URI schemes vs. URN namespaces

I've taken the liberty of changing the subject line (from "Re: [Fwd: Re:
Approval of initial Dublin Core Interoperabiity Qualifiers]")

Leslie Daigle wrote:

> As to:
>
> Ray Denenberg wrote:
> > let's say they decide to register it as a URN namespace, and then another
> > company develops a scheme that similarly meets the URN characteristics but
> > registers it as a URI scheme. Won't this cause confusion?
>
> Do you mean -- if some other organization develops something and
> decides to call it "hdl:" and register it as a URI scheme?

No, that's not what I meant.  Forget about handles, suppose two groups
independently develop potential schemes (with different names, so there isn't a
name collision to worry about), and both qualify as URN namespaces.  Each group
may arbitrarily decide to register its scheme either as a URI scheme or as a URN
namespace. My question was, on what basis do they make that decision; is it
completely arbitrary?  I gather (from your message) that you don't necessarily
think it's completely arbitrary, that there will be characteristics of a scheme
that will help guide that determination, for example handle has a complete
resolution protocol which would argue for a URI scheme while a less
well-developed system might want to avail itself of some of the URN resolution
infrastructure, which would argue for a URN namespace.  Is this on the right
track? This is helpful (if it's accurate) but I think this sort of discussion
needs to be formally documented and some guidelines developed.

--
Ray Denenberg
Library of Congress
202-707-5795
rden@loc.gov

Received on Tuesday, 9 May 2000 16:07:05 UTC