To: Martin Hamilton <M.T.Hamilton@lut.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: URNs in the DNS
In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 16 Jul 93 10:23:43 +0100.
<Pine.3.07.9307160933.B5963-a100000@lust>
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 22:21:41 N
Message-Id: <29121.742854101@seins.Informatik.Uni-Dortmund.DE>
From: rv@deins.informatik.uni-dortmund.de
> There's a dichotomy between the desire to keep URNs forever and
> the necessity (as I see it, anyway :-) of delegating authority for
> them -- you have to rely on the maintainers of the URN
> repositories not to do thoughtless things like go bust, or get
> merged with other organisations, or change the name of theirs, or...
just keep the names and have the delegation pointers moved to a new place
(which already might be responsible for something else).
For example look at DNS - there is no problem in having the same people
and servers caring for the zones COM and ORG.
> Perhaps I have this wrong though -- is delegation essential?
> If so, any scheme for implementing URNs would probably have to
> include a "dead URN" scenario, involving the transfer of
> responsibility for the URN in question to another registration
> authority. How does that sound?
Sure, delegation of long-term responsebileties only makes sense if the
delegation can be moved (since people and organizations get born and die).
One probably should also care for the case that something goes away
completely (even if only for theoretic completeness of concept:-).
Ruediger Volk
Universitaet Dortmund, Informatik IRB DE-NIC
D-44221 Dortmund, Germany
E-Mail: rv@Informatik.Uni-Dortmund.DE
Phone: +49 231 755 4760 Fax: +49 231 755 2386