Dewey Decimal System for business XML

Mark Gibbs in Network World -

XML became balkanized into dialects, one for each purpose and each assigned different
names with often different meanings to each entity they were
describing. This was a big problem.

So if you and I are using different schemas and we want to
intercommunicate we are reduced to hiring a data architect and a
programmer to create some kind of translation mechanism.

But there is a better way: The Universal Data Element Framework
(UDEF) is a cross-industry metadata identification strategy. The
intention is to provide a means of real-time identification for
semantic equivalency, as an attribute to data elements within
e-business document and integration formats.

To put that another way, UDEF aims to be the Dewey Decimal
system for structured business-to-business messaging. You can
think of UDEF as replacing the many-to-many links between
businesses exchanging data with conceptually a single semantic
hub that provides common ground.

But the power of UDEF is that it will probably take care of the
translation of the majority of entities leaving just a handful
that will require more sophisticated translation to be carried
out by custom code. And for run-of-the-mill business purposes,
UDEF will most likely do it all.

More info here:-
UDEF home page
Oasis Cover Pages
UDEF Compare report example