[OAI-implementers] Progress update on Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting version 2.0

[Carl Lagoze]

Dear all:

We'd like to bring you up-to-date on progress towards release of version
2.0 of the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
(OAI-PMH).  This is a follow-on to a previous message, archived at [1],
summarizing changes in the protocol.

As scheduled we completed the first alpha of the protocol document on
March 1.  This document was released to a group of alpha testers and the
OAI technical committee.  The last few weeks have been busy with
discussions among this group with the goal of fine tuning the revised
protocol.

The nature of the discussions in the alpha and technical groups and our
commitment to make version 2.0 a stable protocol version have led us to
a decision to push our protocol release date to June 3, 2002.  You may
recall from the earlier email [1] our decisions that:

1. Version 2.0 of the protocol will not be backwards compatible with
1.1.  Since the release of version 1.0, we have characterized the 1.x
releases as 'experimental'.  Results from the considerable amount of
experimentation over the past year mandate a number of changes that make
backward compatibility impractical. 2. Version 2.0 of the protocol is
NOT experimental and is meant to be a STABLE base of implementation.  

We feel that ensuring the credibility of these commitments is of primary
importance leading to the conclusion that extending the alpha test
period for version 2.0 is the proper decision.  An added benefit of
extending the alpha testing period is that there will be sufficient time
for important tools such as the Repository Explorer to be version 2.0
compatible by the time of the production release.

To summarize the release and migration schedule:

>>>>June 1, 2002

Production release of the following:

1. OAI-PMH version 2.0
2. Annotated OAI-PMH version 2.0 detailing changes from version 1.1 3.
OAI-PMH version 2.0 Usage Guidelines document. 4. OAI-PMH version 2.0
Registration and conformance testing software

>>>>September 1, 2002

Registered sites that have not upgraded will be sent a reminder that
they must upgrade.  As of this date, attempts to register at the OAI
registration site [2] MUST conform to OAI-PMH version 2.0

>>>>December 1, 2002

Sites that have not upgraded will be removed from the OAI registration
site.

As always thanks for your participation and support of the OAI
community.  

Carl Lagoze
Herbert Van de Sompel


[1]
http://www.openarchives.org/pipermail/oai-general/2002-February/000130.h
tml
[2] http://www.openarchives.org/data/registerasprovider.html