Message-Id: <199404220237.TAA14099@rock>
From: Terry Allen <terry@ora.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 19:37:41 PDT
To: uri@bunyip.com
Subject: Yet more URI/URC
| From: mitra@pandora.sf.ca.us (Mitra)
| Subject: Re: More URIURC
| Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 23:10:02 GMT
| Message-Id: <CoMtor.3IE@pandora.sf.ca.us>
|
| There is one point that I think we disagree on .. let me see if I can
| explain it so it gets pulled out as a seperate question?
| I think (although I dont think my scenario depends on this) that.....
|
| a) The publisher controls who it cites as the official URN->URC
| resolution services for its documents. This is who a simplistic client
| will use to resolve the URN's to URLs
Well, the publisher can suggest a preferred URN > URC provider,
and, depending upon how services are bundled, may exert some
degree of coercion to use this provider. But fundamentally
this is like saying "Use only genuine GM parts."
| b) It doesnt control who else has URC's that refer to this URN and give
| any other kind of information about it, so a global URN->URC service
| could set up, and index everyone whether or not the publisher agrees.
| I think this will work - although I'm concerned about pathological cases
| where it doesnt?
I think publishers ought to act as they do now: they supply info
to Books in Print (at the time they declare the ISBN for a work)
and to the Library of Congress (when they file for copyright
or submit cataloguing-in-publication data). Then the
ISBN people (substitute any name-space authority) make
the assembled information available as a matter of routine.
The publisher may also have other avenues by which to
disseminate the same info, e.g., advertising.
But, yes, none of this precludes others from recataloguing the
same documents, perhaps at variance with the publisher's
description (Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens, etc.). And because
the publisher's preferred provider may not do justice to
related (but perhaps critical) documents (perhaps owned
by a competitor), a user would be well advised to
consult an impartial source when appropriate.
You ask about pathological cases, and on reflection
I see an issue here about URCs vs URNs. To what extent
can URCs be URNs through being designators for collections?
The pathological cases I can see involve annotations, commentary,
and tendentious compilations. I won't suggest any particular
offensive example, but imagine a URC that couples "all-that-you-
hold-holy" with "all-that-is-most-offensive-to-you". In
the present world, such a thing would have to be a published
work, such as a book, to have any meaning. But if anyone can
make up URCs, then mere bibliographic juxtaposition could
conceivably have the same effect as actually printing up
an anthology. Where is the border between bibliography
and collective work?
Other than that, however, I don't see pathological cases,
offhand.
Regards,
Alas, I fear there are copyright issues here, and that no
answer we give will resolve the matter. But it's worth
thinking about in advance.
-- Terry Allen (terry@ora.com) Editor, Digital Media Group O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Sebastopol, Calif., 95472