- From: Joseph Reagle <reagle@w3.org>
- Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 15:58:53 -0400
- To: Dave Remy <DaveR@geotrust.com>
- Cc: www-archive@w3.org
On Tuesday 17 September 2002 02:39 pm, Dave Remy wrote: > Anyway, I am > curious why URLs were used for identifiers instead of URNs in the XML Sig > specification. I notice in some of the early drafts URNs were used. This is common practice at W3C because many of us feel that: 1. It is very useful to be able to dereference a URL (and perhaps get a schema or some other definition). 2. URLs are cheap, you don't have to worry about registration processes, nor cluttering a registry with early or test identifiers. Many folks that use URNs do this by *avoiding* registering their URNs at the start, and even at the end of their work. If you use URLs, everyone can define and experiment much more organically. 3. By using a URL one is explicitly recognizing that the answer to the question about URI stability is social/institutional. The W3C commits to maintaining persistent URLs as identifiers, and so should others. You might want to review: http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-webarch-20020830/#identifiers http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Axioms.html http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Persistence http://www.w3.org/1999/10/nsuri In terms of trends, much to my chagrin, QNames are hapharzdly being used by W3C WGs as identifiers now: http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/qnameids
Received on Tuesday, 17 September 2002 15:58:55 UTC