Re: TECH Survey comments

Brian Behlendorf (brian@wired.com)
Wed, 3 Aug 1994 15:21:27 -0700 (PDT)


On Tue, 2 Aug 1994, Linas Vepstas wrote:
> To me, this proposal seems overly complex. I'd rather see a solution
> that benefits all URL's, rather than just 3D URL's. That is, have some
> scheme where somehow local servers could serve up popular URL's by serving
> up a local copy, instead of going over the net. Don't know if anyone
> is working on this.

URL's are a subset of URIs, Universal Resource Indicators. I haven't
looked closely at the issue before, but it's all available at

http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Addressing/URL/URI_Overview.html

In particular I think we'll make use of URN's:

URNs

There is currently a drive to define a space of more persistent names than
any URLs. These "Uniform Resource Names" are the subject of an IETF working
group's discussions. (See Sollins and Masinter, Functional Specifications
for URNs, circulated informally.)

It's hard to determine exactly where the discussion is at for this. There's
a mailing list for URI discussion at uri-request@bunyip.com, as well as a
hypermail archive at http://www.acl.lanl.gov/URI/archive/ I found a couple
interesting documents, but nothing declarative. It appears to be in IETF
territory now. One interesting suggestion for implementation of it is at:

http://www.acl.lanl.gov/URI/archive/uri-94q2.messages/0.html

written by "Ronald E. Daniel" <rdaniel@acl.lanl.gov>

The basic conclusion: it's being hashed out in other forums and isn't
something we have to worry too much about. Simply allow objects to
be referenced as URI's (which include and work like URLs) and we're fine.

Brian