Re: Excess URI schemes considered harmful

On Tue, Sep 25, 2001 at 04:01:22PM -0400, Mark Baker wrote:
> > Again, are you sure? The IANA may not be the registry for these items
> > in the future. The IANA is simply the organization that the IETF/ISOC
> > has contracted with to provide that service now. Depending on the state
> > of politics it may not be so in the future.
> > 
> > IMHO, urn:ietf:params:media-type:text-plain
> > 
> > is much better....
> 
> But what if the IETF cedes control of this registry to some other
> body?  Then that URN would break too.  How is this any different
> than with an URL?

The IETF can't delegate it. It would have to break every single rule
in not only its charter but MOUs with ISOC and ICANN. Plus it can't
be done by the actual rules inforced by the URN namespace registration
process itself. Once that URN above is assigned it can never be 'unassigned'
or 're-assigned'. To do so would be a very clear _error_. 


> If, by proposing the use of an IETF URN, you're suggesting that the
> IETF is a better authority than IANA, that's fine - I don't know,
> maybe it is.  But then I'd suggest that using an http://www.ietf.org
> URL would serve exactly the same purpose as that URN, be no more
> brittle, *and* be resolvable with a currently deployed protocol.
> Win/win, no?

Nope.... Different set of rules and policies. There is no policy in 
place mandating that hte IETF keep the 'ietf.org' domain-name. There
is a policy built into the URN approval process that mandates that
if the IETF abandons or re-uses the 'ietf' URN namespace that it
is an _error_ on the part of the IETF.

I.e. if the IETF were to change domain-names you'd just have to deal 
with it. Its there perogative to do so.  If the IETF decided to play 
silly willy with the URN namespace you could clearly and unambiguously 
call them on the carpet for it.
 
-MM

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Mealling	|      Vote Libertarian!       | urn:pin:1
michael@neonym.net      |                              | http://www.neonym.net

Received on Tuesday, 25 September 2001 17:33:05 UTC