On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 7:59 AM, Kyle Banerjee <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> An obvious thing for a resolver to be able to do is return results in JSON
> so the OpenURL can be more than a static link. But since the standard
> defines no such response, the site generating the OpenURL would have to know
> something about the resolver.
>
I actually think this lack of any specified response format is a large
factor in the stagnation of OpenURL as a technology.  Since a resolver
is under no obligation to do anything but present a web page it's
difficult for local entrepreneurial types to build upon the
infrastructure simply because there are no guarantees that it will
work anywhere else (or even locally, depending on your vendor, I
suppose), much less contribute back to the ecosystem.

Umlaut was able to exist because (for better or worse) SFX has an XML
output.  It has never been able to scale horizontally, however,
because to work with another vendor's link resolver (which should
actually be quite straightforward) it requires a connector to whatever
*their* proprietary API needs.

I could definitely see a project like Umlaut providing a 'de facto'
machine readable response for SAP 1/2 requests that content providers
could then use to start offering better integration at *their* end.

This assumes that more than 5 libraries would actually be using it, however.

-Ross.