Request For Comment: VODataService v1.1

VOResource Proposed Recommendation: Request for Comments

This document will act as RFC center for the Proposed Recommendation entitled "VODataService: a VOResource Schema Extension for Describing Collections and Services version 1.1, version 1.02". The specification can be found at http://www.ivoa.net/Documents/VODataService/20090903.

Review period: 30 Sept 2009 - 30 Oct 2009.

In order to add a comment to the document, please edit this page and add your comment to the list below in the format used for the example (include your WikiName so that authors can contact you for further information). When the author(s) of the document have considered the comment, they will provide a response after the comment.

Additional discussion about any of the comments or responses can be conducted on the Resource Registry mailing list, registry@ivoa.net. However, please be sure to enter your initial comments here for full consideration in any future revisions of this document

Comments from the community

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Comments from TCG members during the normal RFC period

Applications (Tom McGlynn, Mark Taylor)

Data Access Layer (Keith Noddle, Jesus Salgado)

Data Model (Mireille Louys, AnitaRichards)

Coverage.RegionOfRegard : The "Semantic meaning" described and the "Comments" attached to this piece of metadata do not match. One might think this value can contain anything, and then will not be used. What is the exact purpose of such a value?

RayPlante responds: This text is lifted from the RM standard definition for this text (see 1st paragraph of VODataService spec, section 3). The purpose is given by the semantic meaning. The idea, in other words, is that it is a (smallest) representative size that has informational meaning in the dataset. This size can be characterized by different measures, depending on the type of dataset. Yes, we know its a bit fuzzy, but it is this is from the RM and at least one application has used it.

Grid&Web Sevices (Matthew Graham, Paul Harrison)

Registry (Ray Plante, Aurelien Stebe)

The VOSI spec highlights our current lack of an Interface type that (semantically) represents a simple web resource represented by a static URL that returns the underlying data (i.e. a GET on a REST-ful resource). Without this, we don't have a good way to describe VOSI capabilities without breaking the semantics of the existing Interface types.

I propose, therefore, that we add a new Interface type to cover this called "WebResource" that, in addition to the service URL, allows an optional element "resultType" that gives the MIME type of the response.

-- RayPlante - 27 Oct 2009

RayPlante replies: In an email discussion on the list (registry/0910/2080.htm, see also grid/0910/0736.htm), Guy recommended a use of "!ParamHTTP" that represents a simple web resource as a degenerate form. I'm happy to accept this interpretation and avoid this addition. (I mean what was the above commenter thinking?! )

Semantics (Sebastien Derriere, Norman Gray)

VOEvent (Rob Seaman, Alasdair Allan)

VO Query Language (Pedro Osuna, Yuji Shirasaki)

VOTable (Francois Ochsenbein)

Standard and Processes (Francoise Genova)

Astro RG (Masatoshi Ohishi)

Data Curation & Preservation (Bob Hanisch)

I read through the main body of the document fairly carefully, and found a number of typos and many non-working links. I will send a list to the editor. The only more general comment is that the section "Syntax Notation Using XML Schema" that precedes the TOC seems to belong in the main Introduction, in particular because specific recommendations are being made. This seems out of place in the preamble.

RayPlante responds: The intent of this paragraph is really to explain the notational convention for qualified names and tries to point out the consistency with the recommendation given elsewhere (RI). Thus, I would rather reword this to better reflect its purpose than to suggest that it is giving a specific recommendation.

Theory (Herve Wozniak, Claudio Gheller)

TCG (ChristopheArviset, Severin Gaudet)