X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f996b,3ad86af4a00a01fe X-Google-Attributes: gidf996b,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-12-09 11:16:51 PST From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art Subject: Re: Joris and Sandra 3 Date: 09 Dec 2001 20:17:19 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 67 Message-ID: <6uofl8xkxs.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <3C0A19E9.22D3C596@hotmail.com> <3C0B6A2B.E58C7073@xs4all.nl> <3C0D7903.BB97B0FF@xs4all.nl> <3c0e99ef$0$7909$edfadb0f@dspool01.news.tele.dk> <2001-12-06_09.11.03@alfie.ist.org> <2001-12-08_04.13.51@alfie.ist.org> <6ug06l64on.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <5bt41u4qmv1pnfv2870ds7csb15uqldi12@4ax.com> X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 9 Dec 2001 19:17:19 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 NNTP-Posting-Host: galapagos.ethz.ch X-Trace: 9 Dec 2001 20:16:22 +0100, galapagos.ethz.ch Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-ge.switch.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail Xref: archiver1.google.com alt.ascii-art:12326 ppunk@chello.balls.nl (Donderfliegen) writes: > On 08 Dec 2001 17:46:00 +0100, Neil Franklin > provoked the following text: > > >URN > > Uniform Resource Name. > > 1.An URI that has an institutional commitment to persistence, > > availability, etc. Note that this sort of URI may also be a > > URL. See, for example, PURLs. > > 2.A particular scheme, urn:, specified by RFC2141 and related > > documents, intended to serve as persistent, location-independent, > > resource identifiers. > >------------------------ > > > >I doubt strongly, that Donderfliegen will be satisfied with an URN, as > >any normal publicly used browser can not use them. So he really needs > >an URL. > > Makes me wonder what an URN would look like... I have never seen an example. I do not think it is defined, apart from the urn: beginning being reserved for them. > If i understand correctly, an > IP address is an URN too, or am i way off here? AFAIK IP addresses (and anything else physical) make an URI exactly non-URN-able. Todays URLs are essentially IP address or hostname and then something local. So they can get broken when a document changes server (say because you move webspace provider), or of it changes place in your sites directory hierarchy. The "fix" used today is to have an per-institution (that can be an individual author) something.domain sitename as DNS CNAME that points to the current host. And then inside the sites hierarchy not move the documents. That is why I as private person have my own domain franklin.ch, because I can only so ensure my URLs to stay intact. My first website was an classic www.provider.dom/neil.franklin and all URLs failled when I had to change due to the provider folding up. And no redirects for obvious reasons (server gone). I learned and got a domain. URNs were intended as an different method of server/space-independant document ID numbers, a bit like the "library of congress" IDs to reference a document. Needless to say this turned out to be complicated to implement (it most likely needs an entire distributed database into which documents must be "checked in"). So not surprisingly it never took place (or at least never became publically known). The "fix" was good enough and immediately available. The nearest things to URNs I know are the Freenet document IDs, and they are a bugger to use. Plus the entire Freenet sydtem is unreliable. So todays browsers are most likely not even URN capable. So URI simply becomes technodazzle for intellectuals to use to make themselves sound better informed. Real web users though need URLs, and should demand such. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery