# Re: Suggest meaning for URN

Peter Deutsch (peterd@bunyip.com)
Fri, 4 Jun 1993 12:47:41 -0400

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    Message-Id: <9306041647.AA13882@expresso.bunyip.com>

    From: Peter Deutsch <peterd@bunyip.com>

    Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 12:47:41 -0400

    In-Reply-To: Ed Krol's message as of Jun  4,  8:37

    To: e-krol@uiuc.edu (Ed Krol), uri@bunyip.com

    Subject: Re: Suggest meaning for URN

[ You wrote: ]

> After reading alot of comments about what should be encoded in
> URN's and bickering about metainformation, character sets...
> I think I have and easy way to view them.
>
> Are they not just a string which is a permanent symbolic reference
> to a resource. Period.

Yeah!! <clapclapclap>

> Treated as such, many of the issues surronding what the string of
> the URN looks like is superfluous. If the creator of the URN can pick
> the symbol, then it doesn't matter if its meaningful to everyone or
> no one. Software doing a lookup shouldn't care its just a string so
> that works. If some countries decide to code their URN's in ascii
> that works (and might be recognizable to some folks). Other countries
> might decide to code them in other languages and that works too.
> They might be recogizeable to some in that language but not in others.
>
> Is this making it too simple?

While I agree with the sentiment, I do think we would like
to assure some degree of interoperability for these
things, which would argue for providing some standardizing
of encoding and/or character sets. Note that this is a
world apart from including meta-information, specifying
taxonomies within URN structure, etc. Still, it would be
nice if various people (and systems) could actually
exchange these things when we're done. Apart from that,
we should stay out of the way and let individual
authorities embed ther own meaning and get on with other
interesting problems.

{* WOW! A POSTING FROM PETER UNDER 50k!! Must be a forgery... ;-) *]

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         Peter Deutsch,                                  (514) 875-8611  (phone)
      Bunyip Information Systems Inc.                     (514) 875-8134  (fax)
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