Re: [xdi] Identifying dogs and things

[Drummond Reed <drummond.reed@xdi.org>]

Animesh, you bring up a good question about well-known names that are not people and not owned by anyone.

I don't believe they belong in the = namespace as it stays very clean if = names represent natural people.

And if “Picasso’s Guernica” or “Munch’s Scream” have become generic cultural icons, they don't belong in the @ namespace because that's for legal entities that have rights in the name.

So they belong in the * namespace, which makes sense because they are both "things", i.e., *guernica and *scream.

Since both names are contextual (i.e., both need the context of the artist to make it clear what they are referring to), I'd suggest the best mapping is *picasso*guernica and *munch*scream.

In essence, * is to instances of things what + is to classes of things.

Make sense?

On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 5:11 AM, Chowdhury, Animesh <Animesh.Chowdhury@neustar.biz> wrote:

Hi Drummond/Markus,

The semantics of a natural person or a legal entity is quite clear. So, there’s no confusion there. However, I do think that there are some “things” which may not be owned by anyone – thus, cannot be easily identified under an “equal” or “at” name.

For example, classic art works like “Picasso’s Guernica” or “Munch’s Scream” are not commonly seen as owned by someone. So, if one wanted to name these objects likewise , =Guernica or =scream , I think that should be allowed.

 

What do you think ?

 

Thanks,

Animesh  

 

From: xdi@lists.oasis-open.org [mailto:xdi@lists.oasis-open.org] On Behalf Of Drummond Reed
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2013 2:42 AM
To: Markus Sabadello
Cc: Chasen, Les; OASIS - XDI TC
Subject: Re: [xdi] Identifying dogs and things

 

Les, per my last message, I agree with Markus. I prefer not to go into the old XRI semantics and I-Broker agreements and rather just focus with on current XDI semantics. But with these, an = identifier is used exclusively to identify a natural person. If you wanted to identify a dog, you could use:

• =les.chasen*rover
• =les.chasen+dog*rover

Similarly for a car:

• =les.chasen*hotrod
• =les.chasen+car*hotrod

But an =identifier by itself always represents a natural person (and the new XDI.org registration agreements should specify that). That's very clean, and makes the =authority branches of the XDI graph very clear.

 

=Drummond 

 

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 11:27 AM, Markus Sabadello <markus.sabadello@xdi.org> wrote:

But (at least under the old I-Broker system) this would be a violation of the registration agreement.

 

And in XDI I believe it would be inconsistent with the semantic meaning of =

 

Markus

 

 

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 8:10 PM, Chasen, Les <les.chasen@neustar.biz> wrote:

The question came up whether the = symbol can be

used to identify dogs or phones. Markus explained that the = symbol is strictly for natural persons. To identify the concept of a dog, +dog would be used. To assign an identifier to a specific dog, a * identifier would be used. Markus added that a registrar for XDI identifiers will typically have legal requirements to allow registration of = and @ identifiers only for purposes consistent with their semantic meanings. Animesh speculated whether it would make sense to also have a registry for * identifiers.

 

I could have =rover who happens to be a +dog.  Couldn't i? 

 

I could also have =les.chasen.car which happens to be a +car.   

 

I wouldn't have to have these in the = community but i could if i wanted to.