Subject: [Speechsc] RE: Open standards for speech rec SRGS, SISR, etc.

From: "Thomas Gal" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 12:40:49 -0700

Well.

	Do you know then when EMMA will be done? You tell me that it is
much more complete yet that gives no indication of WHEN it will actually
be done. Now for us to include it as a NORMATIVE reference (in the
parlance of the IETF) it's gotta be finished. We are in the process of
last call (I thinnk we still are though we're making minor corrections,
mostly silly little things) and when we submit the standard you can't
reference something that is not yet finished. NOW, once EMMA is done it
is MINOR to add it as a SHOULD support for output, or maybe even switch
from MUST support NLSML to SHOULD and make EMMA the must (for backwards
compatibility this may not be allowed). So the issue is we cannot get
our spec approved as a standard if it had not normative references. We
ABSOLUTELY (feel free to argue with me on this but I felt this was
consensus) plan on supporting EMMA as an output formant ONCE it is done.
However until then I think the powers that be are trying to get
permission for us to pull the core of NLSML from the document and
include it in the MRCP spec so that we have something that will allow us
to finalize a draft stadard and allow people to start building
interoperable implementationts which IS the next step before many real
changes (if any ) should be made.

-Tom

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Pust 
> Sent: Friday, September 24, 2004 6:06 PM
> To: Thomas Gal
> Subject: RE: Open standards for speech rec SRGS, SISR, etc.
> 
> Tom,
> 
> We were in the EMMA meeting at SpeechTek where the EMMA folks 
> announced a much more complete draft (put out this month).  
> Its actually pretty cool, and addresses some of the 
> communication needs I have to get lattice results to natural 
> language parsers.
> 
> I asked them if they would be harrassing the MRCP folks about 
> dropping NLSML and adopting the new EMMA working draft for 
> v2.  They said harrassing the MRCP folks was high on their 
> agenda.  Has the MRCP committee heard about this?  Are there 
> any rumblings about possibly picking emma up as an output possibility?
> 
> --Michael

_______________________________________________
Speechsc mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/speechsc

---

From: "Michael Pust" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 10:22:03 -0700

Its not branded as complete.  Its second working draft, and the open
issues in the first working draft are resolved. The document is missing
a conformance section, schema, and a DTD. Keep in mind, NLSML is in its
first working draft and still has open issues.  Also, SISR, which is the
only documented way to get a grammar to generate either NLSML or EMMA
speech results, is only in its second working draft.  And yet VXML 2.0
requires a browser to support SISR.

I'm not here to tell the MRCP group to jump to EMMA.  At the conference,
the EMMA folks indicated that they wanted the MRCP group to re-consider
EMMA.  I just wanted to find out if the MRCP crowd had heard from the
EMMA crowd recently.  I don't an opportunity to be missed because the
EMMA people failed to call the MRCP people or vice-versa.

As the SISR/VXML2.0 relationship shows, sometimes you can't just go off
of what the official documents say.  SISR is working draft.  If the
VXML2.0 group took that at face value, they would have no business
requiring a browser to support SISR.  But since they are talking to
eachother, they know that SISR is very implementable as is.  I want to
make sure the MRCP and EMMA groups are talking to eachother, especially
if the adoption of EMMA and the obselecense of NLSML makes communication
via MRCP akward. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Gal 
Sent: Sunday, September 26, 2004 12:41 PM
To: Michael Pust
Cc: [email-masked]'
Subject: RE: Open standards for speech rec SRGS, SISR, etc.

Well.

-Tom

> Its actually pretty cool, and addresses some of the communication 
> needs I have to get lattice results to natural language parsers.
> 
> I asked them if they would be harrassing the MRCP folks about dropping

> NLSML and adopting the new EMMA working draft for v2.  They said 
> harrassing the MRCP folks was high on their agenda.  Has the MRCP 
> committee heard about this?  Are there any rumblings about possibly 
> picking emma up as an output possibility?
> 
> --Michael

---

From: Eric Burger <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 09:03:10 -0400

The two groups are talking to each other, especially since we quite often
are the same people.  Anyone see me talking to myself in the hallway?

I met with Debbie Dahl, W3C MMI chair (who owns EMMA as a deliverable), at
the W3C VBWG face-to-face last week.

MMI has a very strong, very understandable desire for us to use EMMA.
However, they also understand that we cannot wait one more year for MRCPv2.
EMMA, if all goes well, should publish by mid-2005.  <personal-opinion>If
all goes normal, we're looking more like end-2005</personal-opinion>.

The result of the consensus in the SPEECHSC work group to publish a markup
we can use today, and my negotiations with Debbie and Dave Raggett (think of
him as MMI's AD), is the following formal liaison, delivered 28 September
2004 to the W3C.

Note that one of the purposes of the liaison is to light a fire under MMI to
get EMMA out as fast as possible.

--
- Eric, in capacity as Chair, not Participant

===================================================

Please find below a liaison statement from the IETF SPEECHSC working
group to the W3C Multimedia Interaction work group.

Best,
Leslie Daigle,
IETF liaison to the W3C.

==========

Title: SPEECHSC Requirements for W3C MMI Standards
Source: IETF SPEECHSC Work Group
To: W3C Multimedia Interaction Work Group

Contact Persons:
Name:        Eric Burger
Tel. Number: +1 603 890 7587
E-Mail:      [email-masked]
Name:        Dave Oran
Tel. Number: +1 978 264 2048
E-Mail:      [email-masked]

1. Overall Description:
The speechsc Work Group is tasked with developing protocols to support
distributed media processing of audio streams.  The focus of this working
group is to develop protocols to support ASR, TTS, and SV.  The working
group will only focus on the secure distributed control of these servers.

The full description of the SPEECSC Charter, including documents and
milestones, can be found here:
http://ietf.org/html.charters/speechsc-charter.html

A supplemental work group web page can be found here:
http://flyingfox.snowshore.com/i-d/speechsc

2. Background to Request
The consensus of the SPEECHSC work group is that EMMA is the preferred
encoding for speech recognition results for MRCPv2 transport.

It is our plan to require MRCPv2-conforming protocol endpoints to support
EMMA (currently referenced at <http://www.w3.org/TR/emma/>).  This will
occur once EMMA reaches Candidate Recommendation status.  However, it is our
understanding that this will not happen until mid-2005.

Because there is a demand for MRCPv2 today, we need a normative reference to
a recognition markup.  The consensus of the SPEECHSC work group is that
NLSML (currently referenced at <http://www.w3.org/TR/nl-spec/>) is closest
to our needs.  However, there is no normative (Candidate Recommendation or
later) for NLSML.

Until the W3C publishes EMMA as a Candidate Recommendation, MRCPv2 endpoints
will be required to support a different markup.  However, once EMMA is
published, it will be the default, required markup for returning recognition
results.  This markup will not be called NLSML.

MRCPv2 will include a negotiation mechanism such that follow-on markups to
EMMA will be automatically supported by the protocol.

3. Requests to W3C:
A) Please keep us informed to the progress of EMMA.
B) Please progress EMMA to Candidate Recommendation as fast as possible.
C) It is our intention to reference the NLSML specification, per the W3C
copyright rules specified in the NLSML specification, found at
<http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/copyright-documents-19990405>

---

From: "McGlashan, Scott" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 18:28:17 +0200

Just to be clear, VoiceXML 2.0 do NOT require SISR - it is informative
not normative.

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
Behalf Of Michael Pust
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 19:22
To: Thomas Gal
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: [Speechsc] RE: Open standards for speech rec SRGS, SISR, etc.

-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Gal
Sent: Sunday, September 26, 2004 12:41 PM
To: Michael Pust
Cc: [email-masked]'
Subject: RE: Open standards for speech rec SRGS, SISR, etc.

Well.

-Tom