- From: Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
- Date: Wed, 8 May 2013 19:39:19 +0200
- To: public-rww <public-rww@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <CAKaEYhJLd=9L9+xXLZZt++vtj4fe=CT23q0fyFY0FfNK5yC3HA@mail.gmail.com>
FYI: talked about this a few times, but now the official launch, should be
a great way to create "cool URIs" on the web!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
Date: 8 May 2013 19:14
Subject: Permanent Identifiers for the Web Project Launches
To: Pemanent Identifier CG <public-perma-id@w3.org>
Permanent Identifiers for the Web
Web applications that deal with [1]data on the web often need to
specify and use URLs that are very stable. They utilize services
such as [2]purl.org to ensure that applications using their URLs
will always be re-directed to a working website. These “permanent
URL” redirection services operate kind of like a [3]switchboard,
connecting requests for information with the true location of the
information on the Web. These switchboards can be reconfigured to
point to a new location if the old location stops working.
How Does it Work?
If the concept sounds a bit vague, perhaps an example will help.
A web author could use the following link
(https://w3id.org/payswarm/v1) to refer to an important
document. That link is hosted on a permanent identifier service.
When a Web browser attempts to retrieve that link, it will be
re-directed to the true location of the document on the Web.
Currently, that location is
https://payswarm.com/contexts/payswarm-v1.jsonld. If the
location of the payswarm-v1.jsonld document changes at any point
in the future, the only thing that needs to be updated is the
re-direction entry on w3id.org. That is, all Web applications
that use the https://w3id.org/payswarm/v1 URL will be
transparently re-directed to the new location of the document and
will continue to “Just Work™”.
w3id.org Launches
Permanent identifiers on the Web are an important thing to
support, but until today there was no organization that would
back a service for the Web to keep these sorts of permanent
identifiers operating over the course of multiple decades. A
number of us saw that this is a real problem and so we launched
[7]w3id.org, which is a permanent identifier service for the Web.
The purpose of w3id.org is to provide a secure, permanent [8]URL
re-direction service for Web applications. This service will be
run and operated by the [9]W3C Permanent Identifier Community
Group.
Specifically, the following organizations that have pledged
responsibility to ensure the operation of this service for the
decades to come: [10]Digital Bazaar, [11]3 Round Stones,
[12]OpenLink Software, [13]Applied Testing and Technology, and
[14]Openspring. Many more organizations will join in time.
These organizations are responsible for all administrative tasks
associated with operating the service. The social contract
between these organizations gives each of them full access to all
information required to maintain and operate the website. The
agreement is setup such that a number of these companies could
fail, lose interest, or become unavailable for long periods of
time without negatively affecting the operation of the site.
Why not purl.org
While many web authors and data publishers currently use
purl.org, there are a number of issues or concerns that we have
about the website:
1. The site was designed for the library community and was never
intended to be used by the general Web.
2. Requests for information or changes to the service frequently
go unanswered.
3. The site does not support HTTPS connections, which means it
cannot be used to serve documents for security-sensitive
industries such as medicine and finance. Requests to migrate
the site to HTTPs have gone unanswered.
4. There is no published backup or fail-over plan for the
website.
5. The site is run by a single organization, with a single
part-time administrator, on a single machine. It suffers from
multiple single points of failure.
w3id.org Features
The launch of the w3id.org website mitigates all of the issues
outlined above with purl.org:
1. The site is specifically designed for web developers,
authors, and data publishers on the general Web. It is not
tailored for any specific community.
2. Requests for information can be sent to a public mailing list
that contains multiple administrators that are accountable
for answering questions publicly. All administrators have
been actively involved in world standards for many years and
know how to run a service at this scale.
3. The site supports HTTPS security, which means it can be used
to securely serve data for industries such as medicine and
finance.
4. Multiple organizations, with multiple administrators per
organization have full access to administer all aspects of
the site and recover it from any potential failure. All
important site data is [15]in version control and is mirrored
across the world on a regular basis.
5. The site is run by a consortium of organizations that have
each pledged to maintain the site for as long as possible. If
a member organization fails, a new one will be found to
replace the failing organization while the rest of the
members ensure the smooth operation of the site.
All identifiers associated with the w3id.org website are intended
to be around for as long as the Web is around. This means
decades, if not centuries. If the final destination for popular
identifiers used by this service fail in such a way as to be a
major inconvenience or danger to the Web, the community will
mirror the information for the popular identifier and setup a
working redirect to restore service to the rest of the Web.
Adding a Permanent Identifier
Anyone with a github account and knowledge of simple Apache
redirect rules can add a permanent identifier to w3id.org by
performing the following steps:
1. [16]Fork w3id.org on Github.
2. [17]Add a new redirect entry and commit your changes.
3. [18]Submit a pull request for your changes.
If you wish to engage the community in discussion about this
service for your Web application, please send an e-mail to the
[19]public-perma-id@w3.org mailing list. If you are interested in
helping to maintain this service for the Web, please join the
[20]W3C Permanent Identifier Community Group.
____________________________________________________________
Note: The letters ‘w3′ in the w3id.org domain name stand for
“World Wide Web”. Other than hosting the software for the
Permanent Identifier Community Group, the “World Wide Web
Consortium” (W3C) is not involved in the support or management of
w3id.org in any way.
References
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_data
2. http://purl.org/
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_switchboard
4. https://w3id.org/payswarm/v1
5. https://payswarm.com/contexts/payswarm-v1.jsonld
6. https://w3id.org/payswarm/v1
7. https://w3id.org/
8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL
9. http://www.w3.org/community/perma-id/
10. http://digitalbazaar.com/
11. http://3roundstones.com/
12. http://www.openlinksw.com/
13. http://www.aptest.com/
14. http://openspring.net/
15. https://github.com/perma-id/w3id.org/
16. https://github.com/perma-id/w3id.org/fork
17. https://github.com/perma-id/w3id.org/blob/master/security/.htaccess
18. https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests
19. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-perma-id/
20. http://www.w3.org/community/perma-id/
-- manu
--
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: Meritora - Web payments commercial launch
http://blog.meritora.com/launch/
Received on Wednesday, 8 May 2013 17:39:52 UTC