Re: Simple solution? Pub. Idents. vs URN.

I agree with the drift of what Jon has to say by way of
free holiday philosophizing, although some of his examples
need cleaning up.  However, I limit myself to playing ISBN
police (this was necessary during earlier phases of the URI
work, too):

> At the end of
the FPI trail, the FPI (if properly implemented; take ISBNs as the
canonical example) does not identify a physical object but rather any
of a possibly unlimited number of realizations of a nonphysical
object.  

ISBNs precisely do identify classes of identical physical
objects.  The paperback and hardback realizations of the same
text (nonphysical object) printed exactly the same way commonly
have different ISBNs.  Furthermore, sloppy publishers sometimes
do not change the ISBN of a book when they issue a revised
edition.  ISBNs are about the worst possible illustration of
URNs.  Take Social Security Numbers, DUNS numbers, California
license plate numbers, the names of the states of the U.S.,
anything but ISBNs as examples.  ISBNs refer to objects, not
to texts.

Regards,
    Terry Allen    Fujitsu Software Corp.    tallen@fsc.fujitsu.com
"In going on with these experiments, how many pretty systems do we build,
 which we soon find outselves obliged to destroy?" - Benjamin Franklin
  A Davenport Group Sponsor:  http://www.ora.com/davenport/index.html

Received on Thursday, 28 November 1996 15:03:04 UTC