# Re: Persistent Documents and Locations

weibel@oclc.org
Tue, 29 Aug 1995 07:14:25 -0400

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    From: weibel@oclc.org

    Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 07:14:25 -0400

    Message-Id: <199508291114.HAA05474@ws02-00.rsch.oclc.org>

    To: uri@bunyip.com

    Subject: Re: Persistent Documents and Locations

Patrik Falstrom's concern about reuse of URNs is, in my estimation,
overblown. It may well be that ISBNs are imperfect or are imperfectly
managed. Real Life. Deal with it. We should be so lucky as to end up
with a system that serves us as well as ISBNs serve the book world.

Persistence of names will not be assured by technology, anymore than
the design of ISBNs assures their perfect application. Persistence of
names will be a function of the stability of organizations of people
and the incentives that shape the behavior of such organizations, and
in a distributed world, there will emerge a variety service levels for
assignment and resolution of URNs.

The syntax of URNs should not impede the objective of persistence, but
certainly it cannot assure it.

stu

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