Re: SIMILE PI Call, 27-July-2003, 1200 EST / 1700 BST

Rob said:
> Rob to give access to SIMILE IPSSources area to Jason
>   and PIs
> John to summarise Handle/DOI/DNS issues raised in call
>   and mail www-rdf-dspace
> PIs to read section 4.2.1 in relevant tech doc (Security
>   and Policy) and give feedback to Kevin

JSE: Regarding Handle System vs. DOI vs. DNS, the issues invariably condense
down to a need to differentiate between the capabilities of these regimes and
map those onto the requirements of SIMILE, moving foward.

1. A core argument of the Handle System is scalability and extensiblity beyond
DNS. One way to interpret this is, whereas the top-level domain of DNS is
artificially constrained (this is the ".com," ".edu," etc. level), the Handle
System provides unlimited, self-administering "top-level domain" equivalents,
known as HS "Naming Authorities."

2. NA-level self-administration has implications like, the remainder of the
DNS formalisms (second-level domain, sub-domain, etc) are unnecessary --- or,
more precisely, these formalisms are defined by the governance of the
particular NA and are not dictated by HS itself. The equivalent of this in DNS
would be if .edu, .com, .mil, etc. could set their own rules for entitlement.

3. The HS is built differently; in particular, it has built-in distributed
access control for adminsitration.

The distinction between HS and DOI is multi-faceted:

1. DOI operates as an Naming Authority (NA) within the Handle System, and all
that this implies. By definition, it defines the rules of entitlement to names
within the hdl:/10.* namespace

2. Leveraging (1), it is the intention of the DOI to be a "digital identifier
of objects," both "real" and abstract. This means DOIs can be created that
discribe e.g. an abstract "work" as well as manifestations of those works and
copies of those manifestations. Proscribed and consistent models for metadata
registration (so-called "kernel" metadata and domain-specific metadata
following registered "application profiles") enable these sorts of
applications. These standard models are implemented by defining how metadata
is registered within the HS

3. Leveraging (2), standard data structures and mechanisms can be defined
within the NA-administered name space to define a consistent basis for
interaction. DOI does this with (2) plus the DOI-API, which allows DOI-based
applications to "play" consistently at a higher level of abstraction than the
Handle System.

I'm looking for more verbose comparisons of these systems; I don't have these
on hand right now...

| John S. Erickson, Ph.D.
| Hewlett-Packard Labs
| Norwich, Vermont USA
| john.erickson@hp.com

Received on Monday, 30 June 2003 13:32:05 UTC