[tdwg-tag] SourceForge LSID project websites broken - role for TDWG?
Jonathan Rees
jar at creativecommons.org
Fri Apr 3 20:28:07 CEST 2009
I've tried to stay out of this discussion out of respect for the large
amount of work the TDWG has already put into this issue, and the
sentiment I've heard expressed that everyone is sick of the argument
and revisiting it would be fatiguing and unpleasant. I only pipe in
now because... well, forgive me.
My opinion is that while the TimBL / linked data vision may be a
plausible one for the "living web" made from web sites, databases, and
services that are continuously maintained and corrected, it is not so
good for the archival use case, where a document is stored for ten or
twenty years and then needs to be understood. Both use cases occur in
the practice of science but it's important to understand that they're
different and lead to different requirements. In the "living" case it
does not matter so much what the identifier system (domain name, etc.)
is since it can be changed if it stops working. (Persistence is not a
big part of the linked data story.) In the archival case you need to
be much more careful in placing your bets.
But don't let the existence of flakey http: URIs make you throw *all*
of them away. http: URIs are neither more nor less viable as
persistent identifiers than any other kind of identifier. The syntax
of the string is not the issue; what's important is the level of
commitment behind the identifier system. urn:lsid:, http: , and doi:
all show extreme variability as far as that goes - in each syntactic
category, some identifiers have a good chance of being understandable
in the future, and some don't.
In our work at Science Commons we're using http: mainly because its
resolution protocol is so widely deployed, leading to lovely
unintended consequences such as the Internet Archive and Google. But
persistence is hard regardless of the identifier scheme. For an
example of an attempt to arrange for http: persistence for one
particular application see http://sharedname.org/.
Whether the choice is urn:lsid: or http:, the important thing for
persistence is to make sure some supporting infrastructure exists for
the long haul. (Yes, that is a tautology.) That is not really a
syntactic or technical problem.
Jonathan
On Apr 3, 2009, at 1:23 PM, Peter DeVries wrote:
> I have several issues with LSIDs
>
> 1) I don't agree that life science data is "different" than
> geological, meteorological, or chemical data.
>
> 2) The persistence of LSID identifiers is as problematic as URL
> based identifiers. In fact, it is worse because
> the system adds an additional layer of poorly supported
> standards that few people understand and
> even fewer implement correctly.
>
> 3) LSIDs increase the implementation costs significantly beyond the
> costs required for domain registration and
> a web server. For most implementations you will need a
> additional machine (virtual or otherwise) and someone
> who understands the intricacies of LSIDs.
>
> 4) Tim Berners-Lee feels that LSIDs are unnecessary, and after
> spending several years looking at this issue I
> think he is right. Even if TBL is wrong, you have positioned
> yourself for an uphill battle for adoption.
>
> 5) There is a well developed and widely adopted standard for
> integrating data sets developed by the
> TBL and the linked data community that addresses the needs of
> the TDWG community.
>
> For those who are not familiar with this initiative, check out the
> linked data site at: http://linkeddata.org/
>
> and Tim Berners-Lee recent talk at TED http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html
>
> Respectfully,
>
> - Pete
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> Pete DeVries
> Department of Entomology
> University of Wisconsin - Madison
> 445 Russell Laboratories
> 1630 Linden Drive
> Madison, WI 53706
> GeoSpecies Knowledge Base
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 5:14 PM, <Garry.Jolley-Rogers at csiro.au> wrote:
> Hi Hilmar,
> Struggling with exactly these issues as I implement LSID's
> here.
>
> It is a concern (especially given the underlying principles of
> permanence embodied in LSIDS) that the LSID project itself lacks
> resilience. Code can still be obtained tho' the documentation I can
> find is out of date and dependencies may be too. I'll know very
> soon - by the end of today. Like many things out there.. It seems
> to be withering now that the initial enthusiasm has died. While the
> collections community may think in centuries, permanence in LSIDS
> seems to mean a few years. Perhaps my google-fu has failed me.. If
> so please tell me.
>
> My questions.... Is there sufficient interest and community
> involvement to keep it alive .... Even it is no more than an update
> documentation & co. Perhaps it should be brought into the TDWG
> fold? Any comments? Happy to contribute what I can.
>
> GarryJR
>
> ~
> ~
> ~
> ~
> ~
> ~
> ~
> ~
> ~
> ~
> ~
> ~
> ~
> ~
> ~
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Garry.Jolley-Rogers at csiro.au
> Biodiversity Informatics, Taxonomy Research & Information Network
> Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research, CSIRO Plant Industry,
> GPO Box 1600, Canberra ACT 2601 AUSTRALIA
> w:(02) 62465501 http://www.cpbr.gov.au/cpbr/staff/jolley-rogers-staff.html
> .·'¯`·.¸ ><((((o> .·'¯`·.¸¸.·'¯`·.¸ .·'¯`·.¸¸.·'¯`·.¸ >=}}}}}}/o>
> ><((((o> ><((((o>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tdwg-tag-bounces at lists.tdwg.org [mailto:tdwg-tag-bounces at lists.tdwg.org
> ] On Behalf Of Hilmar Lapp
> Sent: Friday, 20 March 2009 5:07 AM
> To: Technical Architecture Group mailing list
> Subject: [tdwg-tag] SourceForge LSID project websites broken
>
> The websites for the two LSID projects on SourceForge are broken:
>
> http://lsids.sourceforge.net/
> http://lsid.sourceforge.net/
>
> I believe the latter project is defunct (can someone confirm this?)
> but the first should be alive, right (and this URL is in fact linked
> to on the TDWG website).
>
> Does anyone know what's going on?
>
> -hilmar
>
> --
> ===========================================================
> : Hilmar Lapp -:- Durham, NC -:- hlapp at duke dot edu :
> ===========================================================
>
>
>
>
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