Subject: Re: [URN] Re: The UR* scheme registry, Citing URL/URI specs

From: "Roy T. Fielding" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 23:58:28 -0800

>> Please note that the "L" in "URL" represents "Locator", not "Location".
>> Any naming scheme that requires there exist some mechanism for resolution,
>> whether or not the mechanism is currently in operation, changes over time,
>> or subject to multiple levels of indirection, is a locator.
>
>URNs never required a mechanism for resolution.
>
>> There do exist names that are not locators, but those names are not URNs.
>
>Actually, unless the documents have changed the design was that the URN
>need not have a resolution method.

That's what I thought too, until RFC 2141 went up for last call.  E.g.,

   7. Functional Equivalence in URNs

      Functional equivalence is determined by practice within a given
      namespace and managed by resolvers for that namespeace.

which in my mind is the same as requiring a resolution method.  There is
no value in the "urn" scheme if it doesn't define functional equivalence.

Grump.  Somebody should stick a spell checker in the RFC process --
I noticed a few weeks ago that the "Standard Copyright Notice" for all
RFCs has misspelled "implementation".

....Roy

---

From: Michael Mealling <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 09:34:54 -0500 (EST)

> no value in the "urn" scheme if it doesn't define functional equivalence.

Hmm... then we should have done a better job on that section. The document
_should_ have had nothing to say about resolution but I guess it snuck in.

I wonder if that's fixable...

-MM

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