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

Michael Mealling (ccoprmm@oit.gatech.edu)
Fri, 15 Oct 93 16:28:04 EDT

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

    Message-Id: <199310152028.AA19707@oit.oit.gatech.edu>

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

    To: raisch@internet.com (Rob Raisch The Internet Company)

    Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 16:28:04 EDT

    In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.03.9310151220.A12629-b100000@hmmm.internet.com>; from "Rob Raisch, The Internet Company" at Oct 15, 93 12:58 pm

Rob Raisch, The Internet Company said this:
> 1) I get a 'descriptor' which looks like 'ftp://some.host/some/file' --
> using this, I know that I must do a number of things in order to retrieve
> this property:
> 2) I get a 'descriptor' which looks like 'urn://namespace/product' --
> using this, I know that I must do a number of things in order to retrieve
> this property:
>
> What is the difference? I would suggest that, from a completely
> functional standpoint, there is no difference between a URL and a URN, as
> a description of a mechanism used to retrieve some data.

If those were the only URIs to ever exits I would agree with you. But what
is the guarantee that some other URI will conform to "having a descriptor
and using it to retrieve some property"? What if you have a URI that
is some property that doesn't have anything inherent in it to cause you
to retrieve anything.

I say that if there is little cost now and in the future to adding URL:
and the gain is that we aren't locked into the above scenario then
it's worth doing.

Personally the biggest gain I think we stand to get from URL: is that
we can come up with new schemes without having to notify everyone's
software that this is a URL and not a URN. A good example is this:

x-my.protocol:garbage_garbage_garbge

Without wasting cycles on parsing that, is it a URN or a URL? If it
had URL: or URN: in front of it you could tell with one condition
statement.

-MM

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