XML packaging is an important issue which has been addressed by W3C, however the working group was suspended and little progress was made. In the mean time a number of projects have been tackling this subject, including METS, FEDORA and XPACK.

The Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems has also been investigating this, working within the information modelling concepts of the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model which addresses long term preservation of information. In this way a packaging concept is being developed which is applicable not only to the immediate concerns of information exchange, but one which can if necessary be used for long term preservation.

This broader view of packaging should be useful in a wide variety of circumstances and should be able to deal with all types of data. In particular by bringing in refined concepts of data description the packaging techniques should also provide the ability to use the contents of the packaged data on reception.