Re: [higgins-dev] The case for "node" (RE: Draft ITU-T Reporton definiti

["Thor Wolpert" <thor@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Entity seems to be well defined in legal contexts, it is either a person or a legally registered incorporated business.  A business that is a sole proprietorship or partnership is indistinguishable from the entities (human beings) that comprise it.  That is also the case for taxation, and the taxation laws are fairly similar in the western world (all are guilty until proven innocent type laws).

Would it not be easier to just adopt this definition that an entity is either a sentient being or an incorporated business?

Thor hW

On 3/1/08, Drummond Reed <drummond.reed@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

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


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