"A Catalog of Available X.500 Implementations" now in a WAIS server

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Ruth, Russ, et al.

I have put the DISI Catalog into a WAIS server running at wais.cic.net.
I don't know what the overlap is between the WAIS/Z39.50 community and the X.500
community, but if you are familiar with the WAIS software the server is
located at wais.cic.net, port 210, database "disi-catalog".  The original
source is the "draft-ietf-disi-catalog-01.txt" as found on better internet-drafts
archives.  The WAIS source file is ftp-able from
	nic.cic.net:/pub/nircomm/wais/disi-catalog.src
though I'd be happy to rename it to "x500-catalog.src" if that's the
preferred name.

The Directory Information Service Infrastructure WG is an IETF working group
that promotes "directory services" developments, most notably X.500 services.
This catalog is a list of available X.500 implementations, with information
on which systems they run on, what the user interface is like, and interoperability
reports.

From some experience working with this source, it's clear that Ruth and Russ
have put together a catalog that works very well with a WAIS server.  There
are enough keywords added to the various entries and enough structure to the
materials that searches for individual items work well.   If the original
database from which the draft was produced is available somewhere, it would
be possible to clear out some of the extraneous formatting necessary for
RFC style.

It's worth considering whether some more overlap or joint development should
be pursued to take advantage of the potential synergy between X.500
implementations and WAIS/Z39.50 services.  Services based on both sets
of protocols have common problems, including the challenges of resource
location, specification of document id's for references to external
resources, and adoption by the great unwashed masses.   An X.500 version
of the "directory of servers" would seem to be one reasonable approach,
as would a head-to-head comparison of WAIS and X.500 searches on sample
data sets.  

--Ed

Edward Vielmetti
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