Schedule and call for discussion topics Re: Call for contributions to the Registry and DCP sessions at the May 2023 IVOA Interop Meeting in Bologna, Italy

[Mark Taylor]

Dear Renaud and Registry,

On Wed, 26 Apr 2023, Renaud Savalle wrote:

> *If you'd like to raise topics for that discussion, could you please share
> them ahead with the WG using the registry mailing list* (simply reply to this
> msg). That will help us better schedule our time. I will also be monitoring
> the #registry channel on Slack. Since this is an hybrid meeting, you will be
> able participate via Zoom as well (the zoom links will be posted on meeting
> schedule page).

a discussion topic I'd like to suggest for the Registry session in
Bologna is possible retirement of Registry Interface 1.0 full searchable
registry services.  RI1.0 has been effectively deprecated for this 
purpose in favour of RegTAP since about 2014.

As far as I know there are only two such services running,
Euro-VO and STSci (there used to be an astrogrid service too but
I think it's long gone).  Both of these sites also offer RegTAP 
interfaces to the same information, which are as far as I know 
preferable in all respects.  Henrik Norman tells me that the logs 
show no recent accesses to the RI1.0 searchable interface at Euro-VO
(I haven't asked about STSci).

Topcat offers the option of querying using RI 1.0 as an alternative
to RegTAP, but I don't know why anybody would want to.
I see some failures (I don't know if they are client or service issues) 
when topcat tries to make certain RI 1.0 queries to both the
Euro-VO and STSci services.  I could try to track them down and either 
make fixes myself or ask the service providers to do so ... but is it
worth it?

If those two sites retire their RI1.0 interfaces, and clients such as
topcat remove any capability for querying using RI1.0, we could wave 
goodbye to RI1.0 and reduce the maintenance burden on the services at
Euro-VO and STSci and on clients like TOPCAT.

Questions:
  - is it safe/advisable for TOPCAT to remove the RI1.0 client functionality?
  - are there other clients using RI1.0 services?
  - is anybody using Euro-VO or STSci RI1.0 services?
  - if so, are they actually working properly?
  - would those service operators like to retire these services?
  - are there any other RI1.0 searchable registries out there?

Thanks,

Mark

--
Mark Taylor  Astronomical Programmer  Physics, Bristol University, UK
m.b.taylor at bristol.ac.uk          https://www.star.bristol.ac.uk/mbt/