table metadata and the registry

[Roy Williams]

Tony Linde wrote:
> I don't agree, Ray. The table/column information is as much a part of the
> description of the service as any of the aother metadata. Splitting it out
> is arbitrary: why is the table/column information different from the rest of
> the metadata?
>   
The metadata for a book on Amazon.com includes images of the front and 
back cover, and full size images of the inside of the book, lists of 
Statistically Improbable Phrases from the book, and lists of who wants 
to sell secondhand copies. If we are expanding out the concept of 
metadata, why stop with table/column information? How about we include 
the full text of the journal paper that describes the dataset? Perhaps a 
few hundred sample records from the dataset? Comments from users, IDL 
scripts that people have used to analyze the data? In fact, why not go 
the whole way and just copy the whole thing into the registry. All data 
is really metadata. Centralize copy and replicate.

Sorry, getting a bit silly here.......
:-)
Roy