UNTP Extensions methodology.

[onthebreeze]

One of the requirements for UNTP is to keep it simple so that implementation is cheaper and simpler and interoperability is more achievable. A key strategy for simplicty is to avoid UNTP growing huge as it tries to accomodate the needs of every industry sector and jurisdiction. Rather than bloat the core, the idea is to define an extensions methodology that provides guidance on how to extend UNTP in a non-breaking way so that industry specific needs can be met whilst maintaining interoperability with other sectors. A classic use case is that automative industry will include products from primary extraction (eg lithium in batteries) and agriculture (eg leather seats). An automotive industry actor should be able to process passports received from non-automotive sectors even if they are not aware of the minimum or agricultural extensions. Here's a stab at the kinds of things that an industry/juristiction might want to extend

• Schema extensions - ie nonbreaking extra properties in a DPP or traceability event.
• Vocabulary extensions - ie industry specific language for processes and components.
• Identifier scheme extensions - eg country level business registration numbers or industry specific identifiers like BOC container numbers - how to make these resolvable & verifiable.
• Trust anchors and trust graphs - are likely to be very industry specific

We already have two candidate extensions that we can use to develop & test the extensions methodology

• The UN Critical Raw Materials traceability & transparency project (UNTP-CRM)
• An Australian Agriculture Traceability Protocol (AATP)

There's also the question of conformity tests and how tools and test cases are extended from UNTP to provide an industry / jurisdiction specific test suite.

Here's a little diagram showing some thoughts.

[onthebreeze]

Added PR #36

[PatStLouis]

@onthebreeze any outstanding work for this issue to be done that wasn't addressed in the pr?