[urn] Re: Proposing a way forward re: GLUE and "third-party" registration

[Peter Saint-Andre <[e-mail]>]

Given that the designated experts have declined to register the GLUE 
namespace, I suggest that folks take this discussion to the SPICE list. 
If the SPICE WG wishes to make another request after what I envision 
would have to be massive changes (including coordination with all of the 
"first-party" identifier authorities) or after significant consultation 
with the IESG (perhaps including, as I have offered, consultation with 
me as team lead and RFC 8141 co-author), they could of course make 
another request. But in the meantime it seems unproductive to continue 
this discussion on the [e-mail] list.

Peter
(as team lead of the URN expert review team)

On 4/30/26 8:28 PM, Orie wrote:
> Hey Dale,
> 
> The identifiers you want to ask an agent about would be GS1 GLNs, GLEIF 
> LEIs, and DUNs numbers, open corporates numbers, etc.
> 
> Some of these numbers are paid for, others are assigned by processing 
> government registries.
> 
> It would be awesome if there were a way for new identifier issuing 
> authorities to be able to easily register their identifier system, in a 
> spec required registry, without needing to do more than comply with 
> syntax requirements and provide a reference to a spec.
> 
> For the use case, I think the shorter the identifier, the better. I 
> think a URI is better solution than a URN because of this.
> 
> What do you think?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> OS
> 
> 
> On Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 8:58 PM Dale R. Worley <[e-mail] 
> <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
> 
>     I recently got a subscription to ChatGPT.  I've seen various reports
>     that it's good for finding references to information when you don't have
>     any idea where that information might be located.  So in regard to GLUE
>     -- and as an attempt to make ChatGPT do something useful for me -- I
>     tried to see if I could find any information about the GS1 (UPC/EAN)
>     identifier system, particularly whether it has undertaken the
>     commitments that would be needed to incorporate GS1 as a sub-registrant
>     for URNs.
> 
>     [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> (Dale R. Worley) writes:
>      > If I stretch, I can argue that there may be some instances where the
>      > third-party organization has in some way committed to the public to
>      > respect all the needed properties of URNs, and the registrant has
>      > recorded a suitable citation of that commitment.  In such a case it
>      > could be argued that no explicit consultation between the
>     registrant and
>      > the third-party organization is needed.
> 
>     Of course, I don't *trust* what ChatGPT dug up because I didn't track it
>     back to the real specification documents.  But between ChatGPT's
>     excerpts and the Wikipedia pages about GS1, it seems to me that some
>     serious work is needed to verify that GS1 identifiers are suitable.
> 
>     Specifically, identifiers are assigned to individual "products" (SKUs,
>     really) by "manufacturers".  Manufacturers are assigned prefixes in the
>     GS1 number-space.  So the GLUE registry should clarify that the
>     identifier to be used in the URN is the manufacturer prefix of the GS1
>     code.
> 
>     ChatGPT also said:
> 
>          Are prefixes ever reused?
> 
>          Yes, but with strict controls.
> 
>          GS1 policy allows reuse only after a long period and under
>          conditions designed to avoid confusion.
> 
>     As I said, I don't *trust* this, but conversely, allowing prefixes to be
>     used in URNs requires that we obtain positive verification that a
>     prefix that is assigned to an organization can never be reassigned to a
>     "different" organization.
> 
>     This effort I consider to be a start on verifying that GS1 can be
>     incorporated into a URN.  Similar investigation is needed for the other
>     four proposed incorporated identifiers.
> 
>     Dale
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> urn mailing list -- [e-mail]
> To unsubscribe send an email to [e-mail]