RE: client/server model

Thank, Rob.  Just to confirm my understanding:. Two questions:

(1)
* client: A system that receives an annotation …..

Is it safe to say this means “A system that requests and receives an annotation from the server …”

I don’t mean to be Captain Obvious, but it probably would be a good idea to spell this out.  “Receives an annotation” could be interpreted to mean “receives an annotation from a user (which it will then submit to the server”.

(2)
Do I understand correctly that the process of creating of an annotation is not (yet) covered by these definitions?

Thanks.

Ray


From: Robert Sanderson [mailto:azaroth42@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2015 4:23 PM
To: Denenberg, Ray
Cc: Web Annotation
Subject: Re: client/server model


Hi Ray,

That's a great question!  In the community group, we intentionally didn't discuss protocol between clients and servers and left that for future work.
The use of client (or equivalent 'consuming client') and server in the model should only ever be informative rather than requiring behavior.  Behaviors should be in the protocol specification.  I'll go through and work on that, as we were probably not at all rigorous.

The implicit understanding of client and server in the model doc at the moment I think are:

* client: A system that receives an annotation according to this model
* server: A system that makes available an annotation according to this model

So just the base line retrieval function (and not even specifying how), rather than creation of the annotation or discovery of annotations according to some criteria.

Does that answer your questions?

Rob


On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 11:14 AM, Denenberg, Ray <rden@loc.gov<mailto:rden@loc.gov>> wrote:
This is a fairly basic question about the model.

I’m trying to write an annotation profile (to profile the Web annotation model for bibliographic applications).  I’d like to express parts of it in terms of client/server  modeling.

The current model (http://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-model/) hint at such a thing, it uses the terms “client” and “server”,   but doesn’t define them. Also, the terms “client” and “consuming client” are used, and I am not sure what is the difference (if there is any difference).

In the model in my mind, there is a user with an interest in a resource, and wants to do one (or both) of the following:

1.       Find annotations on the resource

2.       Annotate the resource


•         I assume the annotation client is the client that performs these requests on the users behalf. Does “consuming client” refer to #1 above, that is, the client consumes annotations on behalf of the user?

•          The annotation server. The client is going to have to interact both with the server where the resource resides and the server where the annotations reside.  These could be different servers.

It might be useful to clarify this in the model.

Ray



--
Rob Sanderson
Information Standards Advocate
Digital Library Systems and Services
Stanford, CA 94305