Re: [urn] Formal request for URN for ITU

[Scott Mansfield <[e-mail]>]

Thanks John,

Exactly right on your points below.  I don't want to get into hypotheticals and I was trying to point out what is driving the ITU's request.  I like your point about providing some text that will ensure the ITU considers the impact of expanding the use of the namespace outside of the current known use-cases.

This is something I will have the ITU capture in an update to their internal document that the request points to.  There are a couple of updates already needed to that document.

This will raise awareness in the ITU, and provide a pointer for others to see that the ITU will consider impacts when the use of the namespace grows.

Regards,
-scott.

-----Original Message-----
From: John C Klensin <[e-mail]> 
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2018 1:36 PM
To: Scott Mansfield <[e-mail]>
Cc: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [urn] Formal request for URN for ITU

A suggestion, partially in support of getting this done rather than dragging it out further.

Let's take the request at face value: The ITU wants an NID and namespace for ITU uses, which the General Secretariat will take responsibility for but T-Sector will managed.  At least in the near term, the only things that namespace is likely to be used for are YANG-related.  In the longer term, I hope the ITU will be alert enough to the possibilities of disruption and confusion to be careful about what other sub-namespaces might be used an to consult with this list and others before doing that.

For the particular case of DOI, whether I can see any value in having urn:doi:10/.... or not, it as clear that, as of now, the DOI folks don't think so.  It is even more clear to me that having urn:doi:10/... and urn:itu:doi:10/... and/or urn:itu:handle:10/... or some other variation would be far worse than picking on of them.  

Scott, I don't think it is part of the registration or anything this group needs to discuss, but it would be good to be sure the ITU understands that expanding the namespace (or creating different sub-namespaces) in other (non-YANG) directions might raise interesting issues that, if handled badly, could disrupt that Internet and/or discredit the ITU, and that some consultation would be in everyone's best interests.  I hope the best way to accomplish that does not require me (as an
individual) to drop Houlin ZHOU a note but, if it is necessary, I believe he would read such a note from me.

If you wanted to guarantee that, you'd put language into the registration tying its initial use to YANG and requiring re-review for any updates or changes, but I recommend against that, if only because some hothead around the ITU would undoubtedly consider such a provision insulting.

For the present, let's not tie this up trying to sort out hypothetical possibilities in which there is no present practical interest.

best,
   john



--On Thursday, July 5, 2018 16:26 +0000 Scott Mansfield <[e-mail]> wrote:

> This is what the doi factsheet says...
> 
> "DOI is not registered as a URN namespace, despite fulfilling all the 
> functional requirements, since URN registration appears to offer no 
> advantage to the DOI System."
> 
> So any examples they provide of the form urn:doi are not officially 
> sanctioned, and could cause a conflict if anyone actually convinced 
> IANA to register doi as a namespace.  What the ITU or DOI do with 
> their parses/resolution services is not something that is being 
> considered by the ITU's request for an 'itu' namespace. However, 
> if/when 'itu' becomes a namespace, then urn:itu:doi would become 
> something that could be used, but based on what I'm reading in the DOI 
> literature, there seems little reason for the ITU to pursue that.  
> What the ITU does need is a valid Namespace that can be used for their 
> YANG documents (since a namespace is needed for module 
> identification).
> 
> Regards,
> -scott.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dale R. Worley <[e-mail]>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2018 2:27 PM
> To: Hakala, Juha E <[e-mail]>
> Cc: Scott Mansfield <[e-mail]>; [e-mail] 
> Subject: Re: [urn] Formal request for URN for ITU
> 
> "Hakala, Juha E" <[e-mail]> writes:
>> ITU is closely involved with the Handle system:
>> 
>> http://www.itu.int/osg/csd/emerging_trends/handle_system/inde
>> x.html
>> 
>> Does "identifiers defined by ITU" cover also Handles and if so, what  
>> is their relation to URNs? In other words, are there ITU sectors 
>> which  use Handles as SectorResourceSpecificStrings? If there are, it 
>> might  be better to assign URN namespace to Handles as well. As far 
>> as I  know, ITU is the one organization which can make such a 
>> request,  having adopted CNRI's Handle responsibilities.
> 
> Wikipedia claims:
> 
>     Handles can be used natively. or expressed as Uniform
> Resource     Identifiers (URIs) through a namespace within the
> info URI scheme;     for example, 20.1000/100 may be written
> as the URI,     info:hdl/20.1000/100. Some Handle System
> namespaces, such as Digital     Object Identifiers, are
> "info:" URI namespaces in their own right;     for example,
> info:doi/10.1000/182 is another way of writing the     handle
> for the current revision of the DOI Handbook as a URI.
> 
>> [...] each DOI can be expressed as actionable URN just by adding  
>> urn:doi: in front of the DOI prefix (note that such NID has not been  
>> registered the DOI system or some other identifier yet). I assume it  
>> would not be too difficult to make Handles actionable URNs as well, 
>> in  e.g. urn:handle:
>> namespace.
> 
> That's interesting, in that DOIs have a defined format like 
> "doi:10.1000/182", which is official per the International DOI 
> Foundation but "doi" is NOT a registered URI scheme.
> 
> So these are equivalent, to the degree that they are defined:
> 
>     info:hdl/10.1000/182
>     info:doi/10.1000/182
>     doi:10.1000/182
>     urn:doi:10.1000/182
> 
> Dale
> 
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