RE: [Fwd: Re: identifier to use]

-----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Rees [mailto:jar@creativecommons.org]
> Sent: Sun 8/26/2007 8:46 PM
> To: Eric Neumann
> Cc: Mark Wilkinson; Hilmar Lapp; wangxiao@musc.edu; Miller, Michael D (Rosetta); Eric Jain; Ricardo Pereira; public-semweb-lifesci; Sean Martin
> Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: identifier to use]
>  
> Thanks for your comments, Eric.
> 
> On Aug 26, 2007, at 3:51 PM, Eric Neumann wrote:
> > In an attempt to modulate the tone a bit, it's clear that with such  
> > a large and complex group of people and communities, many who had  
> > not been part of earlier OMG/I3C discussions are not aware of all  
> > the details of what had been discussed, proposed, and recommended.  
> > Having been a LSR-OMG chair many years ago, I know what it takes to  
> > put RFPs through DTC, PTC, and AB mechanisms at OMG. A lot of  
> > careful technical forethought and agreeing has to go in to it...
> > 
> > At the same time, many groups in biological data and identifier  
> > discussions are still getting up to speed what is meant by web  
> > uniqueness and resolution within the W3C world. It's always easier  
> > to respond to messages than to review the massive amount of  
> > technical papers on the subject (I think simple tech/usage  
> > summaries are often lacking). But this seems to lead to a lot of  
> > earlier email discussions coming up again and again, i.e., info  
> > equilibration. As well as the side effect of evoking emotions when  
> > not intended...
> I would be interested in reviewing earlier email. Can you tell me  
> (us) the location of relevant archives, other than those for public- 
> semweb-lifesci? I have searched in vain for LSID archives a few  
> times, and it would be interesting to read the deliberations that led  
> to, say, the rejection of the handle system. Also if you have a list  
> of technical papers to review, or a strategy for finding the right  
> ones, I would appreciate hearing about it. We have a few papers  
> listed on the wiki (including I think the ones Sean gave last summer  
> for LSID), but I would certainly expect that there are more that are  
> pertinent.

Jonathan,

You probably already have this key DTC doc:  http://www.omg.org/docs/dtc/04-05-01.pdf

as well as: http://www.omg.org/docs/lifesci/03-01-06.txt (with a few use cases), http://www.omg.org/docs/lifesci/03-09-07.txt, http://www.omg.org/docs/lifesci/03-10-01.txt,  http://www.omg.org/docs/lifesci/03-11-05.txt, 

Sean probably gave you this one as well: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-lsidbp/

> > My guess is all sides here can provide an 80-90% technical solution  
> > to the main set of data issues raised. That is not the main point  
> > of our discussions though. In going forwards we need to also think  
> > about learning from past attempts (successes and partial  
> > successes), what factors help things "catch on" more quickly and  
> > are easy to implement/adopt, and where do data providers and  
> > consumers (including the non-informatics people) want to be in 2-5  
> > years? I think we will be capturing most of these shortly, and I  
> > look forwards to lots of useable contributions.
> This is a good idea. I would love to hear accounts of identifier  
> schemes "in the wild". I think I understand LSIDs and handles in the  
> abstract, but don't have a good sense of which particular aspects of  
> the various schemes are really used to good effect in running  
> applications and other artifacts.

I'm not as knowledgeable here as well, but have seen a few services around DOI urns (see http://www.doi.org/press_release_archive.html)

> Of course, requirements are not always comparaible. A lot of the  
> trouble we're having is that we're looking at terms for use in  
> knowledge representation, a use case not anticipated by most  
> identifier schemes.

One question I still have is how much of the basic infrastructure (global web, intranet, SOA system, etc) needs to 'know' ahead of time that something is not simply a string identifier but a URI entity, i.e., treat it as something special and unique? Similar to the historic discussion about symbols vs. strings? I've seen URIs or other identifiers referred to as 'merely strings that need interpretting'-- this need not be the case if the lower parts of an information system are meant to handle them specially.

-Eric

> Jonathan