Comments on: A Position on LSIDs http://www.hyam.net/blog/archives/325 "truly pathetic verbiage" Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:44:37 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Roger Hyam http://www.hyam.net/blog/archives/325/comment-page-1#comment-1402 Roger Hyam Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:04:32 +0000 http://www.hyam.net/blog/?p=325#comment-1402 <a href="#comment-1395" rel="nofollow">@Chuck Koscher</a> Thanks for you contribution but I am afraid I don't follow. dx.doi.org is a domain name. Doing a "dig any" I get the output pasted in below with a single A record pointing to a single IP address. i.e. a name resolving to a physical location (that isn't a physical location really but just another name that resolves to a MAC address but that's splitting hairs). So a DOI is a name for which most people use a single resolver which uses a DNS name that resolves to an IP address which resolves to a MAC address of a networked machine (or virtual machine or router). All seems like a singular instance to me. It actually has to be a singular instance to be authoritative. There has to be somewhere I go that I know I can trust to give me the normative information associated with the identifier - even if that place just forwards me to a list of alternative places that are trusted. Names have to be associated with locations or they are strings like any other. When you get married in church in the UK they pre-announce the marriage for a few Sundays and the use a phrase like "Betty Smith of this parish will marry Gordon Brown of the parish of St John over the hill". By giving the parish they are disambiguate the name and allow people to resolve it back to a place where they can find authoritative information about that person. The name and the resolution mechanism are inextricably linked i.e. the URL/URN debate is really a false one. This has been going on for hundreds of years. It isn't an IT issue but a social one and I guess it is covered in my other blog post GUIDs http://www.hyam.net/blog/archives/346 ; <<>> DiG 9.4.3-P1 <<>> any dx.doi.org ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 6697 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 4, ADDITIONAL: 4 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;dx.doi.org. IN ANY ;; ANSWER SECTION: dx.doi.org. 242 IN A 38.100.138.149 ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: dx.doi.org. 242 IN NS proxy2ns.doi.org. dx.doi.org. 242 IN NS proxy1ns.doi.org. dx.doi.org. 242 IN NS crossrefns1.doi.org. dx.doi.org. 242 IN NS proxy3ns.doi.org. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: proxy2ns.doi.org. 1403 IN A 38.100.138.162 proxy1ns.doi.org. 1403 IN A 38.100.138.161 crossrefns1.doi.org. 1403 IN A 208.254.38.90 proxy3ns.doi.org. 1403 IN A 38.100.138.163 @Chuck Koscher
Thanks for you contribution but I am afraid I don’t follow. dx.doi.org is a domain name. Doing a “dig any” I get the output pasted in below with a single A record pointing to a single IP address. i.e. a name resolving to a physical location (that isn’t a physical location really but just another name that resolves to a MAC address but that’s splitting hairs). So a DOI is a name for which most people use a single resolver which uses a DNS name that resolves to an IP address which resolves to a MAC address of a networked machine (or virtual machine or router). All seems like a singular instance to me.

It actually has to be a singular instance to be authoritative. There has to be somewhere I go that I know I can trust to give me the normative information associated with the identifier – even if that place just forwards me to a list of alternative places that are trusted. Names have to be associated with locations or they are strings like any other.

When you get married in church in the UK they pre-announce the marriage for a few Sundays and the use a phrase like “Betty Smith of this parish will marry Gordon Brown of the parish of St John over the hill”. By giving the parish they are disambiguate the name and allow people to resolve it back to a place where they can find authoritative information about that person. The name and the resolution mechanism are inextricably linked i.e. the URL/URN debate is really a false one. This has been going on for hundreds of years. It isn’t an IT issue but a social one and I guess it is covered in my other blog post GUIDs http://www.hyam.net/blog/archives/346

; < <>> DiG 9.4.3-P1 < <>> any dx.doi.org
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 6697
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 4, ADDITIONAL: 4

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;dx.doi.org. IN ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
dx.doi.org. 242 IN A 38.100.138.149

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
dx.doi.org. 242 IN NS proxy2ns.doi.org.
dx.doi.org. 242 IN NS proxy1ns.doi.org.
dx.doi.org. 242 IN NS crossrefns1.doi.org.
dx.doi.org. 242 IN NS proxy3ns.doi.org.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
proxy2ns.doi.org. 1403 IN A 38.100.138.162
proxy1ns.doi.org. 1403 IN A 38.100.138.161
crossrefns1.doi.org. 1403 IN A 208.254.38.90
proxy3ns.doi.org. 1403 IN A 38.100.138.163

]]> By: Chuck Koscher http://www.hyam.net/blog/archives/325/comment-page-1#comment-1395 Chuck Koscher Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:40:33 +0000 http://www.hyam.net/blog/?p=325#comment-1395 The post regarding CrossRef going down conflates two issues, 1) CrossRef's OpenURL resolver and 2) the DOI resolver. Many applications are using CrossRef's resolver to translate from metadata to the link target (e.g. get the DOI). Alternatively they are using CrossRef's OpenURL resolver to convert a DOI back into metadata for local processing. This activity is not the same as using the DOI to resolve to targets via the DOI resolver at dx.doi.org. An apples-to-apples comparison to DNS must be done to the DOI resolvers not CrossRef's OpenURL resolver. Whats the difference? Well, CrossRef's OpenURL resolver is a singular instance while the DOI dx.doi.org resolver is not. Yes dx.doi.org is not as ubiquitous as DNS but its architecture and implementation is not one of just a central resolver The post regarding CrossRef going down conflates two issues, 1) CrossRef’s OpenURL resolver and 2) the DOI resolver.

Many applications are using CrossRef’s resolver to translate from metadata to the link target (e.g. get the DOI). Alternatively they are using CrossRef’s OpenURL resolver to convert a DOI back into metadata for local processing. This activity is not the same as using the DOI to resolve to targets via the DOI resolver at dx.doi.org.

An apples-to-apples comparison to DNS must be done to the DOI resolvers not CrossRef’s OpenURL resolver. Whats the difference? Well, CrossRef’s OpenURL resolver is a singular instance while the DOI dx.doi.org resolver is not. Yes dx.doi.org is not as ubiquitous as DNS but its architecture and implementation is not one of just a central resolver

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