applications software metadata

[Guy Rixon]

As an end user of the VO, I might want to know three things about an
application:

 1. What science does it do, and is it the same, in detail, as the
    one that my colleagues used to get their results. I'd want to
    know about the reproducibility of the processing.

 2. How do I run this thing locally, without connection to the VO?

 3. How do I run this thing in connection to the VO?

#1 involves the human-readable metadata. We need something with an abstract
for the software plus a link to the app's web-page. If we make a new
registration for each version of the software, then we solve the
reproducibility problem.

#2 is really outwith the VO remit, but a reference-URL to a web page covers it
and is easy.

#3 is different for server-side and client-side applications. Client-side, we
need some description of which IVOA-standard services the app can call.
Server-side, we need a CEA-like description of how to call it.

Therefore, I think we have a need for a resource type with two possible
capability blocks: one capability for client-side and one for server-side.

On Fri, 27 Jan 2006, John Taylor wrote:

>    -- What is the purpose and intended usage of the applications registry?
> > -- What exactly is meant by "application" How about these: Excel?
> > Apache webserver? STC schema? My Pipeline for My Data? A Java class to
> > translate sexagesimal to decimal? An IDL script? An IDL tutorial? IDL
> > itself?
> I think this is a good question, but that we can make progress by
> focussing on the two more tightly defined categories of application
> described by Tony: server-side apps that can be plugged into a workflow
> and interactive (largely) client-side apps.   The benefit from
> describing apps in a registry rather than relying on Google is that we
> can get some degree of automation.   Server side apps are covered by the
> UWS discussions, so here's a use case from the desktop side that I'd
> like to see addressed.
>
> A group of us are working at making common desktop applications
> interoperate using a simple messaging protocol.  Supposing the user is
> manipulating some data in an application and wishes to view it in
> another app.  I'd like my first app to be able to throw up a dialog box
> to query the registry based on: keywords from the user, whether the app
> supports the messaging protocol and if it does whether it understands
> the message my first app will send to instruct it to load the data.
> After the user has selected a suitable app, I want it to be
> automatically downloaded (if necessary) and started.  Now clearly, this
> isn't always going to be possible and I in many cases I might need to
> fall back to displaying a URL for the user to go fetch the app himself,
> but often we will be able to offer quite a lot of automation.
>
> What other use cases do people have for client-side tools and the
> registry?
>
> John
>
> ROE/AstroGrid/VOTech DS6
>

Guy Rixon 				        gtr at ast.cam.ac.uk
Institute of Astronomy   	                Tel: +44-1223-337542
Madingley Road, Cambridge, UK, CB3 0HA		Fax: +44-1223-337523