# Re: No "TOP" of the docuverse [Was: URC usage scenarios ]

Larry Masinter (masinter@parc.xerox.com)
Fri, 7 Oct 1994 00:22:39 PDT

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    To: connolly@hal.com

    In-Reply-To: connolly@hal.com's message of Wed, 5 Oct 1994 14:30:04 -0700 <94Oct5.143009pdt.2762@golden.parc.xerox.com>

    Subject: Re: No "TOP" of the docuverse [Was: URC usage scenarios ]

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

    Message-Id: <94Oct7.002248pdt.2760@golden.parc.xerox.com>

    Date: 	Fri, 7 Oct 1994 00:22:39 PDT

The requirements for global uniqueness, permanence, and
transcribability are not solely derived from the 'bar napkin'
scenario, but more generally for the need to transport names for
objects in a variety of only-human-sensible media. Probably the most
important of these is 'printed on paper'. Right now, newspapers are
printing URLs, and people are starting to put URLs in the reference
sections of their papers for electronic citations; these papers get
printed, archived, and then the URLs rot.

> The idea that URNs are somehow fundamentally different from URLs is
> odd

The main reason that (I hope) URNs are different from URLs is that
they remain permanent even though resources move. I believe resources
move frequently, but that important resources rarely disappear. If
important resources disappear, we have a different problem (archiving
and backup).

> and the proposals of deploying a namespace disjoint with the WWW
> address syntax is just plain silly.

you might believe it is unworkable, fruitless, or unecessary, but
probably "silly" was just a figure of speech.

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