Re: The UR* scheme registry, Citing URL/URI specs

> > > I'd also like to
> > > see "urn:" turned into a more universal URL prefix, e.g., 
> > > allow "urn:http://www.purl.org/blah" as a means of indicating
> > > "I intend this usage of http://www.purl.org/blah to be treated
> > > as a permanent name rather than as just the current location".
> > 
> > This is a rathole.  Let's not go there.
> 
> But do-able by simply registering the 'http' namespace as a URN
> namespace. 

There's a reason I said "let's not go there".  It's difficult to let 
a statement such as this one pass without being tempted to refute it, 
but refuting it is way off topic for this discussion.

There's a set of resource identifiers that are desirable for use 
in HTML.   Currently that set includes URLs and probably URNs.
Other things may crop up in the future, but as yet they're 
undefined, and we don't know much about how they're going to be 
used -- so we probably shouldn't talk about them in specifications.

So the question is, does W3C:

a) define the term "URIs" to be (essentially) "the set of 
resource identifiers that we might want to use in HTML", or

b) assign some other name besides "URIs" to that set, or

c) simply list the currently known kinds of resource identifiers
that have this property, without assigning a name to that set?
(note that if one set of resource identifiers is a subset
of another set, it doesn't hurt to list them both)

Actually, the more we have this discussion, the more I'm inclined
to suggest that IETF and W3C ban (= "agree to not define") any new 
kinds of resource identifiers, beyond URL and URN, whose names 
begin with the letter U. 

...which would imply a preference for option b or c over a.
But I won't object if W3C chooses option a.

I think this choice is now as clear as it's going to get.

Keith

Received on Sunday, 26 October 1997 16:20:49 UTC