# Re: Seattle minutes

Michael Mealling (ccoprmm@oit.gatech.edu)
Mon, 4 Apr 94 17:30:29 EDT

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    From: ccoprmm@oit.gatech.edu (Michael Mealling)

    Message-Id: <199404042130.AA06275@oit.gatech.edu>

    Subject: Re: Seattle minutes

    To: bajan@bunyip.com (Alan Emtage)

    Date: Mon, 4 Apr 94 17:30:29 EDT

    In-Reply-To: <9404020723.AA17671@mocha.bunyip.com>; from "Alan Emtage" at Apr 2, 94 2:23 am

Since I wasn't able to comment on these like I would have like to I'll
do it here....

Alan Emtage said this:
> IX. Uniform Resource Characteristics
>
> Michael Mealling has a draft that begins to talk about the Functional
> Requirements of URCs. [Erik Huizer asked that it be posted as an
> Internet Draft, Michael Mealling has agreed --ed]
>
> Jim Fullton was asked to review the functional specifications for URCs.
>
> o Should they be "characteristic" or "citation"?
>
> o Larry Masinter remarked that the group had this problem with URLs
> and URNs because we didn't understand enough about what they
> were, and we ended up changing the title of ach of those. He
> suggested that we're putting the cart ahead of the horse.

I disagree. I know exactly what they will do and what they will be used
for. When I picked a name so much flamage happens over "Oh No! Not another
acronym!" that I decided that the name was secondary. I new what I
wanted it to do and I can explain it. I personally like Characteristic but
if you wanna call it a Uniform Resource Elephant then that will work too.
;-)

> A general discussion was held in the remaining time.
>
> o Mitra noted that a URC needs to be able to differentiate the URL
> and URN information from the other meta-information within it,
> and you need to know what elements of the meta-information
> pertain to which URL within it. Mealling noted that this was
> covered under the "Structure" in the document.

This one was very confusing over the net. I guess this can be ignored?

> Several people expressed concern about URCs as currently debated.
>
> o Keith Moore didn't think you can lump all these things into a
> single structure and make it have any meaning. It is non-optimal
> at best, and won't work at worst.

I disagree. If this group specifies these elements to have meaning then
they will. It really depends on how tightly the member elements are
controlled. I like using X- for experimental and have the URI group
specify "Official" ones such as "Format","Author","Size", etc.

> o Larry Masinter had a concern about lumping these things together,
> especially as far as attachments are concerned. He didn't think
> that the encapsulation goes nearly far enough towards deciphering
> collections of objects.

Very complex relationships between certain objects is best left to
some other methodology. This structure provides a framework. You can
take smaller pieces of it and make it as complex as you want (i.e.:
SGML or Lisp).

> o Jim Conklin (conklin@cren.net) had a problem with referencing
> URLs within a URC: the URL is going to be too much in flux.

But both a URN and a URL in it it has contains the best of both worlds.
It contains that flux as much as it can be contained but yet has an
anchor in a trusted and stable namespace.

>
> o Clifford Lynch was very troubled by the open-ended nature of these
> URCs in the absence of any real concrete usages for them. He can
> see a need to encapsulate information in order to be able to pass
> it around, but is worried that this enumeration of properties is
> too abstract to be useful. He is specifically worried about
> little micro-bibliographies being shipped around in these things.
> He doesn't think we share any common usage scenarios among the
> many of us in this group.

I specifically left these out since that is a control issue for
member elements. I can create some instances of URCs. I'll try and
get some out this month.

>
> Discussion about whether we can build the framework for how to
> handle the data until we understand what the things are that we
> want to put into a URC skeleton.
>
> o The Chair noted that there wasn't much interest on the list in
> talking about scenarios when it was brought up, but will be again.
>
> o Larry Masinter suggested composing a very general specification,
> and proceeding to some scenarios for how these things can be
> employed. For example, he would like to deal with file data
> formats and have a syntax for talking about that.

I'll come up with some stock elements such as Content Type, Size, etc and
add them to my other URC format paper both an example and a starting
point for member types.

-MM

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