[MichaelGG]

I must be missing something. You could trivially wrap HTTP around NTFS files, and stick whatever header metadata in an alternative stream. I don't see how this solves anything at all about what Hal talks about regarding integrated storage. How does HTTP solve even the simplest of problems that the articles talked about? Such as a photo being in multiple collections?

As an aside: Your statement on XML versus JSON seems confused. XML and JSON don't require schemas. XML allows it, and JSON has multiple (IIRC) contenders to specify a schema. Because as it turns out, people dislike having to write boring boilerplate code by hand and would prefer a system to specify common things. (And eventually JSON'll come full circle with something similar to WSDL.) JSON's popularity is half JS, and half because XML foolishly requires the tag name in the closing tag, bloating the size, and half due to overly-complicated uses of XML, especially namespaces. Sane use of XML is identical to JSON, except requires more space.