCR
• Requirements

The Working Group has currently approved the following requirements. This list is a work in progress and may change in future drafts, especially for Phase 2.

Requirements listed as "General" are deemed to be fundamental properties which are presupposed by all use cases involving RIF. Whenever possible, Phase 1 and Phase 2 are listed along with links back to the specific use cases in section 3 that are deemed to motivate them.

Note that certain requirements, including some of those specified in the charter (e.g. named arguments and Horn Logic as a semantics) are not explicitly mentioned in the list below. It is intended that these requirements will be incorporated via the Rulesystem Arrangement Framework (RIFRAF). The umbrella requirement, Rule language coverage, will thus entail the entire set of requirements implicit in the RIFRAF.

Note also that a language is said to be 'covered' by RIF if RIF can be used to interchange rulesets written in that language. The Working Group expects to provide a precise framework for talking about coverage and interoperability in a later draft.

General

Implementability

RIF must be implementable using well understood techniques, and should not require new research in e.g. algorithms or semantics in order to implement translators.

Semantic precision

RIF core must have a clear and precise syntax and semantics. Each standard RIF dialect must have a clear and precise syntax and semantics that extends RIF core.

Extensible Format

It must be possible to create new dialects of RIF and extend existing ones upwardly compatible.

Translators

For every standard RIF dialect it must be possible to implement translators between rule languages covered by that dialect and RIF without changing the rule language.

Standard components

RIF implementations must be able to use standard support technologies such as XML parsers and other parser generators, and should not require special purpose implementations when reuse is possible.

Rule language coverage

RIF must cover the set of languages identified in the Rulesystem Arrangement Framework. See the Coverage section.

Phase 1

Compliance model

RIF must define a compliance model that will identify required/optional features.

• Motivated by

  • Negotiating eBusiness Contracts Across Rule Platforms

Default behavior

RIF must specify at the appropriate level of detail the default behavior that is expected from a RIF compliant application that does not have the capability to process all or part of the rules described in a RIF document, or it must provide a way to specify such default behavior.

• Motivated by

  • Negotiating eCommerce Transactions Through Disclosure of Buyer and Seller Policies and Preferences

  • Collaborative Policy Development for Dynamic Spectrum Access

  • Access to Business Rules of Supply Chain Partners

  • Managing Inter-Organizational Business Policies and Practices

Different semantics

RIF must cover rule languages having different semantics.

• Motivated by

  • Collaborative Policy Development for Dynamic Spectrum Access

  • Access to Business Rules of Supply Chain Partners

  • Managing Inter-Organizational Business Policies and Practices

Embedded comments

RIF must be able to pass comments.

• Motivated by

  • Access to Business Rules of Supply Chain Partners

  • Managing Inter-Organizational Business Policies and Practices

  • Ruleset Integration for Medical Decision Support

Embedded metadata

RIF must support metadata such as author and rule name.

• Motivated by

  • Access to Business Rules of Supply Chain Partners

  • Managing Inter-Organizational Business Policies and Practices

  • Ruleset Integration for Medical Decision Support

Limited number of dialects

RIF must have a standard core and a limited number of standard dialects based upon that core.

• Motivated by

  • Negotiating eCommerce Transactions Through Disclosure of Buyer and Seller Policies and Preferences

  • Collaborative Policy Development for Dynamic Spectrum Access

  • Access to Business Rules of Supply Chain Partners

  • Interchanging Rule Extensions to OWL

  • Vocabulary Mapping for Data Integration

OWL data

RIF must cover OWL knowledge bases as data where compatible with Phase 1 semantics.

• Motivated by

  • Collaborative Policy Development for Dynamic Spectrum Access

  • Access to Business Rules of Supply Chain Partners

  • Managing Inter-Organizational Business Policies and Practices

  • Ruleset Integration for Medical Decision Support

  • Interchanging Rule Extensions to OWL

  • Publishing Rules for Interlinked Metadata

RDF data

RIF must cover RDF triples as data where compatible with Phase 1 semantics.

• Motivated by

  • Access to Business Rules of Supply Chain Partners

  • Ruleset Integration for Medical Decision Support

  • Interchanging Rule Extensions to OWL

  • Vocabulary Mapping for Data Integration

  • Publishing Rules for Interlinked Metadata

Dialect Identification

RIF must have a standard way to specify the dialect of the interchanged rule set in a RIF document.

• Motivated by

  • Negotiating eCommerce Transactions Through Disclosure of Buyer and Seller Policies and Preferences

XML syntax

RIF must have an XML syntax as its primary normative syntax.

• Motivated by

  • Negotiating eCommerce Transactions Through Disclosure of Buyer and Seller Policies and Preferences

  • Access to Business Rules of Supply Chain Partners

  • Managing Inter-Organizational Business Policies and Practices

  • Interchanging Rule Extensions to OWL

XML types

RIF must support an appropriate set of scalar datatypes and associated operations as defined in XML Schema part 2 and associated specifications. See the charter on Datatype support.

• Motivated by

  • Negotiating eBusiness Contracts Across Rule Platforms

  • Access to Business Rules of Supply Chain Partners

  • Interchanging Rule Extensions to OWL

  • BPEL Orchestration of Rule-Based Web Services

Merge Rule Sets

RIF should support the ability to merge rule sets.

• Motivated by

  • Negotiating eCommerce Transactions Through Disclosure of Buyer and Seller Policies and Preferences

  • Access to Business Rules of Supply Chain Partners

  • Managing Inter-Organizational Business Policies and Practices

Identify Rule Sets

RIF will support the identification of rule sets. (implicit in previous requirement)

Phase 2

XML data

RIF must be able to accept XML elements as data.

• Motivated by

  • Negotiating eBusiness Contracts Across Rule Platforms

  • BPEL Orchestration of Rule-Based Web Services