Re: [xml-dev] XPackage: RDF/XLink-based packaging format

["Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@allette.com.au>]

From: "Jim King" <jking@adobe.com>

> I support the view that packaging and manifest-like things are quite 
> different and shouldn't be done with the same mechanism.  If fact, I 
> have a criteria that I think clearly separates these two:
> 
> A trivial package should be a set of files within a directory.  A 
> more sophisticated packaging mechanism can turn these into a single 
> file, preferably with an API that allows accessing the content files 
> without unpackaging. There should be nothing in the packaging 
> mechanism that cannot also be represented within the normal file 
> systems.  Any additional information should be just yet another file 
> in the group.
 
Yes. I find it a little confusing that some people mean "packaging" 
to mean "manifests" while others use it to mean "bundling". 
XPackage seems to be really a manifest format, not what I would
call packaging per se.  I guess XAR should avoid the term packaging
altogether, if it is a little ambiguous. 

I will be in Florida for the XML 2001 conference in early December.
That would probably be a good time for anyone interested to discuss
this further. (We have gone ahead and made a trial implementation
of DZIP for our new product which may help discussion too.)

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe