Registry WG

[Tony Linde]

At the last IVOA meeting I volunteered to initiate input to this mailing
list and set up a working group. This area is seen as having the highest
priority within the IVOA community and we have been tasked with
delivering a V1.0 specification by the end of 2003 for acceptance by the
IVOA executive at its January 2004 meeting.

Something which was discussed at the IVOA meeting but not made a formal
goal was the possibility of having some sort of inter-VO registry
demonstration operating at the IAU in Sydney in July. We need to decide
fairly quickly if this is possible and, if so, what form it should take.

EVERYONE who subscribes to this mailing list will have an opportunity to
contribute to the registry specification and to comment on drafts of
that specification. But we would like to have a smaller working group of
people who are willing and able to spend a reasonable amount of their
working time on this area. Such people would probably need to be
full-time members of an existing VO project.

I'm not sure whether we should simply call for volunteers to the working
group (WG) or mandate the three core VO projects (US-VO, Euro-VO,
AstroGrid) to supply one or two people each while offering other VO
projects the opportunity to add one of their own members to the group.

The WG tasks in the short term are:

1. set the scope of the WG and the registry specification
2. decide feasibility of IAU demo
2.1 if feasible, what form demo should take
3. set the contents of a registry spec (ie which standards it covers)
4. investigate and report on other registry initiatives (OAI, GGF etc)
5. define format of specification
6. set rules for how WG operates (eg copy GGF:
http://www.globalgridforum.org/L_About/Struc_Proc.htm)

Any other suggestions?

We should make this list the main means of communication by the WG (so
others can also contribute to discussions) and I'll also line up some
space on an IVOA machine for storing/downloading documents etc. We could
also set up regular telecons and I think face-to-face meetings every 2
or 3 months would also be advisable.

What does everyone think?

Cheers,
Tony. 

__
Tony Linde                       Phone:  +44 (0)116 223 1292
AstroGrid Project Manager        Fax:    +44 (0)116 252 3311
Dept of Physics & Astronomy      Mobile: +44 (0)7753 603356
University of Leicester          Email:  ael at star.le.ac.uk
Leicester, UK   LE1 7RH          Web:    http://www.astrogrid.org