HDATA — Metadata Communication

Section 6.2.5 and 6.3 can be combined into a single way to query for
metadata about
the service. The additional HTTP headers created in 6.2.5 are
problematic for some
clients and/or servers to implement. As such the OPTION operation on
the (baseURL)
could return a body with a XML document instead, which contains the information
contained in the 6.2.5. headers, as well at the root.xml manifest.
This would reduce the
number of roundtrips significantly. There should also be a way to
access this information
without using the OPTIONS command to enable the same information to be available
via a <a href=""> link in a web page.

Partially accept. Make OPTIONS on base URL a SHOULD (instead of MUST), and add baseURL/metadata as a reserved URL. Make that document available at baseURL/metadata and also allow sending with OPTIONS body.