# Re: urn:publisher.com:0010929292

Rob Raisch, The Internet Company (raisch@internet.com)
Sun, 17 Oct 1993 14:13:23 -0700 (PDT)

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    Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1993 14:13:23 -0700 (PDT)

    From: "Rob Raisch, The Internet Company" <raisch@internet.com>

    Subject: Re: urn:publisher.com:0010929292

    To: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>

    In-Reply-To: <93Oct17.120346pdt.2794@golden.parc.xerox.com>

    Message-Id: <Pine.3.03.9310171423.A20094-b100000@hmmm.internet.com>

As I mentioned in private mail to Larry, I do not think that a document
whose publisher in no longer valid should be supported, unless that
document is placed in the public domain. A document without a publisher
(owner) cannot be guarenteed in any sense, since the guarentee of identity
is a function of the publisher.

So, if the publisher is the maintainer of the meta-information associated with
the document, (where does it live, who maintains it, etc.), and the
publisher goes out of business, then the document is no longer maintained
by anyone.

Who is the authority of the information of and about the document if it
has no publisher? Without any authority, there can be no guarentee of
identity.

I believe that this presupposes that there is some authority which maintains
the meta-information for documents in the public-domain. Volunteers?

I do not think that there was ever any assumption that the URN be a
permanent identifier. Rather, a URN must never be reused.

</rr>

On Sun, 17 Oct 1993, Larry Masinter wrote:

> It had been my impression that one of the design requirements for URNs
> was that that names of objects have to be PERMANENT -- that you can
> make a reference in one document to another document that will
> `stick', and not change even though the second document moves, its'
> publisher goes out of business or whatever.
>
> Perhaps I misunderstood? This hasn't been in the list of requirements
> or differences between URNs and URLs that have been discussed so far.

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