[Opensim-dev] Global identifiers

[diva at metaverseink.com]

Karen Palen wrote:
> I agree that hypergrid does not introduce any new concerns over what we 
> see in ordinary web pages. However that leaves a lot of room for problems!
> 
> My concern is that we are storing those "web pages" in a database and 
> making decisions based on that information. I see the potential for the 
> data to simply degrade over time as more and more references become 
> "bad" in one way or another.
> 
> Maybe I have missed something, but I have not seen any discussion of how 
> issues of stale or misguided references are to be handled!
> 
> Do we just accept that over time our "authorities" will disappear? What 
> does that imply for the objects which depend on those authorities?

Yes, we accept that. What to do is left undefined. It's up to grid 
operators to decide what to do with stale references. There's not a 
central authority that imposes any actions. Some grids won't care; 
others will.

> If the "authority" can simply disappear with no effect, then why bother 
> recording it at all? A simple UUID would serve the same purpose - 
> globally as well as locally.
> 
> My understanding is that we DO use the "authority" for various things 
> beyond simple identification. Authentication, updating of information, 
> and DRM management come to mind.

We use it for locating resources. Authentication happens only at very 
specific points in time. At those points, the authorities must exist, 
obviously, or else authentication doesn't happen.