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Global Information System on PGRFA

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Subject:
From:
Matija Obreza <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Global Information System on PGRFA <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 13 Mar 2015 02:13:03 +0100
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No, Marco, you haven’t scratched the surface of my question.

> as there is no unique party "responsible of maintaining the generated PUID forever”, but rather a group of organisations and systems that, together, work to maintain the association between the PUID and the PGRFA entity valid “forever”. In this view, and I agree, some even define the PUID as such association between the entity and the identifier string.

You say there is no party responsible [for] maintaining the generated PUID forever. 
What then is the purpose of generating one in the first place if it’s not permanent and nobody maintains it?
Where is the “permanency” of the identifier? Who takes care that it is permanent?

> According to our view of GLIS and what we have discussed in the past weeks, the involved systems and organisations are:
> 
> 1) the DOI system, responsible of maintaining the DOI resolver infrastructure. This is a highly redundant infrastructure (17 sites worldwide) that has proved to be very reliable so far. The International DOI Foundation (IDF) has a sound business model, is backed by international standards and contractual arrangements have been established to preserve the DOI resolver system even in case the IDF should evaporate in the future. Please note that, even if the DOI resolver should cease to exist, the fact on GLISusers would be the impossibility of resolving the DOI using a third-party website. In other words, the users would have to know to go to GLIS to resolve that DOI, something that is considered normal in other PUID types such as LSID or UUID where the presence of a central registry is optional;

That was a very long text that literally did not address any issues I raised. 
Let’s just call that the convention to use another resolver and move on.

> 2) GLIS, the authority that originally assigned the DOI to the PGRFA, would be responsible of maintaining its own functions of (i) resolving the DOI to a landing page on the PGRFA with available metadata and the list of associated destinations that have been accumulated over time. Of course, maintaining GLIS “forever” is quite a challenge, but the entire ITPGRFA is designed to last “forever” and Easy-SMTA has already accepted such challenge for its own role;

ITPGRFA is a legally binding agreement. What we are discussing here is not.
Self-serving purposes don’t solve the problem we are addressing here.
We want the Permanent Identifiers to be introduced and stay here until the end of the World so that we can all refer to our PGR material in an agreed way. Forever. And a bit longer.

> 3) the genebank or other user who originally registered the PGRFA in GLIS (receiving the newly minted DOI in return) will be responsible of maintaining the detail page to which the initial destination provided during the PGRFA registration would point to (using a URL or maybe a PURL). If any change occurs to the genebank or user’s organisation that would invalidate such destination, that genebank or organisation would have to take responsibility to update the destination accordingly.

What if the gene bank “forgets” what the original PUID was? Will the GLIS generate a new PUID on demand? Can I have 1,000,000 entries for my collection of 10 banana clones? But since I forgot about original PUIDs, I cannot make redirects, so the old ones are all void, but valid?

Is the gene bank (or whoever has the material) responsible to maintain the PUID, or not?

> As you will immediately see, points 2) and 3) apply regardless of the adopted PUID type.

I agree: It is all about the convention.

> Point 1), i.e. the function of a central registry that is able to route the user request to the appropriate system is so useful that hoping to do without is, in my opinon, not a very smart idea.

No. That is done by convention and agreement of all parties.

> Beside, the presence of a central registry guarantees that the PUID is truly “globally unique”, something that other identifier types may not claim with the same certainty.

Yes, but same can be achieved with use of random UUIDs, which would not require any central agency to handle germ plasm registration.

> Surely, any central registry is a potential point of weakness, but I think that credit must be given to the IDF for having designed a very reliable and durable system.

No. As long as it suits us as users, we will use the system. Once we find an alternative that does not tie us to the authoritative concepts, we - as users - will move to the next thing.


Matija Obreza
Global Crop Diversity Trust
Platz der Vereinten Nationen 7
53113 Bonn, Germany
Office: +49 228 85427 128
www.croptrust.org

Conserving Crop Diversity, Forever


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