How paf is implementing URNs and URCs today

At 20.27 95-07-08, Roy Fielding wrote:
>I apparently missed the deadline by 30 minutes, so here is yet
>another view of how URNs and URCs can be implemented.  Mostly,
>this is to remind people that there already exists an architecture
>for the use of URNs, and unless there is a very compelling reason,
>we shouldn't screw it up by attempting to standardize an
>incompatible syntax.

...and yet another one is currently is implemented using DNS/Whois++
for the searching/resolution.

You can today test _my_ scheme by using the WWW-frontend to
a DIGGER server running on services.bunyip.com:7777 by using
the URL:http://services.bunyip.com:8200/digger-kaffe.html

The problem I see with Roys proposal is that it entirely uses
the idea that the URC is a document and that you have to send
it using the content-type header. I think the content-type header
is necessary (but I think it should be names application/urc
instead of being a new major type, but this is a different topic)
when sending a URC with mail etc.

But, I have tried in my implementation using another view of the
resolution process. It is not a I-D yet, but I might have the
time before Stockholm to at least collect my ideas.

I think you will attac the URC from two different angels:

(1) You have a URN and want to have "the best URL".
(2) You don't know anything but "...this latest chinese
    chuisine I heard about...wounder if I can find
    a URC for that...".

(1) Can be solved with my proposal by using a scheme for the URN
which as fast as possible makes you know the Whois++ server that
have the URC on-line. This can be several servers sometimes.
Because the centroid/referral idea might be too slow sometimes,
we register publisher-IDs in DNS by using some scheme, for example
what Michael Mealling have proposed, i.e. an inverted OID-number.
When you have found the correct server, issue a normal Whois++
query and you get the record back.

The query can look like (on one line)

template=urc and
urn=URN\:OID\:1.3.6.1.4.1.1375.2\:931E7004E10819FCC5932944242A8DA41

(':' must be escaped in the Whois++ protocol)

(2) Can be solved by issuing a whois++ query somewhere in the
whois++ mesh and using the normal Whois++ navigation techniques.
A query might look like:

template=urc and keywords=chinese and keywords=cuisine.

You can find URCs for everything on ftp:ftp.bunyip.com
and http://www.bunyip.com, including the digest for this
mailinglist.

   paf

Received on Sunday, 9 July 1995 18:59:55 UTC