Re: Mixed model metadata proposal

>However, I am not entirely sure what you mean when you state,
>"meta-data that is expressed in an object system that supports
>inheritance," and Ihope you can clarify what you mean.  

In our system we are able to establish "policy management" (i.e., workflow,
etc.) based on the type of meta-data associated with a document/folder. The
typing of the meta data is used to generate intelligent notifications
(which might then start the workflow process). Another use is to associate
"context" information about how a document was created and include its type
such that when the document is shipped with its context (as meta data) the
receiveing workspace can meaningfully work with the context information
(for example use the methods of the type to perform some operations not
available in the receiveing workspace - such as simple translation).

>In particular,
>what requirements does this kind of model satisfy -- perhaps they are
>requirements for WebDAV as well?  

Arguably yes! But, I am not sure I know enough about this broad field to
affirmatively say yes. 

>Furthermore, it is not clear to me
>what affect such a model would have on the interface between client
>and server.  Does this simply affect the names of attributes, or are
>there more implications?
>

The easiest thing to do is to leave the semantics of the typing mechanism
left unspecified, but provide a protocol for expressing the information.
Sort of like what XML does. 

So, in this context, why not use XML as the meta data protocol for WEBDAV.
Atleast the major browser vendors have committed to having XML parsers on
the client side. We can bootstrap off of this infrastructure.




Sankar Virdhagriswaran			p. no: 508 371 0404

Received on Tuesday, 6 May 1997 19:48:11 UTC