Date: Mon, 16 May 94 09:08:11 CDT
From: speyer@mcc.com (Bruce Speyer)
Message-Id: <9405161408.AA25553@faith.mcc.com>
To: uri@bunyip.com
Subject: Re: URN Requirements
In-Reply-To: Mail from 'Jared_Rhine@hmc.edu'
>Actually, upon a rereading of your response, I'm almost sure we have
>different ideas. How could you possibly produce a "locally valid URN"?
>With that kind of concept barrier, the publication of your algorithm is
>probably the only way I'll be able to grasp what you're getting at.
This concept stabs right at the heart of whither there be or not be URNs
in reality. The concept of "universal" identifier has been tried umpteen
times (e.g., OIDs in OO parlance) and isn't workable. It requires a level
of consistency that isn't practical to maintain across the Internet.
What is implementable is unique identification within a given context.
A name may be hierarchical which means it may be partially resolved
in one context and then partially resolved in another context, until
fully resolved. One reference to an approach that does this is:
ftp://ftp.einet.net/iceimt/papers/speyer.ps
-Bruce