[OAI-implementers] IMPORTANT: XML Schema Recommendation and OAI protocol version 1.1

[herbert van de sompel]

Dear all,

As you may know, the W3C recently advanced XML schema to the status of a
W3C Recommendation.  A press release with that respect is available at
http://www.w3.org/2001/05/xml-schema-pressrelease.html.en .   This
release incorporates a number of changes from the XML schema
specification on which we based our OAI 1.0 release.  

With some active oai-implementers, we have been discussing a strategy
for dealing with the change in this specification on which our protocol
builds. We decided early on that not revising the OAI protocol and
thereby basing our OAI "standard" on an obsolete W3C specification was a
bad idea.  We also decided that revising our protocol earlier rather
than waiting made sense since the number of OAI implementors will
inevitably grow over the next few months.  We also paid attention to the
need for XML tools that comply with the new XML Schema specifications.  
As a result of these considerations, we have decided to release a new
version of the OAI protocol (version 1.1).

The strategy for the release is described herafter.

1. July 3rd 2001 

1.a. Release of OAI 1.1 protocol and change of status of OAI 1.0 to
deprecated.  

- The effect is that OAI 1.0 will continue to be accepted by the OAI
registration validator. When registering, registrants are warned that
version 1.0 will become obsolete by December 1st 2001.  

- Implementations of this new version will return 1.1 as their protocol
version in response to the Identify request. 

1.b. Provision of a migration document detailing the changes required by
data and service providers to become conformant with 1.1. The number of
changes to be made to achieve conformance with 1.1. are small. 

2. September 1st 2001

Soft rejection of OAI 1.0 by the OAI registration validator.  

- No new registrations of sites using 1.0 will be allowed. 

- All previous registrants still at version 1.0 will be warned that a
hard reject from the registration database will result by December 1st
2001.

3. December 1st 2001 

OAI 1.0 is made obsolete.  The OAI registration validator will reject
sites that do not support 1.1.

Related information:

- The primer for the new XML Schema specifications are at
http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xmlschema-0-20010502/
- A validator compliant with the new XML Schema specifications is at
http://www.w3.org/2001/03/webdata/xsv
- XML Spy 4.0 supports the new XML Schema specifications and is
currently in beta (see http://www.xmlspy.com/beta.html)
- We will synchronize with the Repository Explorer
(http://purl.org/net/oai_explorer) in the transition to OAI version 1.1.

Carl and Herbert