There are to many conflicting standards for this. Most of them are calling themself some 'EDI', even those that are not based on X12. X12 itself is not human re

There are to many conflicting standards for this. Most of them are calling themself some 'EDI', even those that are not based on X12. X12 itself is not human readable, and EDI based on X12 (Tradacom, US EDI, UN/EDIFACT) are complex beasts. To complex for average coders. So those coders invent new standards e.g. for SAP, or OASIS. imho, the solution would be UN/EDIFACT. The United Nations version is flexible enough to cover 99% of the real life cases, and improves twice a year, to cover the remaining percent. Take a look at my XML::Edifact CPAN Perl modules, if you want to start with free software EDI. Now EDI is only half of the bill. EDI would be the HTML part of the Web of business documents. But you also need a transport part, and the EDI networks are not connected, as they speak different languages. And you need some open servers and browsers for your EDI.