Re: [XRI] Back to XRI

Hi Paul,

After a second tea and some time to think.  I would like to add a bit  
of a historical perspective and some pointers to relevant documents on  
the topic.

This is not a new issue for the W3C.

Issue-50 was raised by Tim Berners-Lee and opened 2005-03-15
http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/group/track/issues/50
It is super interesting I recommend people read it to get some  
perspective on how we got to this point in the discussion.

As near as I can make out looking at the record,  it was originally in  
response to a question by HST around RFC 3688.

I quote HST:
> So it turns out this is based on something called the IETF XML  
> Registry (RFC 3688) [1], which seems to me to interact with various  
> aspects of Web architecture. It provides for 'registering' assigned  
> URNs for namespaces, DTDs, W3C XML/RDF Schemas and public identifiers.
> It mandates the creation of a server by IANA (not yet in existence,  
> I don't think), which will serve the definitive definition of the  
> registered things. It also says that you shouldn't count on the  
> server to give you DTDs or schema documents . . .  It says nothing  
> whatsoever about versioning. . .
> This whole thing makes me quite nervous . . .
> The origin of the issue may have something to with why the XRI  
> question keeps centering on its use in defining XML namespaces.

Honestly the use of XRI in namespaces is at the bottom of the XRI-TC  
priority list.

In Apr 2005 HST started work on a /TR/publication on issue 50.  It  
looks like this was a new process at the time?

According to the May 10, 2005 TAG minutes XRI becomes an issue of  
concern at that point and DanC is tasked to reply to the XRI-TC  
pointing to http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#pr-use-uris

This states "Good Practice: Identify with URIs"

So the XRI-TC proceeds with a plan to register a URI scheme and make  
XRI URI compatible.

If the message had been don't register a URI scheme re-use the http:  
URI scheme perhaps the XRI-TC might have proceeded differently.
There was a bunch of unofficial back and forth at the time and some  
things that may have only been stated in the private http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/tag/2005Apr/0097.html 
.  Its difficult to unwind it all.  I was not involved at the time.

In Dec 2005 the XRI-TC committee standards vote on syntax is agin on  
the TAGs radar.
 From the TAG FTF:
> TBL: They have a set of protocols.
> HT: Is it obvious to those of us here why the http scheme wouldn't  
> meet their needs?
> <DanC_csail> requirement seems to be "consistent way of identifying  
> resources independent
> <DanC_csail> of domain, location, application, and interaction  
> method."

HST appears to have produced a first draft on issue-50 at this point.

In June 2006 a final draft of http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/URNsAndRegistries-50.html 
  was being reviewed.

In July 2006 LSID and ARK and there relationship to issue-50 are raised.
This is a good read.
http://esw.w3.org/topic/HttpUrisAreExpensive

The debate goes on.

The requirements are not new or unique to XRI.

If we can find a way to create a http sub-scheme that works I would  
support it.

David Booth and I have the start of a proposal.
I don't see a clear answer in URNsAndRegistries-50.

I want to say rereading the relevant TAG minutes there were was an  
effort on there part to understand the TRI-TC's position.

This however is our first attempt at real dialog between the groups.
That is why it is important to me to keep it going to some resolution.

Regards
John Bradley
OASIS IDTRUST-SC
http://xri.net/=jbradley
五里霧中


On 26-Jul-08, at 9:13 AM, Paul Prescod wrote:

>
> Mark asked me to start a new thread re-summarizing the XRI
> requirements. Given the history of the issue I think that the XRI
> folks deserve some focused discussion on their specifics. Here is a
> summary of my understanding:
>
> XRI is a way of representing identifiers that are designed to be
> resolved with a protocol that is more distributed and reliable than
> the standard HTTP resolution mechanism.
>
> In order to invoke that extra resolution machinery, it must be
> possible for client apps to recognize these identifiers when they are
> used as URIs. This recognition must necessarily happen before
> resolution, not after.
>
> XRIs will be used (as http or FTP URIs are used) in contexts where
> there is no hypermedia to be the engine of state, or where the goal is
> to bootstrap the hypermedia-based communication.
>
> It would be incredibly valuable for XRIs to be backwards compatible
> with HTTP clients through the use of HTTP URIs.
>
> Therefore the current proposal as I understand it is to treat HTTP
> URIs in subdomains of XRI.net as XRIs.
>
> Paul Prescod
>