# Re: "why isn't IETF using FPIs?"

David G. Durand (dgd@cs.bu.edu)
Fri, 21 Oct 1994 13:35:56 -0500

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    Message-Id: <199410211723.NAA08263@cs.bu.edu>

    Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 13:35:56 -0500

    To: uri@bunyip.com

    From: "David G. Durand" <dgd@cs.bu.edu> (David G. Durand)

    Subject: Re: "why isn't IETF using FPIs?"

Steve Strasen's excellent note on ISO naming says:
> ... much deleted ...
>International Code Designators (ICDs)
>
>When you were talking about ISBN numbers I think that what you really meant
>was >International Code Designators (ICDs) as defined by ISO 6523 (Data
>interchange >- Structure for the Identification of Organizations). ICDs are
>intended to >designate a set of codes (such as bank identification codes or
>charge card >numbers). ICDs are assigned by an ISO registration authority. The
>requestor is >required to specify the name and structure of the coding system
>and to provide >a description of the organizations covered by its use.
Actually, 9070 has a provision for the use of ISBNs themselves as a root
authority. This was a revision to the standard in the second edition
(ISO/IEC 9070:1991(E)). This means that there is a non-ISO based authority
to assign names. This is important since ISO 9070 naming authority (to be
administered by ANSI) is not yet in operation. I have been told that the
ISBN people are prepared to issue ISBN publisher numbers to anyone wishing
to pursue electronic publication.

I also note that I was incorrect in my previous post -- the 120 character
lenth limit is on the owner name, and the authority length limit is 100
characters.

... more stuff deleted ... about diffrence between numbers and names:

>Please note, however, that human sensibility is a two edged sword. The
>ampersand was only included in the owner-name component character set at the
>insistance of AT&T, problems certainly lie in store when Internationalization
>rears its ugly head, and what do you tell IBM when "Itty Bitty Machines"
>registers its initials as an international organizational identifier.)
The ISO 9070 character set is Upper/lower case, digits and "'()+,-.:=?/".
The standard is defined in terms of a "character repertoire" not a
particular encoding, so that national issues are a protocol rather than a
naming issue. This lowest common denominator make make the "name" aspect of
formal public identifiers less meaningful to Europeans and non-roman script
users.

Comparison rules (to determine sameness of named objects) are defined by
9070. I am not sure if they are case-sensitive or not, since I'm lacking
access to some reference materials at the moments.
>
>2) Public identifiers have a separation between owner-name components and
>object-name components which has no equivalent in object identifiers.
>(This separation may well prove artificial and lead to errors.)

This may also, rather than a drawback, prove critical to enbabling easy
support for different methods of encoding object names, distinct from the
issuing authorities.

>Conclusions
....
>
>If you really want to "roll your own" coding methodology (e.g. for something
>like Internet addresses) rather than use object identifiers and/or public
>identifiers as defined, you would be well advised to get an ICD and to define
>standard mappings of the codes into object identifier components and
>object-names to allow the unambiguous interchange of the resulting codes as
>ASN.1 object identifiers and SGML formal public identifiers.

I think that this is already decided in the URN requirements, which at
least mention ISO compatibility. For formal public identifiers, the IETF
can just acquire an ISBN (or use an existing one) and define that as the
root for Internet-assigned owner-names.`

-- David

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