It is hard to comment on a press release alone when we have not had sight of the XML standard itself! Has anyone actually seen it yet? If so, where is it? I obviously cannot yet comment on behalf of LiST, but we make reference to the need for an XML schema (or standard) in footnote 6 to Part 2 of our Data Exchange Protocol (http://www.listgroup.org/documents/Disclosure_Data_LiST_Group_Data_Exchange_Protocol_1.3_27_April_2007.doc). That is the direction in which we saw our work going, depending on the output from this project. As to which, we have been aware of this initiative since its inception (indeed, LiST is cited as a founding participating organisation: http://edrm.net/xml_participants.php), and we made the deliberate point of sending an early private draft of our work in to the EDRM project so that our two initiatives were fully aware of each other's work product. So, I think LiST is unable to answer the first poster's questions at the moment as we have not yet seen anything to consider (but I am very much looking forward to seeing it). However, the questions posed do rather miss the point of what LiST is trying to do. We want to make things simpler at a practical level. If a universal standard can be adopted then I personally would be delighted, regardless of its origins. However, I would like to ensure that the standard proposed fits all sizes of case and jurisdictions of usage. I will be looking at this XML standard to see if it will work for us in the UK and I suspect that will be the thrust of my colleagues on LiST, too. A final thought on the first post: I am not sure if it matters so much that the suppliers support this initiative. It is the end users who dictate what is useful. If the end users want something else then market forces dictate that the supplies will have to, um, supply it! Jonathan Maas