Re: [urn] GVAT registration request

["Hakala, Juha E" <[e-mail]>]

Hello, 

I have no technical concerns about the request and in my opinion it can be approved in its present form. 

However 😊: 

GVAT URNs can identify all types of digital objects created by Austrian government institutions. In Finland and most other countries, some governmental publications are also available for the general public. 

In the resolution section you say that  

"The GVAT URNs are not expected to be globally resolvable. The resolution mechanism is anticipated for URNs assigned within the GVAT namespace, but only for internal and non-public use."

If a digital resource created by an Austrian government institution is made available to the public, is it your intention to use just Cool URI or perhaps another persistent identifier such as URN:NBN:AT to facilitate this? 

If there is a possibility that in the future at least some URN:GVATs are globally resolvable in order to provide public access to identified objects (that is, to a publicly accessible copy of the identified object, while some other copies may be accessible only to internal users), better wording for the resolution section might be

"A resolution mechanism is anticipated for URNs assigned within the GVAT namespace, but  primarily for internal and non-public use."

Once this registration request has been completed, I'll share it with the colleagues who work in the Finnish equivalent of Bundeskanzleramt. It will be interesting to see if the Austrian model will be followed by Finland, and possibly also other countries later on. 

Best regards, 

Juha

-----Alkuperäinen viesti-----
Lähettäjä: urn <[e-mail]> Puolesta Miksa, Tomasz
Lähetetty: tiistai 11. huhtikuuta 2023 14.51
Vastaanottaja: Dale R. Worley <[e-mail]>
Kopio: [e-mail]
Aihe: Re: [urn] GVAT registration request

Dear Dale,

Thank you very much for the quick and very useful feedback - it gave us a chance to take a step back and question basic things. I enclose the revised version of the template and provide responses to your points below.

Ad. delegation-area-number
We do not expect to have many delegation authorities. The range we chose originally gives us more than enough options. It is to some extent inspired by the ZIP codes used in Austria, thus it should be understandable by the designated community. We will stick to the original formulation.

Ad. object
Yes, we are aware of the lack of German characters. We really intend to ensure no semantics in the identifiers. One change we did was to introduce the "-", to have better overlap with UUID and DOIs, in case any of them is used in the future. Now it is: 1*(%x41–5A / %x61–7A / %x30–39 ) %x2D

Ad. Registrant
We removed the reference to a specific individual and also to the department. We keep it now generic and point to the chancellor's office directly and use the e-mail address of the department
    Bundeskanzleramt der Republik Österreich
    Ballhausplatz 2, 1010 Wien, Austria
    [e-mail]   

I look forward to hearing from you!

Best wishes
Tomasz 

-----Original Message-----
From: urn <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of Dale R. Worley
Sent: czwartek, 16 marca 2023 20:57
To: Miksa, Tomasz <[e-mail]>
Cc: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [urn] GVAT registration request

"Miksa, Tomasz" <[e-mail]> writes:
> Dear all,
> On behalf of the Austrian Federal Chancellery, I would like to request 
> registration of the GVAT namespace that is going to be used to 
> identify all types of digital objects of Austrian government 
> institutions and organizations in the possession of the Austrian 
> administration.
> Please find attached the draft of the registration template.
> I am looking forward to your feedback

Sehr geehrter Herr Miksa,

overall, the proposed registration is quite good for the purposes you state.  I recommend considering these possible issues:

    delegation-area-number = 1%x31–39 3%x30–39 1%x31–39

This specification is strict, in that the delegation-area-number is restricted to being five digits, of which the first and fifth must not be 0.  The template states that each delegation-area-number corresponds to one "institution or organization" that assigns URNs.  If you expect the number of such organizations to remain small, then the strict pattern should work well.

However, if there is a possibility that at some time in the future the system of delegation-area-numbers may be substantially changed, you may want to enlarge the grammar to allow alternatives.  E.g. this would allow delegation-area-numbers containing any number of digits:

    delegation-area-number = 1*%x30–39

It would, of course, allow all of the delegation-area-numbers you currently intend to allocate, but allow freedom to allocate delegation-area-numbers of different patterns in the future without revising the registration.

    object                 = 1*(%x41–5A / %x61–7A / %x30–39)

I note that this rule allows the 26 ASCII letters (upper and lower
case) but not the non-ASCII letters used in German orthography.  The registration states "The identifiers do not include any semantics." so it is unlikely that this will cause any inconvenience.

I also note that "object" does not allow any "punctuation" characters (e.g. "/", "-", ".", ":").  If "object" was intended to represent multiple words, this would be inconvenient, but again, it appears that that is not intended.

   Registrant:  
    Manfred Gruber
	The Austrian Federal Chancellery
    (Bundeskanzleramt der Republik Österreich)
    Ballhausplatz 2, 1010 Wien, Austria
    [e-mail]

The "Registrant" item has two purposes.  One is to state formally what entity "owns" the URN namespace (and thus possesses the right to revise the definition to a new version).  The other purpose is to provide contact addresses for the owner, both postal and e-mail.  Note that for the purposes of registering this version, your e-mail <[e-mail]> is how we maintain contact.

In the case of the GVAT namespace, it seems to me that the owner is the Republic of Austria, or perhaps the Federal Chancellery representing the Republic (as opposed to Manfred Gruber the individual).

In regard to contact addresses, what addresses are likely to remain usable for 20 years or more?  Including Hr. Gruber's name in the address is probably not the best choice.  One alternative is

    Leitung
    Applikation Smart Data & Softwareservices
    Bundeskanzleramt der Republik Österreich
    Ballhausplatz 2, 1010 Wien, Austria

(based on
https://bka.ldap.gv.at/#/organisation/gvouid%3DAT%3AB%3A1012029%2Cou%3DOrgUnits%2Cgvouid%3DAT%3AB%3A111%2Cdc%3Dat)

Similarly, the e-mail address <[e-mail]> is unlikely to work long after Hr. Gruber has retired.  Is there an address that is suitable for making external technical inquiries to "Applikation Smart Data & Softwareservices"?  The "technical contact" for the domain name "bka.gv.at" make be a good choice.

Dale