[OASIS Issue Tracker] (OSLCCORE-9) Bootstrapping discovery

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    [ https://issues.oasis-open.org/browse/OSLCCORE-9?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=60524#comment-60524 ] 

James Amsden commented on OSLCCORE-9:
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Yes, but there is already a way to do that in OSLC3 - servers can choose to make the home URI an LDPC - which might also be a ServiceProviderCatalog. Then clients can use an OPTIONS request and use the discovery link headers to determine what services are provided where.

That is, by having ServiceProviderCatalog (and ServiceProvider and Service) all extend LDPC, we can unify OSLC2 and OSLC3 discovery into a single mechanism which can be applied to any URI the server wants, including distinguished home pages. There's no need to add anything else for this capability.


> Bootstrapping discovery
> -----------------------
>
>                 Key: OSLCCORE-9
>                 URL: https://issues.oasis-open.org/browse/OSLCCORE-9
>             Project: OASIS OSLC Lifecycle Integration Core (OSLC Core) TC
>          Issue Type: Task
>            Reporter: Martin Pain
>            Assignee: James Amsden
>
> See https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/oslc-core/201503/msg00016.html
> The problem is about the user experience's when configuring OSLC clients to connect to OSLC servers. I think having to search a server's documentation and UI to find a discovery URI that is used only once is not a good user experience, and this will come very early in new users' experimentation with OSLC (both developers and administrators).
> The resource the client wants is the "root" ServiceProviderCatalog. The user will be aware of the idea of URIs representing resources, but the resource in their mind is the server, and the URI they associate with the server is most likely the home page of its web UI. So I suggest we define a Link header rel that is used to link that web UI URI to the ServerProviderCatalog URI.
> So then the user's experience will be:
> - They are reading the client's instructions for integrating with OSLC servers.
> - It says to enter the URI to the server's home page.
> - The user copies that from their browser and enters it into the client.
> - The client finds what it needs on the server. (Under the covers: they do a OPTIONS request on the URI that was provided, follow the Link header that has the rel that we define, and request that URI with an Accept header for the content types that they support, and receive the root ServiceProviderCatalog).
> (The original proposal has been moved to a comment on 24th July 2015 to avoid confusion with the revised proposal that is in the "proposal" field above.)



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