Fred,

<Fred>Extension capabilities are provided. Any project can, through the appropriate channels (contact your UN/CEFACT Head of Delegation) forward proposals for new BIE's and CC's to the non-profit UN/CEFACT working group TBG17 (harmonisation).</Fred>

How much lag time is possible between the time an extension is requested and it gets approved by TBG17? Does the TGB17 Working Group meet periodically to review proposed extensions or is it an ongoing process? If they meet periodically, what is the frequency? Are the procedures and decision criteria published somewhere? Where is the current library of CCs and BIEs published?

<Fred>Wrt OWL/RDF, in my experience there are little non-academic souls on this earth that really comprehend those standards (so much the same like CCTS ;-). I am not one of them (yet). Personally, I would love to see convergence between the OWL/RDF ontology work and the CEFACT/OASIS Core Components work. As far as I understood though, OWL/RDF is mainly related to semi-structured data, while Core Components are applicable to very structured data (even an SAP system must understand it ;-).</Fred>

Since you say you "would love to see convergence between the OWL/RDF ontology work and the CEFACT/OASIS Core Components work" then perhaps you are open to the notion that the objects (BIEs) and properties (CCs) of CCTS can be represented in an ontology framework. If that is true, then perhaps we have a starting point for further discussion.