- From: John Curran <jcurran@nic.near.net>
- Date: Wed, 29 Mar 1995 13:53:40 -0500
- To: Paul Hoffman <ietf-lists@proper.com>
- Cc: Michael Shapiro <mshapiro@ncsa.uiuc.edu>, John Curran <jcurran@nic.near.net>, uri@bunyip.com
At 6:19 PM 3/28/95, Paul Hoffman wrote: >As I understand it, nothing in the path URN spec registers any names that >not already given in the DNS. If that is correct, there is nothing to worry >about with respect to trademarks and the spec. Some entity will "assign" xxx.path.urn to a company, giving them an implicit endorsement of use of that set of URNs, and will do it without consideration to the current DNS allocations. To quote Michael: >If you are asking if there is a relationship between the existing >hostnames and the "path.urn" names - there is not. They are unrelated. >It would probably be the case that some of the same machines that >function as nameservers for hostnames would also function as servers >for the "path.urn" namespace, but this isn't required. ... What entity has the honor of registering publishers? Do we have a policy document which provides this entity with guidance on how to perform these registrations? In particular, if I apply on day 1 for path:/com/microsoft, will the registration be accepted or not? Not tying the URN prefix to an existing namespace requires creating a new namespace management function; any such function finds itself reconciling trademark conflicts before assignment (an extremely time-consuming and expensive task to undertake for each registration), or finds itself making such assignments independent of the trademark practive and risks being a named in an subsequent infringement suit for facilitating such infringement. That's not to say we shouldn't establish a new namespace for this purpose, only that we may have to watch the outcome of the current suits underway to determine the safest course of action. /John
Received on Wednesday, 29 March 1995 13:54:09 UTC