Subject: Re: [URN] Summary of debate (fwd)

From: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 10:03:10 -0400 (EDT)

I am forwarding this to the list to add a statement of immediate, real life
proposals that should be considered in the discussion re. country code NIDs.

As Juha notes, European national libraries have decided to proceed with the
URN implementation, so this will bring up further discussion one way or
another. 

Leslie.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    If cats had bumper stickers:                  Leslie Daigle
                                             
      "I wake for food."                          Bunyip Information Systems
                -- ThinkingCat                    (514) 875-8611
                                                  [email-masked]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 07:34:42 +0200
From: Juha Hakala <[email-masked]>
To: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [URN] Summary of debate

Dear Leslie,

Leslie Daigle wrote:
> 
> What the document editor heard:
> 
>         1. one person has proposed dumping the idea of reserving
>            2-letter NIDs for country namespaces as a bad idea
>            (i.e., drop the idea, and let people register namespaces of any
>            length)

Identification of printed documents (and long-time preservation of them)
has for a long time been one of the responsibilities of national
libraries. We will do the same for electronic documents. There is a need
for country namespaces, which can be co-ordinated by the national
libraries (which then pass necessary information onwards to IANA). I can
not imagine any international organisation having resources to negotiate
with any organisation in the world whether they really have a need for
an URN namespace. In national level this is still doable, not least
because the national libraries already know the domestic publishers.

Dumping the idea of country namespaces leads to the need of a truly
massive global service, located in IANA. It makes definitely sense to
decentralise part of this work to national libraries. This does not
endanger the coherence of the global resolution, if national libraries
co-operate fully with IANA. This is our intention.

>         2. at least one person has suggested just _reserving_ 2-letter
>            NIDs, for future consideration (which means tightening up the
>            terminology of the document to make it clear that they are
>            reserved, but they are not to be assigned now, as there is
>            no theory in place?)

Since national libraries are able and willing to use and co-ordinate
country namespaces, just reserving 2-letter NIDs is not enough. We would
send you and immediate request of using them in a way the current draft
allows.

>         3. one person has suggested reserving the 2-letter NIDs, AND
>            <two letter>"-"<anystring>, again only for future consideration

We did initially suggest using <two letter>"-"<anystring>, but dumped
the idea. Not that it really matters initially; global resolution
service must be aware of URN:FI:NOKIA: and URN:FI-NOKIA: in a similar
manner. Still I feel that the former is a more logical way of doing it,
not least since proliferation of NIDs is not a good idea. 

On the other hand, we may in a future have national resolvers for
URN:<country code>: namespaces, maintained by the national libraries. In
this case, the global service would not need to know anything about
national namespaces, since the national resolver will know all the
necessary details.

> As soon as there is clear consensus re. which of these options is seen
> as the best, I can update the document.

My proposal, as an implementor, is: keep the document as it is. If you
need to do something, we can live with an extension of the current text
(option 3). It seems to me that many critics are approaching this issue
from a theoretical angle; our point of view is quite different in this
respect. We have proposed to the Finnish Ministry of Education that the
national library must have the privilege to coordinate the URN:FI:
namespace. In a similar manner, other national libraries have plans, as
a part of the European URN implementation strategy, to co-ordinate their
national namespaces. 

Please feel free to pass this message to the list if you want, with a
note that European national libraries have decided to proceed with the
URN implementation. National libraries of Finland and Sweden have been
delivering URNs since May, and other countries (Norway, Denmark, The
Netherlands and Germany) will follow in a near future). 

Best regards,

Juha H.

-- 

Juha Hakala
Development director
Helsinki University Library - The National Library of Finland
[email-masked]

---

From: "Martin J. Duerst" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 12:13:35 +0900

> URN implementation, so this will bring up further discussion one way or

I think what Juha wrote is very interesting. However, is he really saying
that the national library will coordinate registration of number plates,
social security numbers,  bank accounts, and so on? In some countries,
the national library may well be entrusted with this job, and then
urn:fi:xxx may make quite some sense. In other countries, I could immagine
that the banking community or the car registration authority,... does
not think they need the national library, and will want to register
things independently, with their own namespace, i.e. urn:xx-yyy.

Judging from the situation in one country, as described by one person
or community, on the situation in other countries for other communities
is generally dangerous.

Regards,   Martin.