Re: Notes from Non-meeting

At 07:56 AM 3/21/2002 -0600, Henning Schulzrinne wrote:
> It's users who then
>make associations with people, buses, taxis or other objects. We don't
>have intrinsic identifiers for these objects, certainly not a single
>one.

Until we're each implanted with something ;-)

Otherwise, I agree with Henning here. People can make whatever associations
they want of two or more *things* that are related (temporarily) but not
physically joined as one. Today and for the past several decades it has been
true that I am associated with my home phone number (of which the choice to
list publicly or not has been *mine*). Today, if you call me there, I won't
answer because I'm not there. The association isn't dynamic enough to move that
association to the phone in my hotel room. My solution is my cellphone that I
carry with me (that works in North America only which is another issue). People
know that if they call me on my cellphone they will get me or *my* VM service
which is personal and associated with me. If I put my cellphone down and leave
it (hopefully temporarily) - any call goes to VM; but I can't make an emergency
call at that point either when it isn't with me. Until that device is
implanted, it's the best association with me and technology associated with me
-- so it's a fair association IMO that I will choose to maintain.

The idea of inheritance makes a great amount of sense when the human (target)
has some mechanism of control over that association (in a Location Server
interface I configure the rules of, for example). If I carry a pager too, but
you don't know the difference from a target label point of view, I'm still the
target you wish to get to through my cellphone.

Inheritance puts the burden on me to choose which appropriate device represents
*me* to a Location Service, if I choose anything at all (which might be me
temporarily getting away from it all). The requester shouldn't have to keep up
with what I'm carrying at that moment, just that *something* is with me, and
you can get to me through it (if I allow you at that moment if ever).

*************************************
"People generally demand more respect for their own rights than they are
willing to allow for others"

James M. Polk
Consulting Engineer
Office of the CTO

Cisco Systems
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Received on Thu Mar 21 10:16:09 2002