BS 8581-1 is the catchy name for the emerging British standard that is / was XCRI-CAP. Members of BSI committee IST/43 (trips of the tongue, no?) have been applying their brains to the text on the XCRI-CAP wiki, suitably transmogrified into BSI-speak.
I hope we haven't lost too much of the meaning. It's something of a truism that technical jargon renders comprehension more difficult. And then we have to add in plentiful references to *other* standards, specify dread namespaces and generally make it indigestible. We have a second document, BS 8581-2 that describes guidelines and recommendations for how to use the standard.
However, we do end up with an unambiguous document that developers and information management specialists can use. And that is the main objective.
BS 8581 will be available for public scrutiny - all things being equal - by around the end of March 2012.
alanepaull