Resource identifiers

[Ray Plante]

Hey Tony,

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003, Tony Linde wrote:
> I'd like to add my own view of the debate going on in the NVO metadata list
> about identifiers but have posted it here for the attention of the wider
> audience.

(I was getting ready to draw you in :-)

This is an excellent, fairly comprehensive list of statements.  I would 
urge anyone who disagrees with any of them should respond to this his 
message directly.  We need to get consensus on these points if we are to 
proceed.  

I basically agree all his statements, apart from D.

> D. an AuthorityId can only be used in constructing a ResourceId by one
> registry (the protocol for ensuring this is yet tbd). A registry can 'own'
> many such AuthorityIds. The registry will operate its own rules about who
> can register resources under any given AuthorityId.

This is currently a point of debate.  In particular, people have suggested 
the following:

  1. An AuthorityID is owned by an organization.  That organization should 
     not be required to run its own registry in order to create 
     identifiers with an authorityID it owns.  

     This relaxation can be easily accommadated if the organization only 
     uses a single registry to register its resources.  In that way, the 
     registry can control the creation of identifiers with a given 
     AuthorityID on behalf of the organization that owns it.  This is the 
     model intended by our prototype registry at NCSA.

  2. An organization can choose to register different resources with the 
     same AuthorityID with different registries.  

     I do not think we should allow this without secure (grid-based) 
     authentication built into the registration process.  If 
     an organization sticks with one registry, then that registry can
     handle authentication itself however it likes.  

> F. to find out anything about any resource it is simply a matter of querying
> any searchable registry and supplying the ResourceId. If that registry does
> not replicate that metadata, it can either query any full registry (one
> which replicates all resource metadata) or look up the resource metadata for
> the originating registry (by searching on the AuthorityId component) and
> querying that.

If we stick with D.1 described above this would still work.  

cheers,
Ray