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Ross Singer writes: > I suppose my point is, there's a valid case for identifiers like > your doi, I think we can agree on that (well, we don't have to > agree, these identifiers will exist and continue to exist long > after we've grown tired of flashing out gang signs). What I don't > understand is the reason to express that identifier as: > > info:doi/10.1111/j.1475-4983.2007.00728.x > > when > > http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4983.2007.00728.x > > can serve exactly the same function *and* be actionable. The problem with the latter identifier (and to be clear, yes, I agree that it COULD function as an identifier) is that it gives the impression that what you get when you dereference the DOI is that specific resource, i.e. it enshrines dx.doi.org as THE way of dereferencing DOIs. What if I don't want to get the article from dx.doi.org? Maybe if I go via that site, it'll point me to Elsevier's pay-for copy of an article, whereas if I'd fed the DOI to my local library's resolver, it would have sent me to Blackwell's version which the library has a subscription for. An actionable URI mandates (or at leasts strongly suggests) a particular course of action: but I don't want you to tell me what to _do_, I just what you to tell me what the Thing is. Worse, consider how the actionable-identifier approach would translate to other non-actionable identifiers like ISBNs. If I offer the non-actionable identifier info:isbn/0253333490 which identified Farlow and Brett-Surman's edited volume "The Complete Dinosaur", it's obvious that you have a choice of methods for resolving the ISBN; but if you offer the actionable identifier http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0253213134/ then you are tying what should be a neutral identifier to one particular fulfillment service. How would Barnes and Noble, or indeed your local lending library, feel about that? Or, to get even more objectionable, what if I proposed the identifier http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0253213134/thedinosaurrea0a which not only points you to Amazon, but also causes money to be paid to my affiliate account? As soon as identifiers are dereferencable, you've opened the system up to this kind of abuse. (Now of course this doesn't settle the matter of what kind of URI to use for an identifier. If you decide you want something actionable, then, yes, you pretty much have to use an http: URI, but if you want something that is not, then you can use info:, or you can use http: with a non-deferenenceable URL.) > I didn't grow bored with the argument, I just figured everybody > else had. :-) _/|_ ___________________________________________________________________ /o ) \/ Mike Taylor <[log in to unmask]> http://www.miketaylor.org.uk )_v__/\ "Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak." -- Klingon Programming Mantra