Registry WG: Attention/Action

[Marco C. Leoni]

Tony Linde wrote:

>1. Should the RSM document be a Working Draft (WD), ie a document approved
>by this group as the basis for a future standard?
>
Yes, as WD or Note doesn't matter. Changes are needed anyway (now and 
probably even more in the future, to follow feedback).

>2. Should RSM (Resource and Service Metadata) be renamed to RM (Resource
>Metadata)?
>
Giving that everything in the registry is a resource: yes.
This means that we need at least a two-level hierarchy (see below)

>3. What structure should the next WD take: a flat one based on Ray's
>VOResource.xsd or a hierarchical one similar to the one's I've posted
>recently?
>
Resource
  |-Service
  |-...etc...

Otherwise we need to revise the name of what is within the Registry.

>4. Should the metadata for a resource be unambiguous and each item named for
>its purpose or should we have a basic set of metadata which is used to fit
>requirements of different types of resource?
>  
>
As Ray said is a balance problem, but we have to start so let's begin 
with what we have and refine it after feedback:
there is no way to think about all the possibilities without try a bit.

>4a. Should the basic resource metadata be based on Dublin Core or should
>metadata items be named for their astro meanings (and transformed to DC form
>if needed for DC-tools harvesting)?
>  
>
Not sure about this point: if we're going to adopt DC than why not use 
it since the beginning?
On the other hand, DC are not sufficient to describe all the 
astronomical stuff, so at the end we need a way to extend them.
Then the idea of transformation is really attractive.

>5. Should the group discuss the structure of resource metadata now and only
>issue a new WD when that discussion is more stable or should we issue a new
>version of RSM/RM and get people to build software based on that proposal
>and then discuss the structure?
>

A new version of the WD is better - as a reference starting point, 
bearing in mind that is a *Working Draft* so prototypes based on it may 
need to be radically changed as soon as new version(s) will appear: we 
need to avoid registries "partially" ivoa-compliant.



Cheers,
    Marco