VOTable 1.2

[Francois Ochsenbein]

Dear VOTablers,

The version 1.2 of VOTable, already in discussion since more than
2 years, introduces the link between data models and VOTable
(via the utype); among the data models, STC is especially important
in the context of astronomical data, and a dedicated note on
"Referencing STC in VOTable" is, I hope, in a more or less final
stage.

Two working drafts have been posted (section "Working Documents"
on the VOTable page of IVOA at
   http://www.ivoa.net/cgi-bin/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/IvoaVOTable ):

1. http://www.ivoa.net/internal/IVOA/IvoaVOTable/note_stc_v0.8.pdf
	proposed note on "Referencing STC in VOTable"

2. http://www.ivoa.net/internal/IVOA/IvoaVOTable/votable.pdf
       draft version of the version 1.2 of VOTable

Both documents are open for discussion; my hope is that the version 
1.2 of VOTable can enter the final stage of the Recommendation path
for the Baltimore meeting. The main differences between VOTable1.1
and VOTable1.2 are:

  * the COOSYS is deprecated, in favor of a reference to the Space-Time 
    Coordinate (STC) data model
  * the INFO element (INFO) is made similar to the PARAM element, i.e.
    o may have attributes utype, ucd, ID, ref, unit
    o accept sub-elements DESCRIPTION, VALUES and LINK 
  * the INFO element may occur after before the closing tags /DATA, 
    /TABLE and /RESOURCE and /VOTABLE (enable post-operational diagnostics)
  * naming conventions of GROUP elements which specify some properties 
   of a relational schema.

This message is mailed to both IVOA WGs "VOTable" and "DataModels"
(the latter for the implication of STC). It's NOT necessary to send
your message to both WGs -- please mail your comments to 
votable at ivoa.net

Looking forward for interesting discussions, and let's meet in 
Baltimore in late October,

Francois
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Francois Ochsenbein       ------       Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg
   11, rue de l'Universite F-67000 STRASBOURG       Phone: +33-(0)390 24 24 29
Email: francois at astro.u-strasbg.fr   (France)         Fax: +33-(0)390 24 24 17
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