How is LID different from i-names or XRI?
XRI/i-names has the goal to create an identifier system that is more abstract that today’s URLs. Similarly to other systems, it builds a separate name space for identifiers. These identifiers have the form =JohnDoe (with a prefix that indicates the type of entity, such as “person”). LID, on the other hand, works under the assumption that average users are much more comfortable with URLs than with URNs or other new types of handles, in particular if they can type a LID URL into any browser and immediately obtain useful information about that person. Through Yadis, LID and i-names/XRI are using the same discovery mechanism. It appears possible to use XRIs/i-names in place of URLs within LID in the future; whether LID will support this is an issue that will be decided in the future.
