Maintaining the repositories presents the additional dilemma of either creating new and updating existing information in HTML , or continuously managing changing data in different formats. The run-time approach helps to postpone the conversion until the information is requested and eliminates problems with the initial conversion and maintenance of information. Adding support for new MIME types may not be easy. Further, there is still the problem of logically linking together individual documents and of accessing arbitrarily formatted data. Once the resources have been identified, the responsibilty of accessing them is handed over to the WWW browsers.
Harvest provides efficient and flexible methods for indexing widely distributed information.
MIME mappings are used to provide access to a wide range variety of information and the problems that were described earlier still persist. There have been a number of other attempts to address the above concerns. A set of tools has been developed to provide a fully distributed software development environment by utilizing the CGI mechanism. Like the MORE system, InfoHarness uses metadata for search and retrieval of heterogeneous information. InfoHarness provides advanced search and browsing capabilities without imposing constraints on information suppliers or creators.