Re: identifier to use

>>>>> "EJ" == Eric Jain <Eric.Jain@isb-sib.ch> writes:

  EJ> Do you mean fail over at run time, so when an identifier can't be
  EJ> resolved, the resolver retries with a backup service?

Hilmar described the mechanism in his last email. Again, perhaps I am wrong. 

  EJ> In general, my feeling is that there are lots of special mechanisms that
  EJ> may be useful for some application (but overkill for others), but I
  EJ> don't see any strong arguments why these couldn't be implemented with
  EJ> HTTP URIs (which have the benefit that they can also be made usable in
  EJ> simple ways).

I don't understand the desire to implement everything using HTTP. Why call
lots of things, which are actually several protocols by a name which suggests
that they are all one. How to distinguish between an HTTP URI which allows you
to do location independent, two step resolution and one which doesn't. Well,
one solution would be, perhaps, to call it something different, say, perhaps,
LSID? 


  >> As far as I can see, LSIDs are basically location independent. The only
  >> whole I can see is if someone else buys uniprot.org, sets up an LSID
  >> resolution service and then returns crap. purls have the same issue I
  >> think.

  EJ> Yes, I guess that's a problem with all solutions that make use of the
  EJ> domain name system in some way. (But I still think the benefits of doing
  EJ> so outweigh the problems that are introduced by not using it.)

 I don't think LSID can cope with this, although a small extension would allow
 you to; you just need to blacklist domains where you should automatically use
 the fail over mechanism. 

  EJ> Note that any other name-based registration system could run into
  EJ> trouble, too: Let's say UniProt lost a trademark suite and was forced to
  EJ> change its name to something else, I assume that wouldn't be good for
  EJ> "location independent" identifiers such as urn:bm:uniprot:P12345...



If you loose a trademark and have to stop using identifiers with a "uniprot"
in them, then any system which uses a alphabetical ID is stuffed. Numbers
would be okay, cause you can't trademark numbers. The law is an ass. 

Phil

Received on Thursday, 23 August 2007 14:45:51 UTC