[Full disclosure time for those who don't know me: I'm chair of the
IETF's URN Working Group, and an IETF IAB member interested in
corralling the pieces of URI work to produce some kind of coherent
picture that the rest of the world can make use of.]
Ray,
I don't want to speak to the issue you've raised of whether DC should
have URI as its only standardized identifier qualifier -- there are
others on the list who have a far better understanding of the
operational impact on DC than I do.
I agree that there are issues in clarity of URIs and their
documentation -- by this message, I hope you are implicitly
suggesting you are ready to get back to the questions I asked you
a couple of months ago, on the subject of "what needs to be done here".
But, I don't think this list is the place/this list membership wants to
attempt to solve those problems.
So, I will simply provide a few (I hope) mechanical clarifications,
avoid "religious" issues, and let's take this discussion offline.
Ray Denenberg wrote:
> process corresponding to URNs would be supported by the DNS. (There are RFCs
> that describe, in fairly specific detail, how the DNS will be used for
> resolution of URNs.) The counter argument is that web browsers don't
> understand URNs nor do they seem to offer any prospects for URN support;
> moreover, there doesn't appear to be any prospects of seeing this special
> DNS facility developed either.
Agreed that there isn't yet deployed browser support for URNs
(apart from plugins, eg the one ISSN developed for its work). The
DNS side technology is deployed -- there's been support for the
necessary DNS records in all versions of "bind" for about 4 years.
> hasn't been attempted yet, because of confusion over registration
> procedures. "isbn:" may or may not be a popular scheme; we won't begin to
> find out until it is at least registered. Its definition as a URN scheme has
> been described hypothetically in an RFC, but registration of "isbn:" hasn't
> even been explored, apparently because it is assumed that it simply cannot be
> registered, for legal reasons. This is, at least, our understanding, and if
> our understanding is wrong, then perhaps that's the point: pervasive
> confusion.)
The people who have to do the exploring are the ISBN agency -- and
they are.
> Consider Leslie Dagle's response to the original posting:
>
> Leslie Daigle wrote:
>
> > I think they think it means this:
> >
> > RFC2396
> > http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt
> >
>
> Note that Leslie (who is the expert on these matters) didn't say "I think it
> means..." (which in itself would indicate confusion) but rather "I think they
> think it means..." which, to me, is a disturbingly cryptic response (with
> which Stu Weibel concurred).
I interpreted the Roy's question as "what does the W3C think", and
since I don't speak for them, I could only comment on what I _think_
they think. I'm not yet convinced that this list is particularly
interested in what I think on the matter, so I refrained.
> I suggest that DC may
> want to consider supporting the suggestion that W3C initiate a URI activity.
It's the IETF that has produced the (standards and informational)
documents that define these things and are evidently causing the
confusion -- I think it's more effective to cause the activity
to happen there (primarily clarification, IMHO).
So, if the DC community feels moved on the subject, I hope they
will support that suggestion.
Leslie.
--
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"My body obeys Aristotelian laws of physics."
-- ThinkingCat
Leslie Daigle
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