Tony, I respect your feelings about “node”.
But “entity” is indeed disputed if we try to define it as the
representation and not the thing-being-represented. You saw Dave Kearns
reaction on the ID Gang list.
So if “entity”, “node”,
and “digital subject” are all disqualified, what term do folks
suggest? I’d propose we disqualify “resource” too because if
you check the definition in RFC 3986 (see below), is it clear that it has the
same problem as “entity”, meaning it can mean either the representation
or the thing-being-represented.
Nothing else in the poll received any
significant support. So what’s the next step?
=Drummond
RFC 3986 URI Generic Syntax January 2005
Resource
This specification does not limit the scope of what might be a
resource; rather, the term "resource" is used in a general sense
for whatever might be identified by a URI. Familiar examples
include an electronic document, an image, a source of information
with a consistent purpose (e.g., "today's weather report for Los
Angeles"), a service (e.g., an HTTP-to-SMS gateway), and a
collection of other resources. A resource is not necessarily
accessible via the Internet; e.g., human beings, corporations, and
bound books in a library can also be resources. Likewise,
abstract concepts can be resources, such as the operators and
operands of a mathematical equation, the types of a relationship
(e.g., "parent" or "employee"), or numeric values (e.g., zero,
one, and infinity).
From:
higgins-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:higgins-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Anthony Nadalin
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2008
12:05 PM
To: Higgins (Trust Framework)
Project developer discussions
Cc: 'Higgins (Trust Framework)
Project developer discussions'; higgins-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [higgins-dev] The
case for "node" (RE: Draft ITU-T Reporton definition of
"identity")
So I still don't see the term "entity"
disputed, node is a term that folks just don't get in relationship to people,
processes, services, etc, whereas "entity" is a term we associate to
these items.
Node is just a very bad term.
Anthony Nadalin | Work 512.838.0085 | Cell 512.289.4122
"Drummond
Reed" ---03/01/2008 01:52:05 PM---The message below (from a thread this
morning on the IDGang list on the term
|
From:
|
"Drummond
Reed" <drummond.reed@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
|
|
To:
|
"'Higgins
(Trust Framework) Project developer discussions'" <higgins-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
|
|
Date:
|
03/01/2008 01:52 PM
|
|
Subject:
|
[higgins-dev] The
case for "node" (RE: Draft ITU-T Report on definition of
"identity")
|
The
message below (from a thread this morning on the IDGang list on the term
"identity") summarizes the core problem
with using the term "entity" to talk
about the "digital representation of an
entity":
At 08:54 PM 3/1/2008, Dave Kearns wrote:
>"Digital Identity" or
"Persona" are the two best candidates for the digital
>representation of an entity. Why anyone in
their right mind can think that
>the dual use of Entity is
"self-evident," I don't know.
Although there may not be agreement on this, I
think we would all
acknowledge that using the same term to refer to
both the representation and
to the thing-being-represented is less than ideal.
What's worse, of the two
potential meanings, the term "entity"
has now been defined by two bodies --
ITU and IDGang -- to explicitly mean the
thing-being-represented, whereas
the term the Higgins community needs to standarize
on is the representation.
If that disqualifies the top choice in the last
poll -- "entity" -- and
we've already disqualified "digital
subject" due to the legal/political
issues -- then that leaves us with the second
choice in the last poll:
"node".
Let me briefly summarize the case for
"node":
1) It doesn't suffer from the legal/political
connotations that disqualified
"digital subject".
2) It avoids the semantic confusion of either
"entity" or "identity".
3) It is much shorter and more concise than
"digital identity".
4) It corresponds directly to the same term in the
RDF graph model that
underlies the Higgins data model.
5) It emphasises the power of the Higgins global
graph model (and the
related concepts of the "social graph"
and "giant global graph"), in
particular for the relationships between
real-world entities to be
represented by relations/correlations between
nodes in different Higgins
contexts.
Lastly, the first sign I look for regarding the
viability of a new term is
how easily it works in everyday usage. So far my
personal experience is that
"node" is working very well. Several of
us were able to use it in a
first-time meeting yesterday with a potential
large Higgins adopter with no
definition or explanation at all -- it just flowed
naturally from the basic
premises of the Higgins data model, which is the
foundation upon which
everything else is built.
My conclusion is this: while I fully appreciate
what Raj and others have
said about the initial "geekiness" of
the term "node", I believe that this
connotation will quickly disappear with Higgins
adoption, very much the way
the initial "bookishness" of the term
"browser" disappeared quickly with the
spread of the World Wide Web.
The result will be that Higgins will have
contributed two fundamental terms
to the industry-wide vocabulary of digital
identity and data sharing:
"context" and "node" --
arguably the two most fundamental terms in Higgins
architecture (along with "attribute",
which is the only holdover from the
LDAP paradigm).
So I'd just like to cast a new vote for going with
"node".
=Drummond
_______________________________________________
higgins-dev mailing list
higgins-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/higgins-dev
