Re: Globalizing URIs

Keith Moore (moore@cs.utk.edu)
Wed, 16 Aug 1995 10:17:31 -0400

Message-Id: <199508161417.KAA23906@wilma.cs.utk.edu>
From: Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>
To: Brian Behlendorf <brian@organic.com>
Subject: Re: Globalizing URIs
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 15 Aug 1995 14:41:20 PDT."
<Pine.SOL.3.91.950815135102.476A-100000@eat.organic.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 10:17:31 -0400

> To the extent that the WWW is an organic entity, death is a part of life.
>
> Phew, I've been wanting to say that since I read "URN's considered
> harmful".

I like that statement too :)

> All this said, there *is* a role for universal names, and that is for
> common objects: IETF documents, government documents, Aesop fables, VRML
> teapots, etc. Let's focus on that, rather than having a goal of "keeping
> links from breaking".

Yes, this is a good statement. I'd say there are two goals:

a) allow people to make persistent references to documents when this
is appropriate

b) for documents that aren't expected to be persistent, don't convey
a false impression that they are.

That is, a user ought to be able to know whether a link is likely to
break before he puts it in his hotlist.

Keith