Re: [urn] GVAT registration request

[[e-mail]]

"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