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Re: [Handle-info] Handle Namespace Registration Info

Hi Tony,

Responses interspersed.

On Jul 31, 2008, at 7:34 AM, Hammond, Tony wrote:

Hi:

A recent discussion on DNS namespace registration [1] has got me thinking
about Handle namespace registration. And please forgive this post - I
suddenly feel very dense about the details.

Two questions specifically:

1. Length of Registration (Consecutive)

DNS namespace registration is topped at 10 years consecutive by ICANN. Is
there a similar capping for Handle? I note from the Handle System Service
Agreement (Ver. 3) [2] that there is an annual service fee (see under point
"3. Fees") which may be prepayed optionally in 5-year or 10-year
installments. Does that mean that the maximum consecutive period for Handle
namespace registration is comparable to that of DNS namespace registration?

No, no cap. Never considered. That would be counter to the whole intent. We introduced those 5 and 10 year deals at the request of a number of Universities for whom it was much easier to pay one relatively small amount every 5 or 10 years than a tiny amount every year. And then since we were getting the money ahead of time we introduced a "time value of money" discount. Five and ten just seemed like reasonable numbers.

We also have no intent of ever re-using prefixes that organizations stop using/paying for. I think this is one of the advantages of using numbers over desirable semantics.


(I note also that under the fourth bullet of point "3. Fees" that at CNRI
sole discretion the annual service fee may be waived thus leading to
potentially unlimited registrations for a favoured few?)


This was primarily intended for, and has been used for, research agreements. If DARPA or NSF is going to give us a three year grant to work collaboratively with some other group and that work involves the handle system and we allocate some handle prefixes in the course of the work we didn't want to be contractually obligated to send the government or our collaborators a $50 invoice in order for them to agree to the general terms and conditions of getting a handle prefix.

2. Querying of Registration Details

Is there anything comparable to the level of registration details returned
by the Whois service for DNS entries? For example, the handle.net DNS domain
can be publicly queried to return the following:

  Domain Name: HANDLE.NET
  Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
  Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
  Referral URL: http://www.networksolutions.com
  Name Server: NS.CNRI.RESTON.VA.US
  Name Server: NS.HANDLE.NET
  Name Server: NS3.CNRI.US
  Status: clientTransferProhibited
  Updated Date: 01-dec-2006
  Creation Date: 12-apr-1996
  Expiration Date: 13-apr-2011

This lists (inter alia) the creation, updated, and expiration dates for the
namespace.

Is that same (or similar) information available for Handle namespaces and
can it be publicly queried?

If I look at the namespace handle, say 0.na/10 for DOI, I can query that
using OpenHandle say [3a] and get values for HS_ADMIN, HS_SERV, HS_VLIST,
and EMAIL. Actually the HS_VLIST data type isn't mapped properly so the
hdl.handle.net client is better here [3b] and returns the handles managed
under the HS_VLIST. I can then query those handles in turn (e.g. 200/1) and
get OpenHandle [4a] or hdl.handle.net [4b] results which just return
HS_ADMIN, HS_PUBKEY and EMAIL values.

I don't seem to be able to get anything about registration dates. Is that
true? Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. (The HS_SERV record just details
the service info.)

(Oh the reason for not using the GUI tool is of course firewall issues.)

I'm assuming that this information is, or should be, available through the
HS.


There are date created and date last modified time stamps (I'll have to let someone provide the details) but neither of those is necessarily the date that the namespace was initially allocated. That would have to be an explicit addition to the namespace values. Doesn't sound like a bad idea. What would you see as the advantages of adding it?

Thanks.

Larry

Thanks for any info,

Tony


[1] http://www.crossref.org/CrossTech/2008/07/five_years.html
[2] http://hdl.handle.net/4263537/5029
[3]
http://nascent.nature.com/openhandle/handle?&mimetype=text/plain&format=json
&id=0.na/10
[3b] http://hdl.handle.net/0.na/10
[4a]
http://nascent.nature.com/openhandle/handle?&mimetype=text/plain&format=json
&id=200/1
[4b] http://hdl.handle.net/200/1



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