Re: Metadata or content - and some OCS feedback

[Ian Davis <id@openjava.org>]

On Tuesday, July 06, 1999, 8:47:02 AM, james wrote:

> From: "james@xmlTree.com" <james@xmltree.com>

> Thanks, Ian, for the work that you have put in on OCS.  I am, though, a little unclear on
> the objectives of the group.  Is it :

> a) to define a channel metadata format (when the channel is updated, who the editor is
> etc.), or
> b) to define the channel content format (news item 1, news item 2 etc.), or
> c) to define both separately, or
> d) to define both rolled into one.

I'd like to see a and b, and I think they are separate but
the syndication format probably needs some additional metadata such as
date published, and author. I also believe that we should not rush
into defining another channel format too early. Netscape are rumoured
to be releasing version 1.0 of RSS later this month and no matter how
many flaws the current format has it is the most widely supported so
backwards compatibility is a must.

However from what I've seen we shouldn't hold out too much hope of
Netscape adding everything that we need to the format. Personally, I'd
be looking for at least the following: language, publication date,
author/copyright/credits, optional content with each item, optional
date with each item.

For the channel metadata I obviously see OCS as the way forward. While
we're all here I'd like to canvas some opinion from this list:

Does anyone feel that the current OCS format is too cumbersome from
either an authoring or a parsing point of view?

Do you think that OCS can scale from single channel sites to channel
portals such as my.userland?

Do the Dublin Core elements provide enough flexibility to describe the
channel and it's owner?

> One solution would be -
> <rdf:description about="http://www.windowscepower.com/shares/netscape-
rss/headlines.rdf">>
>   <ocs:language>en</ocs:language>
>   <ocs:content-type>text/xml</ocs:content-type>
>   <ocs:schema>http://my.netscape.com/rdf/simple/0.9/</ocs:schema>
>   <ocs:updatePeriod>daily</ocs:updatePeriod>
>   <ocs:updateFrequency>1</ocs:updateFrequency>
>   </rdf:description>
This is definately a better way to do it. Although I believe the
default XML MIME type should be application/xml. I'd like to add this
to the nect version of the OCS spec


.id.

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