# Re: URI Revised charter proposal

Mark Madsen (msm@ansa.co.uk)
Wed, 12 Jul 95 12:13:38 BST

- Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]
- Next message: Leslie Daigle: "Re: URI Revised charter"
- Previous message: Mark Madsen: "Re: no 'object architecture' in URI working group"
- In reply to: Roy Fielding: "Re: URI Revised charter proposal"

    From: Mark Madsen <msm@ansa.co.uk>

    Message-Id: <9507121113.AA00951@euclid.ansa.co.uk>

    Subject: Re: URI Revised charter proposal

    To: fielding@beach.w3.org (Roy Fielding)

    Date: Wed, 12 Jul 95 12:13:38 BST

    In-Reply-To: <199507120311.XAA01141@beach.w3.org>; from "Roy Fielding" at Jul 11, 95 11:11 pm

Roy Fielding wrote:
> I don't think this WG should choose any one URN scheme, or any one
> resolution mechanism, and certainly not any agent mechanism.
> What it should do is define an extensible architecture that allows
> *any* URN scheme to be developed, with *any* resolution mechanism,
> such that these things can be usable when they are ready.

Roy, you have managed to put into one paragraph what I've been saying
for the last half-dozen messages to this list. I gather from the
comments coming back that this viewpoint expresses a general
consensus.

Of course, you did mention both A-words, so you can expect to be
flamed to a crisp.

> The main reason I put out the roy-urn-urc draft is because I
> obviously failed to adequately explain why I felt that way, since
> the charter milestones are presupposing that there be such a
> decision. If we do not know whether or not there should be one URN,
> then surely it is inappropriate to say that choosing one is a goal
> of the WG. The same goes for URCs.

My reading of your draft was that you were explaining there was
already a way to implement URNs right away, and that this implied
there would be many different and possibly improved ways in the
future.

> Re: URAs
>
> Are they uniform? Only one agent format has been proposed, so maybe.

My reading of the "uniform" word is that it means uniform across all
future resource forms. This also means they must be general enough.
By this token, URAs do not yet seem to be uniform.

> Do they pertain to Resources? Yes.

Indeed.

> Are they identifiers? No.

Debatable. How much indirection is permissible in an identifier?

> Resource discovery is an important topic, but not one that needs
> to be addressed by this WG. Should there be a WG on discovery?
> Sure, but that's a separate issue.

I don't think there does need to be a discovery WG. Get URIs right
(ie, implementable, interoperable and unstraitjacketed) and resource
discovery becomes something that anyone can do in a new way, as and
when that way becomes possible and desirable.

> Resource management is an issue capable of bogging down any WG,
> let alone one already bogged down with its existing tasks. It should
> be addressed by application developers, not standards developers.

Yes, yes, yes and yes.

    --
    ________________________________________________________________________
    Mark Madsen: <msm@ansa.co.uk> <URL:http://www.ansa.co.uk/Staff/msm.html>
    Information Services Framework, The ANSA Project, APM Ltd., Castle Park,
    Cambridge CB3 0RD, U.K.  <URL:http://www.ansa.co.uk/>;  <apm@ansa.co.uk>
    Voice: +44-1223-568934; Reception: +44-1223-515010; Fax: +44-1223-359779

- Next message: Leslie Daigle: "Re: URI Revised charter"
- Previous message: Mark Madsen: "Re: no 'object architecture' in URI working group"
- In reply to: Roy Fielding: "Re: URI Revised charter proposal"