Re: URN Usage
"Rob Raisch, The Internet Company" <raisch@internet.com> Fri, 17 September 1993 09:46 UTC
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From: "Rob Raisch, The Internet Company" <raisch@internet.com>
Subject: Re: URN Usage
To: Uniform Resource Identifier discussion <uri@bunyip.com>
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Ummm... perhaps I am simply being dense, but I had thought that we had gotten beyond the issue of what an intellectual property is. My definition and your definition may indeed diverge, and that is largely irrelevant to the topic of URNs -- since a URN does not refer to any intellectual property. A URN is a reference to a property or resource which a publisher wishes to make available to the community. A URN does not reference an intellectual property, since such a thing only exists in the minds of lawyers. A URN is really a UPN -- Uniform Product Name(tm) -- since it refers to whatever the publisher would like it to. We have no say in the matter. It's up to the entity which maintains control over the property. Versioning is fine and dandy, but only in the abstract. How would you enforce on the publisher the requirement that a particular version of a product requires a new UPN? What metric would you apply to differentiate versions? Would the correction of a typo be a new version and necessitate a new UPN? We really need to stop running around wrangling with abstract concepts and get something done. I for one would like to see a URN scheme which had a number of usable features that could be used simply to differentiate one *product* from another. (In fact, I suggested such a scheme quite some time ago which generated almost no comment whatsoever. Not sour grapes, mind you. Just a very tired mind, up late at night, watching people argue over details which will never be used.) But what we do not need is some ivory tower abstract construct which the publisher will never use because it offers no value whatsoever. "I'm sorry, Woof and Wattlesford, but that URN is illegal because the third word of the second sentence has changed from the previous version." The publisher replies "Well, we'd like to, you see, but we'd rather sell information. Thanks for your interest, though." What it looks like it immaterial. What it refers to is not up to us. What it does is point to a unique instance of a product, where the uniqueness is in the mind of the owner. </rr> (Of course, everything here is opinion. Your mileage may vary.)
- Re: URN Usage Richard Wiggins
- Re: URN Usage Rob Raisch, The Internet Company
- Re: URN Usage Dale Dougherty
- Re: URN Usage Martin Hamilton
- Re: URN Usage Harald T. Alvestrand