David,
Probably the greatest concern with the approach you describe is a
sociological one. If we adopt any system consisting simply of HTTP
URIs, there will be a tendency for issuers simply to put forward
existing URLs and declare them to be GUIDs without making the effort to
consider permanence, etc. We felt therefore that having at least some
distinction between a GUID and "normal" URLs was important. Issuing
LSIDs is not a major hurdle but it may be enough for this purpose.
It was also felt that fully decentralised ownership of the identifiers
was a good thing, rather than linking them all explicitly e.g. to some
proxy at http://lsid.tdwg.org. Many institutions value their independence.
Clearly, as you describe, it is quite possible to layer additional
restrictions and semantics on standard URIs to support any functionality
desired. In our case we saw greater benefits in not having to define
all of these things from scratch.
I'm not sure if this properly responds to your question, but these were
the factors that made a difference in our case.
Many thanks,
Donald
------------------------------------------------------------
Donald Hobern ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Deputy Director for Informatics
Global Biodiversity Information Facility Secretariat
Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
Tel: +45-35321483 Mobile: +45-28751483 Fax: +45-35321480
------------------------------------------------------------
Booth, David (HP Software - Boston) wrote:
Donald,
For the most part, http URIs can be designed (using specialized
prefixes) to provide all the benefits of any new URI scheme or URN
sub-scheme, plus more. For example, a specialized http URI prefix such
as "http://lsid.tdwg.org? <http://lsid.tdwg.org?> " could be
functionally equivalent to the prefix "urn:lsid:" that would otherwise
begin an LSID URI. Software that is programmed to recognize the
"urn:lsid:" prefix and apply the LSID resolution mechanism could instead
recognize the "http://lsid.tdwg.org? <http://lsid.tdwg.org/?> " prefix
and apply the LSID resolution mechanism. Was this kind of approach
considered? If so, why was it deemed inadequate?
For more details, see my paper on "Converting New URI Schemeds or URN
Sub-Schemes to HTTP" at
http://dbooth.org/2006/urn2http/ <http://dbooth.org/2006/urn2http/> .
See also the TAG's draft finding on "URNs, Namespaces and Registries" at
http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/URNsAndRegistries-50 .
Thanks
David Booth, Ph.D.
HP Software
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Phone: +1 617 629 8881
________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Donald Hobern
Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 9:15 AM
To: Eric Neumann
Cc: public-semweb-lifesci hcls
Subject: Re: [BioRDF] Taxonomic Databases Working Group and
LSIDs
Dear Eric,
Thank you for mentioning TDWG's adoption of LSIDs. The
Taxonomic Databases Working Group (http://www.tdwg.org/) is an
international association focused on developing collaboration between
biological database projects. Its focus is primarily on whole-organism
data (natural history collections, herbaria, field observations,
identification tools, etc.) and taxonomic information (the name does not
adequately reflect the breadth of its interests).
Up to now, TDWG has developed models for data exchange using XML
Schema and has had no reliable mechanisms for cross-referencing data
objects between different resources. A 30-month project is under way to
revise the organisation's processes and architecture (funded by the
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation). Part of this work has been to
examine technological options for using globally unique identifiers
within TDWG data standards. Two workshops were held earlier this year
to consider possible options (including LSID, DOI, ARK and PURL). Our
conclusion was that LSID best suited our requirements. The reasons
included:
* LSIDs provide an existing standard approach for
retrieving data and metadata (this would need to be defined e.g. for a
PURL-based approach)
* LSIDs can be safely assigned to permanent objects and
potentially remain available indefinitely for dereferencing
* LSIDs can be issued and resolved by any organisation
without any requirement for a central LSID authority (this egalitarian
approach suited the community better than the model adopted e.g. by DOI)
* There is no special cost associated with issuing large
numbers of LSIDs, even for temporary data objects (in contrast again
with e.g. DOI)
* LSIDs are clearly not just URLs - we perceived social
benefits in requiring issuers to think about what they were doing
(rather than just using existing URLs)
* LSIDs mesh perfectly with a recognised need in TDWG to
move away from modeling with XML Schema to adopt RDF-based models
Our focus right now is to develop best practices for the use of
LSIDs for scientific names and for specimens in natural history
collections. We have a number of activities under way to develop new
LSID software components (a .NET version of the LSID stack, native
handling of LSID requests in TDWG tools for data sharing).
More information can be found at:
http://wiki.gbif.org/guidwiki/wikka.php
Many thanks,
Donald
------------------------------------------------------------
Donald Hobern ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Deputy Director for Informatics
Global Biodiversity Information Facility Secretariat
Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
Tel: +45-35321483 Mobile: +45-28751483 Fax: +45-35321480
------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Newmann wrote:
I would like to point out the Taxonomic
Databases Working Group (TDWG)
and their work with trying to establish a system
of Global Unique
Identifiers (GUIDs).
http://wiki.gbif.org/guidwiki/wikka.php?wakka=GUID2Report
At this point in time they are recommending
(within their community)
the use of LSIDs WITH metadata in the form of
RDF.
I would like to propose that we include this on
the list of examples
for the LSID/URI discussion in BioRDF (just
added to
http://esw.w3.org/topic/HCLSIG_BioRDF_Subgroup/Tasks/URI_Best_Practice
s/LSID _Pros_%26_Cons). I think they have some
great global examples
of how to use such identifiers.
Eric
Eric Neumann, PhD
co-chair, W3C Healthcare and Life Sciences,
and Senior Director Product Strategy
Teranode Corporation
83 South King Street, Suite 800
Seattle, WA 98104
+1 (781)856-9132
www.teranode.com
