Issue 17377: Alternate content negotiation (hdata-ftf)
Source: HL7 (Mr. Grahame Grieve, grahame(at)healthintersections.com.au)
Nature: Uncategorized Issue
Severity: 
Summary: Throughout section 6. of the hData spec, the server should accept the
following HTTP
query string to perform alternate media type negotiation:


(URL)?format=(mediaType)


where (mediaType) MUST be a valid Internet Media type. This explicit content
negotiation takes precedence over the Accept-Header negotiation. The
reason why this
is needed is the unreliable support of the Accept-Header mechanism in
clients, particularly
in older development stacks. While we strongly encourage adoption of
the content negotiation
framework per the HTTP specification, we wish to be as inclusive as possible


Resolution: 
Revised Text: 


Actions taken:
May 20, 2012: received issue
Discussion: 

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Sender: grahameg@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 21 May 2012 13:35:04 +1000
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Subject: FHIR: Several Issues with OMG hData RESTful Transport to support an
 alternative realization of the RLUS PIM
From: Grahame Grieve <grahame@healthintersections.com.au>
To: issues@omg.org
Cc: Ewout Kramer <e.kramer@furore.com>,
        "Beuchelt, Gerald" <beuchelt@mitre.org>
X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by amethyst.omg.org id q4L3ZD9R024175


Dear OMG


We (Ewout Kramer and myself) are technical leads on the HL7
FHIR project (http://www.hl7.org/fhir), which is a very practically
orientated specification that has a RESTful component that overlaps
somewhat with hData. The overlap occurs in two different ways:


* FHIR uses a RESTful paradigm, and defines patterns of logical
  use of HTTP
* FHIR defines resource content that would be useful to use in
  hData - and hData is a useful way to use them


With regard to the first point, we believe that it would be useful for
the hData protocol and FHIR to use the same patterns of usage for
HTTP. this email identifies several issues where we believe that the
hData restful transport specification could be improved, that would
mean that we could act in harmony and refer to the OMG specification
directly. With regard to the second, we will continue to work with the
authors of hdata on that point.


Both hData and FHIR are realizing a RESTful resource-centric architecture
that implements the RLUS service functional model and the OMG PIM. In order to
ensure a single implementation strategy and strengthen the overall
technical quality
of the specification, we request to consider the following changes to
the OMH hData
specification:


3. Alternate content negotiation


Throughout section 6. of the hData spec, the server should accept the
following HTTP
query string to perform alternate media type negotiation:


(URL)?format=(mediaType)


where (mediaType) MUST be a valid Internet Media type. This explicit content
negotiation takes precedence over the Accept-Header negotiation. The
reason why this
is needed is the unreliable support of the Accept-Header mechanism in
clients, particularly
in older development stacks. While we strongly encourage adoption of
the content negotiation
framework per the HTTP specification, we wish to be as inclusive as possible