Re: Support for External Repository Items

[Scott Hinkelman <srh@us.ibm.com>]

Hi Len,
You could classify me as an "Internal Item and then no reason
for External Item" advocate. I am not a pure "External Item" advocate
and think the ebXML Registry should hold content by value. From
there, it is simple to allow external references and distinguish between
the two, and really don't see much argument for not allowing.

My initial reading of your document and references in the specification
documents firstly leaves me with the conclusion that a fundamental
ambiguity
comes from the term *content* which used many places. To me, the
primary ambiguity is rooted in the absence of explicit prose concerning
"hold by reference" and "hold by value" to (use classic distributed
system terminology which I see this as).
The spec would do well to align to using the terms "value"
and "reference" instead of "content" *everywhere*. These two are both
indeed *content* specializations, but being specific in the prose would
help.

I will post more but generally your argument leading to specialized content
of either
by-value or by-ref (via URI/L, and appropriateness of) and returning one of
these
specializations on operations is a good one in my mind.
I'm pondering that more intense notion of a classification scheme by
reference......
If this does make sense, then it is a turning point on the next step
concerning the
validity on Extrinsic......

Scott Hinkelman, Senior Software Engineer
XML Industry Enablement
IBM e-business Standards Strategy
512-823-8097 (TL 793-8097) (Cell: 512-940-0519)
srh@us.ibm.com, Fax: 512-838-1074




                                                                                                              
                    Len Gallagher                                                                             
                    <LGallagher@ni       To:     regrep@lists.oasis-open.org                                  
                    st.gov>              cc:                                                                  
                                         Subject:     Support for External Repository Items                   
                    10/05/2001                                                                                
                    08:41 AM                                                                                  
                                                                                                              
                                                                                                              





Regrep members,

Attached is a short (3-page) issue and position paper that addresses the
topic of "How should our Registry handle the registration of repository
items that do not reside under the control of Registry Services?"

One point of view is that all repository items are under the control of the
Registry, so we don't have a problem.

Another point of view is that we can and should be able to create
RegistryEntry instances that describe a repository item that resides
elsewhere.

The attached 3-page document discusses this issue, evaluates how our
Registry specifications handle both of these notions, and states my belief
that the Registry specifications should allow registration of external
repository items if the Registration Authority wants that to happen. I
present the outline of a proposal that would facilitate this capability.

I'm making this proposal to the entire Registry team because I think it
impacts the deliberations of several of our sub-teams, especially query,
external scheme, and cooperating registries. I looked at the use cases
under cooperating registries and found that many of them would be satisfied
simply by allowing the Registry to register repository items that live
elsewhere. I think it's best to let the whole team see the issue up front
so that it can be discussed with input from all effected sub-teams at the
same time.

-- Len


**************************************************************
Len Gallagher                             LGallagher@nist.gov
NIST                                      Work: 301-975-3251
Bldg 820  Room 562                        Home: 301-424-1928
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8970 USA           Fax: 301-948-6213
**************************************************************



#### ExternalItem.pdf has been removed from this note on October 05 2001 by
Scott Hinkelman