# Re: URN Usage

Martin Hamilton (M.T.Hamilton@lut.ac.uk)
Fri, 17 Sep 1993 10:17:10 +0100 (BST)

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    Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1993 10:17:10 +0100 (BST)

    From: Martin Hamilton <M.T.Hamilton@lut.ac.uk>

    Subject: Re: URN Usage

    To: Rob Raisch <raisch@internet.com>

    In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.03.9309162316.B5114-c100000@hmmm.internet.com>

    Message-Id: <Pine.3.07.9309170939.C13654-b100000@avarice>

Rob Raisch said:

> We really need to stop running around wrangling with abstract concepts and
> get something done. I for one would like to see a URN scheme which had a
> number of usable features that could be used simply to differentiate one
> *product* from another. (In fact, I suggested such a scheme quite some time
> ago which generated almost no comment whatsoever. Not sour grapes, mind
> you. Just a very tired mind, up late at night, watching people argue over
> details which will never be used.)

Ok, here goes... I'm putting together a whois++ server just now.
Here is a whois++ template for converting URNs to URLs - question
is whether this information is enough (Admin- stuff too maybe?).
I think it would be best to isolate the URN->URL mapping from
everything else, particularly since whois++ might not be the
only way of doing this lookup!

Template-Type: URN2URL
Handle: Unique ID
URN: Uniform Resource Name (one)
URL*: Uniform Resource Locator (many)

(I'm not sure if URL* is the right syntax, tho :-)

If we say the idea is that some of the entries in whois++ reference
URIs, which are (still?!?) URN+sequence number, then the whois++
side of things looks to be sorted out, but there are still at least
a couple of issues in the UR* world:

o given a URN (from wherever), how to find a server for it

URNs are going to be unwieldy if they have to incorporate
access protocol, host name/ip address, port number et al -
but without these there can only be one way of resolving URNs?

Perhaps a workable solution would be to use one of the DNS
related scenarios, e.g. some component of the URN translates
to a domain name, under which is a URL (or URLs) for the
URN registry? How will that scale?? :-}

o what the syntax of a URI is - any objections to this...

URI: <URN:...whatever>+number

Cheers,

Martin

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