One point of SRU is to make it simple to let clients create identical types of requests with identical parameter names. Because you can't stop people from providing RSS responses it seems reasonable to agree a parameter name for requesting it and a controlled vocabulary for the value of that parameter.
 
Theo

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Van: SRU (Search and Retrieve Via URL) Implementors namens Mike Taylor
Verzonden: zo 17-6-2007 17:18
Aan: [log in to unmask]
Onderwerp: Re: June 18-19 meeting topics.... RSS



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 <http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/> 
)_v__/\  "I have heard the Big Music and I'll never be the same" --
         The Waterboys, "The Big Music"