# Re: UR* terms

Fred Swartz (fred.swartz@umich.edu)
Thu, 21 Oct 1993 13:52:39 -0400

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    Message-Id: <9310211752.AA12832@merit.edu>

    To: timbl@nxoc01.cern.ch

    From: "Fred Swartz" <fred.swartz@umich.edu>

    Subject: Re: UR* terms

    In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 21 Oct 1993 14:21:01 BST."

                 <9310211321.AA05697@www3.cern.ch>

    Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 13:52:39 -0400

> From: Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@www3.cern.ch>
...
>
> URL Uniform Resource Locators. Term introducted
> by the IETF in forming the URI working group
> to point out that currently available URIs
> are mainly addresses rather than names.
> Exactly what consitutes a locator as opposed
> to a name is basically lack of persistence,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> but this is a much discussed point and
> impossible to define precisely. In

Persistence is NOT the basic difference between a URL and URN,
otherwise URLs could be converted to URNs by a simple persistence
guarantee. Trying to base any distinction on persistence will
indeed cause more discussion and continue the inability to
"define precisely". The essential difference is that URNs add
a level of indirection.

I realize there are other schools of thought on this matter, but I'm
solidly of the view that a URN is one specific type of URL, and from
which I can obtain a list of URLs.

-- Fred (fred.swartz@merit.edu)

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