16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the processor is further configured to retrieve the metadata document from the shared metadata repository.
15. A system for facilitating the sharing of a metadata document by a plurality of software applications, the system comprising: a memory storing configuration information associated with the plurality of software applications; a processor coupled to the memory configured to: receive, from a software application in the plurality of software applications, a uniform resource locator (URL) for the metadata document, the URL including a protocol component identifying a specialized protocol name and a path component identifying a name and namespace of the metadata document, the specialized protocol name indicating that the metadata document is stored in a shared metadata repository; and wherein the specialized protocol name is a non-standard protocol name that is not one of HTTP, HTTPS, FILE, or FTP; and identify the shared metadata repository based on the specialized protocol name; and identify the metadata document based on configuration information associated with the software application.