Re: scheduling persistent naming discussion

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 10:37 AM, Larry Masinter <LMM@acm.org> wrote:
> ===================================================
> I met a traveller from an antique land
> Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
> Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
> Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
> And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
> Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
> Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
> The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
> And on the pedestal these words appear:
> "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
> Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
> And Here is my URL, http://ozymandias.org.
> Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
> Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
> The lone and level sands stretch far away.
> ================================================
>
> A "name" is just a string. What you really want is not a "persistent name" but a "guarantee" -- whatever that might mean -- of a service, generally recognized by society -- that will direct others from the name to the thing that you want the name to mean.
>
> As long as we call the problem "persistent naming" rather than "persistent services", we'll keep on talking in circles.

Yes, many of us made the same point on the GBIF committee I served on,
so we talked about "persistent actionable identifiers", although I
might have been happier with "persistently actionable identifiers".

I don't think anyone disagrees with the point that it's not just a
technical problem. The sloppy terminology is more a matter of habit
and entrenched practice than misconception. The digital archiving
world, for example, seems hellbent on "persistent identifier" (without
misconception about what is *meant*, I think) and nothing we say will
change what it calls this phenomenon.

Maybe Noah can help make the point by changing it on the agenda to
"persistent identifier resolvability" or something of that sort.

Jonathan

> I've made the link before, but really urge review of the 1999 workshop: (9/99) Problems URIs don't solve (http://larry.masinter.net/9909-twist.pdf) Presentation at  TWIST 99( http://www.ics.uci.edu/IRUS/twist/twist99/)  The Workshop on Internet-scale Software Technologies, Internet Scale Naming.
>
> also http://masinter.blogspot.com/2010/03/resources-are-angels-urls-are-pins.html .
>
> Larry
> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-tag-request@w3.org [mailto:www-tag-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Jonathan Rees
> Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 5:02 AM
> To: www-tag@w3.org
> Subject: scheduling persistent naming discussion
>
> It would be unfortunate to discuss ISSUE-50 without Larry, scheduled
> for 3pm Thursday after he's gone, since he provides such an important
> skeptic's perspective and has been thinking about this problem for
> over a decade.
>
> I don't know how to fix this, though - the only options I see are
> swapping with one of the morning sessions, secrets in URIs and content
> type override, both of which seem pretty important.
>
> In his absence we would just have to do our best to represent him.
>
> So I just throw this out there without any particular request or
> advice. Maybe let's bring it up under agenda review on Monday.
>
> Jonathan

Received on Tuesday, 23 March 2010 17:26:06 UTC