[tdwg-guid] Handle System considered not interoperable with standard WWW and SW applications

[Roderic Page]

This all begs the question, is there anything LSIDs give us that HTTP  
URIs don't?

If we go to all this trouble to make LSIDs behave as if they were HTTP  
URIs, isn't this tell us something...?

Regards

Rod


On 6 Jun 2007, at 14:13, Ricardo Pereira wrote:

> Roderic Page wrote:
>> Ricardo,
>>
>> I think your arguments pretty much apply to LSIDs as well. By  
>> themselves, they don't play ball with the WWW or the Semantic Web.
>>
>> For LSIDs we need a proxy that understands SOAP, can talk to the DNS,  
>> read WSDL files, and then do an HTTP look-up. You only get LSIDs to  
>> play ball by using a proxy that plays ball.
> I agree. That's why we are putting forward the LSID HTTP proxy  
> recommendations  
> (http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/GUID/ 
> LsidHttpProxyUsageRecommendation). And there will be at least one LSID  
> proxy (that at http://lsid.tdwg.org/) that will play ball pretty soon.  
> That proxy all that you said, just doesn't perform the  
> content-negotiation bit yet. But I'm currently working on that.
>>
>> In principle we can do the same sort of thing for Handles (there is  
>> code for a proxy servlet at  
>> http://www.handle.net/proxy_servlet.html).
> Only if handle types fully matched the standard WWW content types.  
> They could match if we defined handle types for our own community, but  
> they won't ever match with the types defined by other communities like  
> DOI and others using Handles.
>
> On the other hand, LSID spec allows us to implement standard content  
> negotiation seamlessly because the semantics of the argument  
> *accepted_formats* in the LSID getMetadata call is appropriate for  
> that purpose.
>>
>> I'm not necessarily defending Handles, but I think our choice needs  
>> to be well-informed. I still don't think the case for LSIDs has  
>> really been made (or, at least, some of the arguments advanced in  
>> favour of LSIDs apply equally well, if not better, to other  
>> technologies).
> I agree with you on this. The case for LSIDs wasn't strong enough  
> because the original proposal doesn't integrate well with HTTP. That  
> is exactly why we are putting forward the LSID HTTP proxy proposal. It  
> was the missing point in the LSID case.
>
> In any case, I suppose we will talk more about this in the near future.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ricardo
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> tdwg-guid mailing list
> tdwg-guid at lists.tdwg.org
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>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
----------------------------------------
Professor Roderic D. M. Page
Editor, Systematic Biology
DEEB, IBLS
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