> Nowadays I'm think we're better served with a SQL queryable RDBMS to store directory-like data
Maybe, but most RDBMS' suck a recursive self-referential queries, which mandatory for making a directory system not suck to use.
> modernising the query language using JSON over a HTTP(S) transport
Eh. Modernizing the query language would be nice, but there's a reason most databases don't make HTTP + JSON the primary method by which you interface. Some LDAP systems get absolutely hammered, you don't want a bunch of unnecessary overhead and connection-building to add to it when you really don't need to. Also expressing queries sanely in JSON would be a pain, you'd either just be wrapping a plaintext query in an object or doing something incredibly misguided with trying to represent the query structure as a bad AST using JSON types.
Maybe, but most RDBMS' suck a recursive self-referential queries, which mandatory for making a directory system not suck to use.
> modernising the query language using JSON over a HTTP(S) transport
Eh. Modernizing the query language would be nice, but there's a reason most databases don't make HTTP + JSON the primary method by which you interface. Some LDAP systems get absolutely hammered, you don't want a bunch of unnecessary overhead and connection-building to add to it when you really don't need to. Also expressing queries sanely in JSON would be a pain, you'd either just be wrapping a plaintext query in an object or doing something incredibly misguided with trying to represent the query structure as a bad AST using JSON types.