Re: identifier to use

Hilmar Lapp wrote:
> 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.

For closed archives I guess it's easier, as you can prescribe whatever 
identifier system you like, no matter how exotic. But if you are going to 
archive public data from many many sources, I imagine you want to go with 
the greatest common denominator, which is HTTP URIs for the Semantic Web.

Creating some recommendations for better HTTP URIs is likely to be more 
productive, in the end, than trying to get people to adopt some new scheme.

Also: If you are building some grand life sciences archive with the goal of 
archiving all public life sciences data that is available, does it really 
help if a few of the databases support the LSID or DOI or whatnot system?


> 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?

Don't quite follow the last part of your argument (we should recommend that 
resources from the Semantic Web are not archived for long?), but you're 
right that what we are talking about is identifiers for the Semantic Web, 
and recommendations is something that this group could produce, I hope.

Received on Thursday, 23 August 2007 13:59:16 UTC