OASIS

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The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Systems (OASIS) was formed in 1993 under the name SGML Open. The group changed its name in 1998 to reflect support for XML and CGM, the Computer Graphics Metafile standard.

OASIS was formed with two general goals. First, the group strives to further the adoption of product-independent structured information systems by publishing marketing information and acting as a clearinghouse for information about structured information systems. OASIS is active at many different conferences—such as the Graphic Communications Association's SGML/XML series, Documation, and Seybold—spreading the word.

The group's second goal is to create standards that provide guidance to companies that implement products to support structured information systems. Whenever a member suggests a standard to implement, OASIS will form a technical committee. For example, an OASIS technical committee developed a standard for registering schemas and storing them in a public repository. OASIS has developed several such standards over the years, and makes them available to the public. OASIS standards information is available from its Web site at http://www.oasis-open.org/.