----------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Peter Dawyndt Laboratorium voor Microbiologie Universiteit Gent Ledeganckstraat 35 B9000 Gent, Belgie

Tel.: (32)9.264.51.32 Fax.: (32)9.264.50.92 Email: Peter.Dawyndt@UGent.be ----------------------------------------------------------- Dear Matt,

But nevertheless, the LSID spec provides for both distributed and centralized authority resolution, and so is a superset of the capabilities in DOI and ARK.

DOI uses the Handle System technology (developed independently by CNRI), which in essence is nothing but an interface of a resolution service. DOI uses an implementation of the Handle System which already incorporates a federate scheme for identifier resolution. So, I think it is incorrect to state that DOI does not offer distributed authority resolution. Local resolution proxies are bound to resolve every DOI, also the ones that are outside of their registration scope.

Cheers,

Peter