Converting New URI Schemes and URN Sub-Schemes to HTTP

For those interested in the merits of HTTP versus new URI schemes or
sub-schemes, please take a look at the following paper.

"Converting New URI Schemes or URN Sub-Schemes to HTTP", by David Booth.
http://dbooth.org/2006/urn2http/

The abstract:
[[
New URI schemes or URN sub-schemes are sometimes proposed for resource
identification in applications where the HTTP protocol is deemed
unsuitable.  This paper argues that specialized HTTP URIs would be a
better choice in virtually all cases, even if the resource resolution or
data transfer properties of HTTP are insufficient for these
applications.   A simple recipe is presented for converting proposed URI
schemes or URN sub-schemes to HTTP using specialized URI prefixes.  This
technique cleanly separates the use of the URI as an identifier (to
establish resource identity) from the use of the URI as a locator (to
retrieve representations).  The resulting capabilities of the HTTP URIs
are virtually a direct superset of those of URIs based on new URI
schemes or URN sub-schemes.
]]

Comments are invited.

David Booth, Ph.D.
HP Software
dbooth@hp.com
Phone: +1 617 629 8881

Received on Wednesday, 2 August 2006 14:20:02 UTC