Research communication necessitates the use of bibliographic references.
These references serve to identify research documents.
The identification of a baseprint is not based on a single authority,
as multiple websites can present a baseprint,
and no single website is the definitive source of a baseprint.

Baseprints are identified by an intrinsic identifier
such as a Software Heritage ID (SWHID).
The identity of a baseprint is determined by its exact digital encoding,
which is a sequence of bytes
when the baseprint is a single file.
Other digital encodings are possible,
such as a *git tree* which encodes a directory of files.
