# 20230126 Model Engineering Meeting Notes

## Overview

- No comments or feedback.

## Ground Rules

- No comments or feedback.

## Review of Current and Completed Work

- No comments or feedback.

## Help Needed

- No comments or feedback.

## POAM JSON&XML Discrepancy (usnistgov/OSCAL#1618)

- AJ summarized the technical details of the issue with Dave and Wendell
- Community Attendee #1 concurred with analysis but did not have a strong inclination, but we cause breakage now or later
- Community Attendee #1 asked questions if there are problems with conversion, Wendell confirmed that the conversion is not impacted, just the ergonomics of the discrepancy between both
- Community Attendee #1 pointed out he has not attempted round-trip conversion. Wendell and AJ concurred we should test round-tripping just in case.
- Michaela asked how it works in the CLI tool regarding this issue. Wendell explained how Metaschema cross-references XML and JSON differences through the `group-as` construct. Dave further explained how the XSLT and Java-based CLI both operate on this aliasing syntax.
- Dave posed a valid question: is there anyone who cannot continue development with the OSCAL POA&M model as-is?
- Community Attendee #1 says it does not impacted him directly or immediately.
- Community Attendee #2 says they similarly are not impacted, but believes it be better to fix it sooner rather than later.
- Dmitry said it will not impact him but largely due to the benefits of using JSON Schema with Typescript and his tooling choices.
- Dave asked for a show of hands for anyone directly impacted by this change.
- Michaela and others sought recommendations and methods to find information from other stakeholders who actively use JSON models, specifically the POA&M model and seek their perspective
- Dave summarized views and said if no concrete feedback is received, we plan the change for v2.0.0 release.
- AJ proposed he can lead a public notification and RFC process for this change.

## Open Question and Answers

- Community Attendee #1 brought up usnistgov/OSCAL#961 and the implications of usnistgov/OSCAL#1618.
- If the shape of a model changes, and we suppose that users have intra-document relationships in cross-referenced document instances, it will be challenging with document instances that might not always have the `oscal-version`s declared.
- Community Member #1 asked: would signficant changes warrant a new namespace for a major version change?
- Wendell, Community Attendee #1, Dave, and AJ discussed the long-term implications of XML namespaces in maintaining document instances
- Dave recommended the XML namespace management, JSON management strategy, and their relationship to the model management strategy be discussed and handled.
- Michaela proposed for consideration that we seek an avenue for creating an automated transcript of the meetings. AJ recommended we consider that in a different venue as the meeting was ending.