Re: URN Usage
Richard Wiggins <WIGGINS@msu.edu> Fri, 17 September 1993 06:36 UTC
Received: from ietf.nri.reston.va.us by IETF.CNRI.Reston.VA.US id aa00549; 17 Sep 93 2:36 EDT
Received: from CNRI.RESTON.VA.US by IETF.CNRI.Reston.VA.US id aa00545; 17 Sep 93 2:35 EDT
Received: from mocha.bunyip.com by CNRI.Reston.VA.US id aa01313; 17 Sep 93 2:35 EDT
Received: by mocha.bunyip.com (5.65a/IDA-1.4.2b/CC-Guru-2b) id AA05012 on Fri, 17 Sep 93 00:27:59 -0400
Received: from ibm.cl.msu.edu by mocha.bunyip.com with SMTP (5.65a/IDA-1.4.2b/CC-Guru-2b) id AA05008 (mail destined for /usr/lib/sendmail -odq -oi -furi-request uri-out) on Fri, 17 Sep 93 00:27:46 -0400
Message-Id: <9309170427.AA05008@mocha.bunyip.com>
Received: from MSU.BITNET by msu.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 8444; Fri, 17 Sep 93 00:27:41 EDT
Received: by MSU (Mailer R2.08 PTF008) id 5800; Fri, 17 Sep 93 00:27:39 EDT
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1993 00:07:19 -0400
Sender: ietf-archive-request@IETF.CNRI.Reston.VA.US
From: Richard Wiggins <WIGGINS@msu.edu>
Subject: Re: URN Usage
To: "William A. Weems" <wweems@oac3.hsc.uth.tmc.edu>, Uniform Resource Identifier discussion <uri@bunyip.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 16 Sep 1993 15:38:18 -0500
> > a) we assign a single URN to this (and pass it around with > > attribute information to distinguish the variant to choose) or > > > > b) assign a URN to each of the variants, with the attribute information > > telling us about the document we have. > > I agree with Marc Andreessen that "a)" should be the choice since an > information seeker wants "to look for intellectual property on the > network, not 'Gif images' or 'JPEG images'". "The mechanics of which > file format the intellectual property is in is largely irrelevant..." This is all fine in principle, but there are situations in which the exact mechanics of the file format could be *extremely* relevant. If Dr. Weems publishes some medical images at a high resolution and color depth as GIFs, and I "mirror" them after some translations as highly compressed JPEGs, the "intellectual content" may be the same in theory, but some key elements of the images may be missing. Of course, we run that risk anyhow due to the huge variations in displays on our desktops. If those GIFs are 24 bit and my PC is garden variety VGA, what I see will be different than what the author/publisher sees. But if we accept by default the idea that a transformed version of the same image *is* the same image for the purposes of URNs, I worry that we're asking for all sorts of trouble. At the Columbus IETF I recall Cliff Lynch pointing out that publishers assign different ISBNs to a title that comes out in paper and cloth -- same "intellectual content" but different format. Now that may just be to provide separate handles for ordering -- but it also makes sense when you think about the text and diagrams being smaller, durability, etc. Maybe the answer is that Dr. Weems gets to call the GIF and the JPEG the same URN if he produced them, but anyone doing a transformation outside his control must use a distinct URN? /Rich Wiggins, Gopher Coordinator, Michigan State U PS -- Medical images make a particularly interesting example here. I've heard that doctors insist on the absolutely highest resolutions possible for digitally handled images -- that speck you don't see could be significant. Related digression: I've toured a medical facility where digital MRI images are printed onto conventional X-ray film, 'cause the docs' eyes are trained to look at those films up on the traditional lighted wall panels. Sometimes the medium is *very* important...
- Re: URN Usage Richard Wiggins
- Re: URN Usage Rob Raisch, The Internet Company
- Re: URN Usage Dale Dougherty
- Re: URN Usage Martin Hamilton
- Re: URN Usage Harald T. Alvestrand