RE: Duplication of provisional URI namespace tokens in 2717/8-bis

Grahm Klyne, in another message, referred to this thread, and I tack his
comments onto the original to try to keep discussion of the two threads
discrete:

>Further (referring to your other message), the non-requirement of 
>uniqueness in the provisional registry was specifically to allow 
>alternative proposals to be recorded without creating a .com-style 
>"land grab".

>I'm not making any specific claim here that these criteria 
>are appropriate for URI schemes, concerning which I think the bar 
>for introduction should be at least a little higher than for message 
>header fields.  (Also, there are fewer unregistered schemes that 
>have escaped to breed in the wild.)

I agree that the "land grab" issue is potentially serious, and agree
that there should be a higher bar for URI scheme registrations than for
some other tokens such as message header fields.  This issue requires
attention, but it should not be satisfied by crippling the provisional
registration mechanism.

To permit multiple URI Scheme registrations for any given token is to
severely impair the usefulness of provisional registration.  It affords
no protection against either careless or malicious registrations that
would compromise a given provisional registration.

stu

Stuart Weibel
Senior Research Scientist
OCLC Research
http://public.xdi.org/=Stuart.L.Weibel
+1.614.764.6081	 





-----Original Message-----
From: uri-request@w3.org [mailto:uri-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of
Weibel,Stu
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 2:43 PM
To: uri@w3.org
Subject: Duplication of provisional URI namespace tokens in 2717/8-bis


Do I correctly understand the intent of the authors of 2717/8-bis [1] to
say that registered provisional URI schemes are *not* required to have
unique tokens?

Such a state of affairs would seem to be potentially destructive,
allowing casual or intentional replication of provisional URI schemes,
and thus significantly impairing the usefulness of provisional
registration. 

Would it not be better to require that any URI scheme registered with
IANA have a unique registered identity token, ensuring that registration
in the IANA registry, either provisional or permanent, assures that no
name collisions would occur.  This would increase the usefulness of
provisional registrations, and the network value of the IANA registry
(stronger incentive to use it and link to it).

[1]
http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-hansen-2717bis-2718bis-uri-guidel
ines/

stu

Stuart Weibel
Senior Research Scientist
OCLC Research
http://public.xdi.org/=Stuart.L.Weibel
+1.614.764.6081

Received on Tuesday, 11 January 2005 15:28:02 UTC