Re: [Email-to-DID Bridge] Exploring a practical migration path for email infrastructure

Hi Manu

You’re right to point out the core technical commonality. There is a
fundamental overlap in intent between UDNA and the PathService proposal:
enabling a DID such as

did:example:123456/resource to be cleanly dereferenceable to a concrete
service endpoint.

In practice, the PathService specification defines the exact
standards-based resolution mechanism required to make this work—discovering
the appropriate service endpoint from a DID document and mapping the path
accordingly.

From the UDNA perspective, this is not duplication. Rather, PathService
represents a critical enabling layer that UDNA implicitly depends on. The
udna://did:example:123456/resource form would require a resolver that
performs precisely the function PathService formalizes.

So the relationship is complementary: PathService is the concrete
resolution standard, while UDNA is the broader architectural vision that
incorporates such mechanisms to shift identity ownership and routing
control away from provider-bound infrastructures and back to the subject
Regards
Amir Hameed

On Tue, 3 Feb 2026 at 8:29 PM, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 3, 2026 at 4:59 AM Amir Hameed <amsaalegal@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Instead of https://server.com/resource, UDNA uses
> udna://did:entity.example/resource.
>
> Amir, on this point specifically, have you been following the DID
> Resolution PathService discussion?
>
> https://github.com/w3c/did-resolution/issues/181
>
> ... which resulted in this PR:
>
> https://github.com/w3c/did-resolution/pull/260
>
> Easier to read section here:
>
>
> https://pr-preview.s3.amazonaws.com/swcurran/did-resolution/pull/260.html#pathservice-service-type
>
> Ultimately, it enables any DID Method to do this:
>
> did:example:123456/resource
>
> and map that resource to any URL, for example:
>
> https://2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334/resource
>
> How much of an overlap with UDNA is there with the PathService feature
> in DID Resolution?
>
> -- manu
>
> --
> Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> https://www.digitalbazaar.com/
>