>I could easily imagine spending three months making a high-quality
> extensible translatable scalable list of instrument names for use in
> digital packaging.

I don't see a need to do this at all.
leave these definitions up to the creator, trying to guess them will
guarantee exclusion.

> <instrumentalist instrument="'bone" player="Jack Teagarden" />

this works fine. The key point here is that "instrument" is not a
definitive set. No point in creating a specific role for each
instrument, make it a generic field, and it will support anything the
creator needs, as instruments, and the idea of instruments evolve.
It could even be as generic as:
<contributor role="flute" credit="Jack Teagarden" />
<contributor role="Vocal Harmony" credit="Pro Tools plugin #23" />



> AJAX/JSON could play a huge part
>
> Sorry -- do you mean that packages are .exe's? Not sure that I get it.

no .exe really, just a folder structure. I'm just saying this could
be done with an index.html and javascript. Just needs to be viewed in
a browser. The javscript will have to be distributed with the
package, in a libs folder, so that it can work offline. Any browser
or a desktop app with an embedded browser could display a package.





On the other hand, I
> could see labels like Rhino excelling at packaging once they have the
> template to fill in.

YES, I think xipf has to be flexible enough for innovation to take
place at the creator level, not confined by an overly structured spec.



> Ok, so the package is freely available, but the media file itself is
> restricted? If I have that right, a thing I like about it is that the
> security model is the same as it is now, meaning that there won't be a
> struggle over DRM on the packages. When we have talked to label
> people about XIPF, this has always come up.

FROM THE EASIER SAID THAN DONE DEPARTMENT:
I really don't know enough about DRM to comment, but my thoughts were"

Idealy, xipf would not define the DRM method.
xipf should work with or without DRM.
Could DRM 'support' be handled with a 'plugin'?
Would DRM enabled xipf onlyl work in a specific client app that
handles the DRM?
Or some generic [IF DRM] logic?
Maybe all DRM takes place serverside, and the enclosure links to the
remote media contain unique keys in the URI