Re: Boeing XRI Use Cases

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Mark Baker writes:

> If you're trying to extend the Web in a way that requires providing
> license to agents to extract information from URIs - which appears to
> be a key part of the functionality XRIs are trying to provide (see
> 1.1.1 of xri-syntax) - then you need a new URI scheme.

I want to be sure I'm not mistaken to focus on the word 'agent' in the
above.  I take it we agree that it's perfectly alright for a _server_
to extract information from http: URIs, in particular to treat the
path (or 'hierarchical part') as other than a literal path through a
hierarchical storage medium.

I guess where this gets tricky is when the _minters_ of URIs start
relying on authority delegation in the path.

Consider the ARK proposal (which I have always held up as a model of
how to use http: URIs to address requirements similar to many of the
requirements on XRI) [1].

It offers an approach in which e.g.

      http://loc.gov/ark:/12025/654xz321
      http://rutgers.edu/ark:/12025/654xz321

identify the _same_ object.  Implicit in the overall proposal is the
proposition that the above example URIs were minted by people other
than the owners of the domain names they begin with.  The minters
_are_ expected to be the owners of the subsidiary authority identified
by 12025 in the above URIs, and it only makes sense for them to do so
if they have an agreement in place with the owners of rutgers.edu and
loc.gov to serve and/or proxy to representations as specified by the
ARK RFC, which gives them a kind of second-hand ability to mint URIs.

Are you happy with that kind of design?

ht

[1] http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-kunze-ark-15
- -- 
       Henry S. Thompson, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
                         Half-time member of W3C Team
      10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, SCOTLAND -- (44) 131 650-4440
                Fax: (44) 131 650-4587, e-mail: ht@inf.ed.ac.uk
                       URL: http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/
[mail really from me _always_ has this .sig -- mail without it is forged spam]
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Received on Tuesday, 15 July 2008 19:28:02 UTC