MORE: re "What is a Repository?"

[David RR Webber <Gnosis_@compuserve.com>]

Message text written by Terry Allen
> For
ebxml purposes, which I take to be the storage of schemas
for defined e-commerce documents, the decomposition makes sense 
(although for e-commerce in general there will be some documents
that are treated as attachments and the schemas for which needn't
be stored in this repository).
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Terry, 

This is way off beam.  The function of the XML repository for ebXML is
to faciltiate B2B and B2C commerce thru electronic means based on
XML as the underlying syntax.  The audience is broad business end
users; not specialized MIS professionals.

Just as EDI has IG (implementation guidelines) to assist END-USERS
 in locating applicable information and transactions to fulfil their
business
 functional needs between them and their trading partners - so too the 
ebXML XML repository should serve as a portal to enable practitioners
within a field
(accountants, adminstrators, business people) to quickly, 
accurately and easily locate, use and contribute too the information
and process base.

Therefore, the critical functionality is NOT all the wiring such as 
X3.285, SC32, X3L8, ISO 11179, UML, which only serve in 
obscuring the business operational and simple functional facilitation.
A better analogy is a simple Category/Section and lookup, retrieval
system based on business purpose.  Directed searching and 
human custodians, (as discussed at length in the XML/edi group
document on Repositories) can far surpass the capabilites of 
robot and agent classification systems.

Next time you walk into your local library to find a book - would you
want to be confronted by an indexing scheme based on a hybrid
meta-topic based rendering of the vectors from a  point determined
analysis of the surface mapping of the information space derived 
from the canonical Dublin-core based parsing of the electronically
scanned book content of the whole library, OR would you rather:

a) Ask the information desk?
b) Go to a simple classification by category and section that the
     librarians have assembled as they add new books to 
     the shelves?

DW.