> VOTable is the XML serialization of whatever it
is that the Catalogue DM group come up with, so isn't this more a case of
reverse engineering?
No - the other working groups have made it clear they have requirements for a standard model for astronomical source catalogs. The VOTable is a serialization of a simple table, but an astronomical catalog is more than a table - it will have extra standard metadata linking the sources to their parent observations and extraction algorithms, for instance. One output of the Catalogue data model effort will certainly be a more formal statement of the VOTable model, but another output will be recommendations for ways to serialize this extra metadata in VOTable (particular PARAM and FIELD values for certain things, for example). And yet another output will be an XML schema for those who prefer to use generic XML, although in the particular case of catalogs I hope that a VOTable-based serialization will be the preferred approach. But just saying "write a VOTable" is not a sufficient spec. I hope the CDS folks can say a little about how a Vizier README is converted to VOTable, and others can comment on how pipeline-generated catalogs should be recorded, and what extra metadata (wavelet scales, data characterization like wavelength band, etc) are appropriate.