All, One set of gaps in the current data architecture concerns lists of URIs for naming data formats, query languages, transfer protocols, access interfaces, and similar entities. We need URIs to name these things, but it isn't clear who should (a) choose those URIs and (b) maintain these lists. Here are some possibilities: I'd appreciate your thoughts and comments. One possibility is that GGF should have a group specifically to do this (possibly even the OGSA-D group ourselves). As people request new URIs, this WG could issue them, and record them in a central list. Or, people could submit URIs that they have defined themselves, and the WG could maintain a list of them. Another possibility is that each WG that defines an interface could define any relevant sets of URIs. This is along the lines of GFD.58 (which actually defines namespaces), and is the approach that ByteIO are using. The advantage of this is that the work is decentralised. The disadvantage is that the URIs may be used by more than one specification (in fact we generally hope that this will be the case), so the burden of maintaining the list may fall on people who are no longer involved. Also, WGs are disbanded when their work is complete. One important consideration is that many vendors will want to define their own URIs. E.g. a vendor may want a variant of SQL to be defined with a URI under a namespace of that vendor. Conversely, we can't require every supplier to create their own URI, because many will not bother to do so. It's possible that we don't need a central list of all such URIs. If various groups define URIs themselves, then as long as users know which URI applies to their case, they can use it successfully. Volunteer sites could record lists of commonly-used URIs. The disadvantage of this is that it may lead to synonyms, which might cause confusion. Dave Berry Research Manager, National e-Science Centre 15 South College St., Edinburgh Tel: +44 131 6514039