[occi-wg] Voting result

[Richard Davies]

The list has thankfully gone quiet, so I've recounted the votes since my
previous post. We are now at:

  10 JSON, 5 XML, 2 TXT

I don't consider this as a vote for a decision, but do think it has drawn
out a lot of opinions and shown the lay of the land more clearly - in the
light of the votes, the only two viable options are:

- Single-format: JSON
- Multi-format: JSON + XML + ?TXT

The list has also been fairly evenly split on whether multiple format
support makes sense or not (independent of the choice of the single format).


I see three conclusions going forward:

1) Continue our specification in terms of the model (nouns, verbs,
attributes, semantics of these, how these are linked together) with both
JSON and XML renderings of this being explored on the wiki. We can decide
later if we run with both or just JSON.

There is still work here - e.g. verbs and attributes on networks have not
been specified, nor have we agreed fully the _model_ of how we link servers
to storage and networks.

Thanks to Alexander Papaspyrou, Andy Edmonds:
http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000461.html
http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000444.html


2) The JSON vs. XML debate is not just about angle-brackets vs.
curly-brackets.

Amongst the XML supporters, I have seen little opposition to a GData/Atom
meta-model around the nouns/verbs/attributes. [Tim Bray, who co-chaired the
IETF Atom working group, felt it was the wrong choice, but then he doesn't
support using XML at all in this context]

However, many(/all?) of the JSON supporters seem to want a lighter
meta-model around the nouns/verbs/attributes. For instance, they would
probably prefer fixed actuator URLs to passing these in the feed, and would
likely transmit flatter hashes of noun attributes rather than following Atom
conventions the structure of links, attributes, etc. within an object.

Thanks to Ben Black, Andy Edmonds:
http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000395.html
http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000420.html

My conclusion from this is that we should not develop the JSON rendering in
terms of an XSLT transform from the XML rendering, and should not go for
"GData-JSON". We will need these automatic transforms eventually, but we
should develop the JSON rendering in its own right, thinking about what
works well for JSON, and then later work out how we'll auto transform back
and forth.

Do the 10 JSON supporters agree with this, or have I misjudged it and there
is actually strong support for GData-JSON?

Myself and Chris would be happy to lead developing the JSON rendering it its
own right if people agree with my statements above and hence that it does
need independent development (from the same set of nouns/verb/attributes and
semantics).


3) I suggest we(/I!) stop discussing TXT for now. If we go multi-format then
we should probably have it, but Chris has demonstrated how it can be
trivially transformed back and forth from JSON.

http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000451.html


Cheers,

Richard.

==========================================

JSON: 10
- Alexis Richardson http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000405.html
- Andy Edmonds http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000420.html
- Ben Black http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000395.html
- Krishna Sankar http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000455.html
- Mark Masterson http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000440.html
- Michael Richardson (private mail to me)
- Randy Bias? (JSON listed first at http://wiki.gogrid.com/wiki/index.php/API:Anatomy_of_a_GoGrid_API_Call)
- Richard Davies http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000409.html (split EH vote)
- Tino Vazquez? http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000411.html
- Tim Bray http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000418.html

XML: 5
- Chuck W http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000448.html
- Gary Mazz http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000470.html
- Kristoffer Sheather http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000430.html
- Sam Johnston http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000381.html
- William Vambenepe http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000396.html

TXT: 2
- Andre Merzky http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000447.html
- Chris Webb http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000409.html (split EH vote)

Single: 3
- Benjamin Black http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000457.html
- Tim Bray http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000418.html
- Richard Davies (revised in light of Tim Bray's comments)

Multi: 3
- Gary Mazz http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000458.html
- Marc-Elian Begin http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000439.html
- Sam Johnston http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2009-May/000445.html