I absolutely agree with the fact that some form of stabilisation
of DC is necessary. Especially with people not directly involved
in the DC Workshop Series, there is a feeling that DC is not
stable enough. And if you do not attend the meetings, you might
not even understand why changes are being made.
We had a European metadata tutorial and workshop in Luxembourg in
December, organised by the European Commission, and one of the
main concerns of the participants was that there is no clear
version control of DC. This could lead to situations that people
start implementing to a certain spec which can be changed by the
next DC Workshop.
It is clear that it should always be possible to develop the
agreements further but it would be nice for people to target
a stable version. New developments can be incorporated into
a new version. Bill Moen's remark about the way Z39.50 has
been maintained in the ZIG certainly points to a proven
model for this.
I do think this has nothing to do with "people using DC (or
anything) just because its been rubber stamped by a standards
body rather than proved in the field". It is rather people
worried about shooting at a moving target. I think it is
widely recognised that the approach of field testing is
very valid but at some point a stable situation should be
reached on the basis of which investments can be made.
By the way, I am now finalising the report of the December
Workshop in Luxembourg and I hope to post the major points
that came out of it in two weeks time.
Cheers, Makx.
__________________________________________________________________
Makx Dekkers e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Coopers&Lybrand GSM: +352 021 29 72 29
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