Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress writes:
 > We're jumping the gun. The fundamental question is whether it's a
 > good thing to have a fixed response schema or a better thing to
 > allow alternative response schemas.
 > 
 > I'm hearing less oposition to the idea of an alternative response
 > schema than a year ago, but I don't think everyone has weighed in.

let me weigh in: bad idea.  The first rule of software tools is that
each tool should do one thing well.  The same applies to protocols.
If we do down the route of allowing RSS/OpenSearch/ClosedFoobar
responses, it is only a matter of time before server implementations
end up containing a mail reader and two thirds of an informally
specified bug-ridden Common Lisp implementation.

In case anyone's forgotten, the WHOLE POINT of SRU was to make an IR
protocol simpler than Z39.50.

 _/|_	 ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor    <[log in to unmask]>    http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "I have heard the Big Music and I'll never be the same" --
	 The Waterboys, "The Big Music"