Re: [urn] I-D Action: draft-saintandre-urn-example-00

For my part, the only way I can make peace with URNs is to take the perspective that "persistence" is wishful thinking, that "resource" is a myth, and that the primary use for URNs is a way of importing into the space of URIs those identifiers that are maintained by other organizations (namely, the "naming authority").

Of course, you should only use naming authorities who can offer a credible promise of persistence of the association of the name to the thing named, but each service makes its own guarantees. IETF offers that "STD 66" names something, even if the document changes, and that "RFC 3986" names something which is currently the same document. But that also what it names is somewhat independent of the format it's set in, or the location.

This description of URNs doesn't require anyone to believe in Resources or that URNs Name them, or that they do so Uniformly.  It explains _most_ of the URN namespaces. 

The only problem is the darn urn:uuid: namespace, where "uuid" is not an authority at all, and there's nowhere to turn to figure out who might have known at any point in time what was meant by it. I don't know what to do with urn:uuid except to declare it a mistake.

Larry
--
http://larry.masinter.net

> -----Original Message-----
> From: urn-bounces@ietf.org [mailto:urn-bounces@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Keith
> Moore
> Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2013 5:51 PM
> To: julian.reschke@gmx.de
> Cc: urn@ietf.org
> Subject: Re: [urn] I-D Action: draft-saintandre-urn-example-00
> 
> On 01/09/2013 11:42 AM, Julian Reschke wrote:
> >> It's the cases where there is no "it" that concern me.   People seem to
> >> have gotten the idea that URNs aren't resource identifiers, but rather,
> >> nonces.
> >>
> >> Keith
> >
> > There is no such case. Somebody mints a UUID for *something*, and at
> > that point there is a "it". It's just not resolvable/testable.
> Not so.  Just because someone mints a UUID doesn't mean that there is an
> it.
> 
> The whole point of URNs is that the relationship between the name, and
> the thing that is named by the name, cannot change.  If this
> relationship between the name and the thing that is named isn't
> explicit, no such assurance can be made, and it's not appropriate to use
> a URN.
> 
> Keith
> 
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