Type Definition Registries

purpose

Serve as a registry of entries for types that are globally identified by URI/URL

A type is the definition of common attributes or qualities shared by instances of information, and the type is used to distinguish those instances from other information. The type definition can be coupled to information (numeric, alphabetic, symbolic, composites, more complex things, anything at all). This coupling occurs by closely associating pertinent information with a mark-up tag, which identifies the type definition URI/URL.

Confirm or refute a type definition (typedef) URI/URL

Confirmation occurs with a status code (SUCCESS/OK) and with returned information (an entity-body) comprised of:

• a description in any human-readable language (e.g. English), as defined in the registry entry and given completely
• zero to many URI/URL references to semantic registry entries, as defined in the registry entry and given completely

Refutation occurs with a status code (NOT FOUND).

It is permissible for a typedef registry to respond with a redirection status code (analogous to http status 3xx), which means that the client must take additional action in order for the request to be processed.

And of course, a typedef registry can respond in other ways or with other status codes should appropriate conditions warrant doing so.

Provide administrative approval content management

A typedef registry may elect to accept candidate registry entries from anonymous sources or may elect to accept such candidate entries from only certain, identified, and/or trusted populations.

In all cases, candidate entries are administratively reviewed for well-formedness, for non-redundancy, for fitness to the given registry, and for valid semantic references when present. Only after diligent review should an administrator approve or deny registration of the candidate entry. Only approved candidates entered into the registry may have confirmation responses provided to any requests of that entry's URI/URL.

Employ a strongly secured connection with its clients to ensure integrity of the returned response to a request

At minimum, this strongly secured connection would convey a message digest or hash of the requests and responses and would authenticate the registry to the client. Privacy, authentication of the client to the registry, and non-repudiation may be optionally employed.

Provide two utility services

1. report of three things:
   1. total size in bytes of sum of all entries in the registry
   2. total quantity of entries in the registry
   3. supported formats of compression for a mirror image of the registry
2. delivering a mirror image of the registry, compressed in one of its supported formats as per the request to retrieve the mirror

Provide a utility web application

At minimum, the registry shall provide a web application facade for the purpose of browsing the registry's contents. This way, rulesheet authors, document primary custodians, and providers of user context and client context can understand the landscape of registry entries that is available for use.