[Open-bio-l] LSIDs

[Brian King]

> 	Comments are needed on this one!! Please read
> below!
 
What is the purpose of format/alphabet in the proposed
format?

URN:LSID:open-bio.org:<format>/<alphabet>
 
If it is only to make unique strings, then it's
(almost) harmless.  But if the content of the field
alters client processing, it would be a mistake.
Meta-data should not be encoded in the IDs.  Client
applications should treat the IDs as being
structureless, and get the meta-data elsewhere.  There
are a few reasons for this, but it comes down to
assuring that the ID system remains stable and
reliable.
 
Is the intention to publish genbank and embl data
under the "open-bio.org" authority?  This would be
against the intention of LSIDs.  The third field in
LSID syntax is the "authority" field, where authority
is the owner, producer, manager of the data.  Genbank
data should have an NCBI identifier in the authority
field, etc.  The authority field is independent of
data location.  It defeats the goal of having
universally unique identifiers when different servers
publish the same data using different authority
fields.
 
A minor point is that the IETF URN spec reserves "/"
for future use.  Maybe not important, but valid URN
syntax is registered with IANA, and they may not
approve one containing "/".  Using "." is an
alternative.
 
Regards,
Brian