LSID Pros & Cons
Recognized Issues needing to be addressed
Please describe usage of LSIDs in terms of known or perceived pros and cons.
Description |
Pros |
Cons |
LSID Non-URL Path |
Entity can be moved without changing URI |
Need Resolver Mechanism |
LSID has its own, standardized resolvement mechanism |
Someone has already done the work |
Resolvement seems quite slow and complicated at the time. Other mechanisms that are closer to simple HTTP might be faster and easier to implement. |
LSIDs start with urn:, not with http: |
Nobody mistakes them for HTTP-resolvable URLs |
Not easily clickable in emails, etc. |
Includes revisioning |
Can refer explicitly to a specific version of an identifiable resource, example: urn:lsid:ncbi.nlm.nig.gov:GenBank:T48601:2 refers to the second version of an entry in GenBank. In life sciences, databases are continually updated. |
Not defined how different revisions are related. |
General transform for making LSID work with HTTP |
Simple Concatenation to resolution site, e.g., http://lsid.org/lsid:myorg.org:namespace:objectid:v1 |
Social contract needed, as well as lsid.org site maintenance for re-direction to LISD source sites |
Usage of LSID |
There are many users of LSID, e.g. Taverna, Ubio, BioMoby, Taxonomic Databases Working Group, Hapmap project, Pseudogene, BioPathways, Kim, GBIF |
HTTP URIs are far more widely used globally. |
Examples
Recommendations
Decisions
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