# WAIS vs. Z39.50

Larry Masinter (masinter@parc.xerox.com)
Sun, 9 Oct 1994 22:08:19 PDT

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    To: uri@bunyip.com

    Subject: WAIS vs. Z39.50

    From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>

    Message-Id: <94Oct9.220834pdt.2760@golden.parc.xerox.com>

    Date: 	Sun, 9 Oct 1994 22:08:19 PDT

I explored, in a mail exchange from someone on the working group
developing a Z39.50 URL the possible relationship between their
specification and Z39.50.

The resolution of that discussion was the following message. My
concern is that I don't know how or whether to address this in the
current URL Internet draft.

If the WAIS URL is only good for WAIS-using-Z39.50-1988 and not for
WAIS-using-Z39.50-1992, shouldn't the URL draft say so?

================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 1994 12:14:49 -0700
From: ray@rden.loc.gov
Reply-To: ray@rden.loc.gov
To: masinter@alpha.xerox.com
Subject: Re: WAIS URL

> From masinter@parc.xerox.com Wed Sep 28 15:07:52 1994
>
> .... If that's the reason for the
> difference, I think it needs to be in big letters at the top of the
> Z39.50 URL, with perhaps an explanation of how Z39.50-1992 differs
> enough from Z39.50-1988 to warrent an entire new URL syntax.
>

The big letters should go on top of the WAIS url.

Let's try a different approach; forget about the 1988 versus 1992 issue.

There are existing WAIS systems that use the WAIS url, which was defined long
before the Z39.50 community at large started thinking about urls (so WAIS was
ahead of its time). There is a new WAIS specification ("WAIS profile for
Z39.50-1992"). It doesn't require a WAIS url; it can use a Z39.50 url instead.

It is important to note that the WAIS url doesn't meet the needs of Z39.50 (it
doesn't even come close) and it wasn't intended to. It was intended to meet
the needs of the WAIS application. From a WAIS point of view, Z39.50 is just
an invisible protocol that WAIS uses.

So the big letters on the WAIS url should say something like: "this url is for
use with the old WAIS systems, and not for use with WAIS systems built to the
'WAIS profile for Z39.50-1992' ".

Ray Denenberg
Library of Congress
ray@rden.loc.gov
202-707-5795

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