Houghton,Andrew writes: > > > > I have to say I am suspicious of schemes like PURL, which > > > > for all their good points introduce a single point of > > > > failure into, well, everything that uses them. That can't > > > > be good. Especially as it's run by the same compary that > > > > also runs the often-unavailable OpenURL registry. > > > > > > What you are saying is that you are suspicious of the HTTP > > > protocol. > > > > That is NOT what I am saying. > > > > I am saying I am suspicious of a single point of failure. > > Especially since the entire architecture of the Internet was > > (rightly IMHO) designed with the goal of avoid SPOFs. > > OK, good, then if you are concerned about the PURL services SPOF, > take the freely available PURL software and created a distributed > PURL based system and put it up for the community. Why would I want to do this when I could just Not Use PURLs? Anyway, we're way off the subject now -- I guess if we want to argue about the utility of PURL we could get a room :-) _/|_ ___________________________________________________________________ /o ) \/ Mike Taylor <[log in to unmask]> http://www.miketaylor.org.uk )_v__/\ "The cladistic defintion of Aves is: an unimportant offshoot of the much cooler dinosaur family which somehow managed to survive the K/T boundry intact" -- Eric Lurio.