Dear Gregor,
Like you, I really like the potential of LSIDs. They seem to offer exactly the characteristics we need (and everyone I have met who has looked closely at the alternatives seems to have come to the same conclusion). I want to hold a meeting as soon as possible to get input (and buy-in) from the widest possible community and to resolve any outstanding issues. Then I want to get going with this as a GBIF-supported model.
Thanks,
Donald
--------------------------------------------------------------- Donald Hobern (dhobern@gbif.org) Programme Officer for Data Access and Database Interoperability Global Biodiversity Information Facility Secretariat Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark Tel: +45-35321483 Mobile: +45-28751483 Fax: +45-35321480 ---------------------------------------------------------------
-----Original Message----- From: TDWG - Structure of Descriptive Data [mailto:TDWG-SDD@LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU] On Behalf Of Gregor Hagedorn Sent: 8. september 2004 18:20 To: TDWG-SDD@LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU Subject: Re: Globally Unique Identifier
I am not quite sure, but to me it seems with "GUID" you refer to the numeric, MAC-address generated GUID type. I have nothing against these. However, any URN in my view is a GUID that has most of the properties you mention:
- it is guaranteed to be unique globally, and can be created anywhere,
anytime by any server or client machine - it has no meaning as to where the data is physically located and will there not confuse any user about this
- most id
mechanisms, especially URI/URN ids require a 'governing body' to handle namespaces/urls to ensure every URN is unique, whereas a GUID is always unique
The governing body is restricted to the primary web address, and in most cases such an address is already available. Being a member of a governmental institution that explicitly forbids the use without prior consent, and forbids the use of its domain name once you are no longer working for them, I realize some potential for problem.
I do think a URL of some kind would be useful for things such as global searches of multiple databases, as this will allow the search to go directly to the data source where the name, referene, etc comes from. But this should not be part of its ID. Maybe a name/id should have several foms, a GUID for an ID and a URL + a GUID for a fully specified name.
What are the current thoughts on these ideas?
A GUID is only part of the problem. The other half of the problem is actually getting at the resource. URN schemes like DOI or LSID (I prefer the latter) intend to define resolution mechanisms. That make the URN not yet a URL - in my view the good comes with the good, location and reorganization independence.
I believe GBIF should install such an LSID resolver, which is why in the UBIF proxy model, under Links, I propose to support a general URL (including potentially URNS), a typed LSID and a typed DOI. This could be simplified to have just a URN (LSID and DOI are URNs), but that would then require string parsing to determine and recognize the preferred resolvable GUID types. Comments on splitting/not splitting this are welcome!
There may be some need to define a non-resolvable URN/numeric GUID as well. However, that would not be under the linking question. Is it correct that linking requires resolvability, or am I thinking into a wrong direction?
Gregor
---------------------------------------------------------- Gregor Hagedorn (G.Hagedorn@bba.de) Institute for Plant Virology, Microbiology, and Biosafety Federal Research Center for Agriculture and Forestry (BBA) Koenigin-Luise-Str. 19 Tel: +49-30-8304-2220 14195 Berlin, Germany Fax: +49-30-8304-2203
Often wrong but never in doubt!