[tdwg-content] LSID Resolution Service using DDDS/DNS

Roderic Page r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
Mon Jun 18 17:39:08 CEST 2012


Hi Julien,

On 18 Jun 2012, at 15:51, Julien Cigar wrote:

> Hi Roderic,
> 
> Thanks for your reply.
> 
> But I've almost the same feeling. The more I read about LSIDs, the more I feel that there are no real huge benefits over URLs, .. although it looks like different concept to me: I see more an URL as the location of the resource, and the LSID the identifier of that resource.

DOI can do the same thing, or we can design URLs to act much the same way (e.g., by using consistent "slugs" across domains, such as Wikipedia topics or ISBNs).

> 
> It's frustrating because at first glances all the models and the "to be compliant you must ..." rules that come with the spec seemed pretty
> 
> Some advantages I see compared to URLs:
> - the separation of data and metadata (through the .getData / .getMetadata methods and the WSDL files), .. although you could achieve more or less the same by playing on the Accept header of the HTTP request

The metadata/data distinction is often messy. What is metadata and what is data? Is the metadata about the data, or about the LSID itself, etc.? Cue much metaphysical discussion (sigh)

> - the versioning

To a first approximation nobody uses versions. I have never seen anyone use a version of a GenBank sequences, for example. In general people people want the latest version. One can also create versioned identifiers using other schemes if you really must. 

> - the resolution services/discovery services.. although there are a lot of "assuming that..." in the spec

They didn't happen...

> - protocol independent

I think HTTP pretty much won that argument...


> - other things ... ?

LSIDs do have some nice features, but if we step back we see that it's got zero traction outside our community. It's either URLs or DOIs (the later are gaining traction in the data citation world, and are obviously already established in academic publishing). There's a bunch of reasons LSIDs failed to take off, partly technical (they are too hard for most people to get working properly), partly social (pretty much no LSID serves content we can actually do something useful with).

I'm being a little flippant, but personally I think the last thing we'd want to do as a community is continue to flog a technology that has zero uptake outside biodiversity informatics. it was a nice idea, we tried it, didn't work out too well, let's move on...

Regards

Rod




> 
> Best regards,
> Julien
> 
> On 06/18/2012 15:15, Roderic Page wrote:
>> Hi Julien,
>> 
>> Firstly, let me say "run, run away now". Unless you need to support resolving existing LSIDs (e.g., Index Fungorum, IPNI) then I can see no reason to use LSIDs. The future landscape of identifiers is essentially URLs and DOIs. The difference between the two boils down to whether you want your identifiers to have a degree of management or not (you can add management to URLs but the DOI infrastructure for this seems more established).
>> 
>> My understanding has been that querying the DNS for the SRV record is enough. This is what my LSID tester http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/lsid/tester/ <http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/%7Erpage/lsid/tester/> does. Reading the LSID spec I get the sense that, had it been more widely adopted, there was a mechanism to resolve LSID authorities  centrally at a server "lsidauthority.org <http://lsidauthority.org>" (option [a]). If this mechanism didn't exist, we would do a regular DNS lookup of the domain in the LSID we were trying to resolve (option [b]). Option (a) was never implemented, so it's option (b).
>> 
>> That said,
>> 
>> Regards
>> 
>> Rod
>> 
>> On 18 Jun 2012, at 13:04, Julien Cigar wrote:
>> 
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> I'm reading the LSID spec and there are some things that are some things that are a little cloudy to me.
>>> 
>>> The spec says that the client should query the DNS for NAPTR records for the domain name "lsid.urn.arpa", but it seems that the URN NID part "lsid" has not been established at IANA (lsid.urn.arpa is unresolvable) ? Why ?
>>> I wondered if it's enough to query the DNS of the "authority identification" part of the LSID (domain name) for a _lsid._tcp SRV record and assume that this entry is a valid resolution service for the given LSID ? If not, what's the proper way to find a resolution service for, let's say, "urn:lsid:blah.my.domain:foo:12345" ?
>>> 
>>> Thank you
>>> 
>>> Best regards,
>>> Julien
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> No trees were killed in the creation of this message.
>>> However, many electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
>>> 
>>> <jcigar.vcf>_______________________________________________
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>> 
>> ---------------------------------------------------------
>> Roderic Page
>> Professor of Taxonomy
>> Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine
>> College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences
>> Graham Kerr Building
>> University of Glasgow
>> Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
>> 
>> Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk <mailto:r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk>
>> Tel: +44 141 330 4778
>> Fax: +44 141 330 2792
>> Skype: rdmpage
>> AIM: rodpage1962 at aim.com <mailto:rodpage1962 at aim.com>
>> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1112517192
>> Twitter: http://twitter.com/rdmpage
>> Blog: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
>> Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> No trees were killed in the creation of this message.
> However, many electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
> 
> <jcigar.vcf>

---------------------------------------------------------
Roderic Page
Professor of Taxonomy
Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine
College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences
Graham Kerr Building
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
Tel: +44 141 330 4778
Fax: +44 141 330 2792
Skype: rdmpage
AIM: rodpage1962 at aim.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1112517192
Twitter: http://twitter.com/rdmpage
Blog: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html

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