I have been working withr JensonUSA XML files almost since day one of working on the bicycle domain version of our project -that would be 8 months - and it is the BEST I have found, updated frequently and so on. But it is generally Sales related information, NOT technical (no coincidence). I have the John Barnett manuals and multiple others and there is a lot of information in there but not so much to do with compatibility. For example if somebody selects a frame and then selects a BB - we need to compare multiple thread params to check out if it will mate, they may or may not have this exact information but you get the idea, we need to know all the stuff that lets us determine if things belong together. Another example is that weight - this param is just not given for many parts and we want to total weight as parts are selected.
So this is ZERO reflection on JensonUSA - rather that we are trying to figure out what sources are available to extend the technical info on many of the same parts. I won't go on about that..... if the information is not available then so be it, we might have to determine the information, work with mfgs, or just give up on using this domain for our testing. This may seem an unorthodox question because it probably is - we are trying to do something that I really don't think has been done before.
I am meeting with several marketing types later this week to show the technical progress and demo and we want to put this on-line so folks can get some sense for it - it could be offered up as a sort of technical wikipedia thing also to support forums like this. It captures information so it can "refire itself" so to speak - its like your training a child that ain't too bright but has a heck of a great memory. What needs to get done to write one of these "scripts" has been made pretty simple and there yet another step and it will be almost like filling out a form.
Five years ago I would not have really understood this myself, I suspect, but things have come a long way and we are working with some very bright people....imho
As it looks we can tuck in and offer this to organize this stuff for one big corporation for example also but that was not our intention and doesn't seem to address "the greater good". I'd like to see this used to help get the quality products "out there more" that are being made in USA first. Not totally my decision, and my time to figure out where this info can come from is running out pretty fast.....