A URN is a particular URI scheme

Hmm. Just wonder why we need to dignify one URI scheme over all others by
giving it a special name. Seems invidious. Or does that mean that it is
somehow special? Otherwise why not refer to a 'dav' URI as a DAV, etc?

I know the whole thing is just a horrid, historical accident, but are there
no means to redress this?

Tony



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Mealling [mailto:michael@neonym.net]
> Sent: 11 June 2003 14:01
> To: John Cowan
> Cc: Hammond, Tony (ELSLON); fielding@apache.org; uri@w3.org
> Subject: Re: draft-fielding-uri-rfc2396bis-03
> 
> 
> On Wed, 2003-06-11 at 06:57, John Cowan wrote:
> > Hammond, Tony (ELSLON) scripsit:
> > 
> > > Thus I wonder if it's striclty correct
> > > to imply that the term URN refers to 'urn' URIs only, and 
> whether some
> > > alternate wording could be used to say that URN refers to 
> 'the subset of
> > > URIs that provide a persistent means of naming a 
> resource' (I'm sure Larry's
> > > got a better definition) and to mention that specifically 
> all URIs under the
> > > 'urn' scheme are by this dedfinition of type 'URN'. 
> > 
> > I usually say, when explaining the concept, that the 
> "news:", "mid:" and
> > "cid:" schemes are conceptually URNs, although they are 
> grandfathered
> > and don't begin with "urn:".
> > 
> > I realize that these are deep and perilous waters.
> 
> (I wish we'd pick more meaningful subject lines...)
> 
> As one of the main original proponents of the whole 'anything that has
> 'name' semantics is a URN' approach, I'd like to suggest we drop this
> attempt to revive that concept, even linguistically. It just 
> doesnt' get
> you anything except more confusion and will certainly drive the RDF/SW
> crowds nuts. A URN is a particular URI scheme and anything beyond that
> just isn't worth it....
> 
> -MM
>

Received on Wednesday, 11 June 2003 09:16:36 UTC