Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress writes:
 > From: "Thomas Dowling" <[log in to unmask]>
 > > You can define differences between meta-, federated, and
 > > broadcast search, but every discussion on the topic will be
 > > punctuated by people asking, "Wait, what's the difference again?"
 > 
 > Leaving aside metasearch and broadcast search (terms invented more
 > recently) it is a shame if "federated" has really lost its
 > distinction from"distributed".  Historically, a federated database
 > is one that integrates multiple (autonomous) databases so it is in
 > effect a virtual distributed database, though a single database.  I
 > don't think that's a hard concept and I don't think it is a trivial
 > distinction.

Either it IS a hard concept, or you didn't describe it properly --
because I still don't get exactly what is going on here.  Are you
using "federated" to mean which Thomas and I (independently) are
calling "local indexes"?

 _/|_	 ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor    <[log in to unmask]>    http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "... about as similar as two completely dissimilar things in a
	 pod" -- Black Adder.