Re: identifier to use

On Aug 23, 2007, at 8:19 AM, Eric Jain wrote:

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

I think whether digital archives need a location and protocol  
independent identifier system or not is so much a no-brainer (the  
question never even came up to begin with in the workshops I've been  
at, the question was rather which identifier system to use, and - 
sorry- HTTP URIs weren't among the choices being considered) and  
settled discussion that I'm not sure it's productive to have it here  
on this forum.

Digital archives will use opaque identifier systems that aren't HTTP  
URIs whether the W3C likes it or not - they look at time horizons  
beyond our lifetimes, when HTTP may not even exist anymore. The need  
for GUIDs existed before HTTP URIs and will continue to exist  
afterwards.

That said, I'm thinking that maybe that doesn't need to have any  
bearing on how resources are identified on the semantic web. But if  
the way to identify them is solely using HTTP URIs (for the time  
being - technology churn surely won't exempt this area) then there  
ought to be clear recommendations and informatics infrastructure for  
digital archives to serve their holdings on the semantic web, and  
those semantic web documents should not be archived for a long time.

Does that make sense?

	-hilmar
-- 
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: Hilmar Lapp  -:-  Durham, NC  -:- hlapp at duke dot edu :
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Received on Thursday, 23 August 2007 12:51:07 UTC