# Re: The URN: wrapper and URLs...

Larry Masinter (masinter@parc.xerox.com)
Fri, 15 Oct 1993 21:59:38 PDT

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    To: peterd@bunyip.com

    In-Reply-To: peterd@bunyip.com's message of Fri, 15 Oct 1993 21:37:45 -0700 <93Oct15.213758pdt.2796@golden.parc.xerox.com>

    Subject: Re: The URN: wrapper and URLs...

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

    Message-Id: <93Oct15.215946pdt.2794@golden.parc.xerox.com>

    Date: 	Fri, 15 Oct 1993 21:59:38 PDT

> I'm afraid that calls for a more othogonal design (eg.
> having URL: etc in front of each identifier) are being
> shunted aside on the basis of installed code base.

Personally, I think it is a bad idea even if there is no code base. I
don't like little decorations on things where the decorations have no
defined semantics or use. (Semantics: we don't really know what the
difference between a URL and a URN is, so why decorate things as one
or the other; use: I can't imagine a program that NEEDS to know which
prefixes are URL prefixes and which ones are URN prefixes, since if it
recognizes any prefix at all, it has to know anyway).

Peter, I think you're griping too much about process, and maybe
reading too much into people's gnashing their teeth about `installed
base'. It *is* true that IETF should pay attention to installed base,
only because it means that what is installed is proven to work, while
things that we might hypothesize (e.g., that someone might actually
have a USE for a 'URN:' prefix) are currently totally conjectural.

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