Re: [tm-pubsubj-comment] RE: [topicmaps-comment] referring to a topicfrom outside a TM -- PURL

[Lars Marius Garshol <larsga@garshol.priv.no>]

* Mary Nishikawa
|
| No, PURLs cannot be bookmarked, but do we need a bookmarking capability for
| published subjects?

* Thomas Bandholtz
| 
| A URI is a URI is a URI. If we provide a canoical URI, anybody
| should be able to do anything he is used to with a URI, including
| stting bookmarks or copying an URL from the browsers URL field into
| a mail to a colleague, etc....

I strongly agree, but I'm not sure how this relates to what Mary was
saying. I'd like to see a clarification from Mary.
 
* Mary Nishikawa
|
| The most important requirement for published subjects I think is this, to
| have a URL that is persistent so that someone who is using my PSIs two
| years from now will be able to merge them with their own.
 
* Thomas Bandholtz
|
| It's not only for merging. There will be engines that want to
| process a single subject's identity on the fly. We must not only
| think about some engaged taxonimist people who want to spend a week
| or so reading all the PSI set.
 
Actually, merging is of two kinds: manual and automated. For automated
merging, only the URIs (subject identifiers) matter. For manual
merging the documentation they resolve to (subject indicators) may
matter.

What the PubSubj TC is mostly concerned with is automated merging,
simply because that is the economically most feasible procedure.

| May be the coming OASIS member section may provide a persitistent
| *hosting* (not redirection) of PSI sets. This would work.

I'm not very happy with that idea. This leads us back into the old
centralised "Regististration Authority" way of doing things, which is
resource-intensive and easily becomes a bottleneck. It's much better
if people can define their own PSIs without having to confer with
anyone else about it.

Persistent URI services are good and useful, but other people should
provide those, and for general purposes, not just for PSIs. (There is,
after all, nothing special about PSIs except the use we put them to.)
As Mary pointed out, purl.org is doing this perfectly well already.

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
ISO SC34/WG3, OASIS GeoLang TC        <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >