[OSGeo-Standards] [REST.SC] Was: "file" formats. Is: GeoWeb

[Rushforth, Peter]

I apologize for the cross-post, but I've trimmed the "To:" list
at least out of respect for people's in-baskets. 

Jeff,

> [I can't believe I'm wasting my vacation time arguing about 
> this, but I started it so I will send one more reply before 
> forbidding myself from reading my email until Monday.]

Enjoy your vacation.

> Commercial search 
> engines are indeed the first place people typically use to 
> find information, so the technology should be better 
> leveraged to allow users to search for geospatial information 
> with appropriate semantics. 

+1

Search engines are enabled by the fact that they can crawl documents.
Having a declarative approach (hypermedia) to spatial data, instead
of an interface approach, will allow the evolution of standard media types
which can be crawled and searched.  ISO 19115 is a possibility,
but there are others which are more data centric thatn metadata
centric. e.g. Atom

> 
> On the topic 
> of a pragmatic interface, I believe we should explore the 
> development of a human-accessible HTML layer 

That's what I'm advocating, except it HTML should be the
client of data services.  What it points to must be declarative, 
to avoid the "R" word for you.  What is consumed by the HTML layer should
be embodied in a standards-track internet media type.

> Last message until at least July 22,
> Jeff DLB

Regards,
Peter Rushforth