Subject: re WG decision on nid procedures

From: Terry Allen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 14:02:55 -0700

[my apologies for delay in responding.  And I'm posting only to
urn-ietf, with a copy to Norm Walsh, as I believe all readers of
urn-nid are readers of urn-ietf.]

Keith wrote (to urn-nid):
| > In short, let's have no more ad hoc objections.
|
| I agree that we need to develop a uniform policy, but such a policy
| cannot spring out of thin air - we need to discuss pros and cons first.

That's fine, but as Leslie points out, urn-nid isn't the place
for it, and we should try to find some other place to do it in.

| >  - There is no particular reason to think that URNs for
|         XML instances, DTDs, or schemas should be assigned
|         in the same name space.
|
| I'm not sure what you mean by this.  If you mean that the URN NID
| shouldn't be coupled to the application in which the URN is used,
| I'm absolutely in agreement.  if you mean something else, please
| elaborate.

What I mean is that there is no reason that the URN for one DTD
should be in the same name space as the URN for another DTD.

| >  - The institutions that are plausible candidates for supplying
|         such a name space are ISO, the W3C, and OASIS.
|
| huh?  surely there are a lot more institutions which could support
| URN namespaces.

Those are the institutions and vendor consortia that are either directly
responsible for XML (ISO and W3C) or are concerned with its
development (OASIS).

| > So Norm is left without a choice of name space to use a piece of.
|
| no decision has yet been made, and we've only been discussing it
| a few days.
|
| I for one would be quite willing to see Norm be assigned an NID
| consisting of three or more digits, if that is indeed suitable
| for his purposes.  what I don't want is for NIDs to be used
| in such a way that it is detrimental to URNs, and I especially
| don't want them to be used as human-readable service identifiers
| like domain names have.

I understand your position, although I disagree that
human-readability makes URNs less useful.  As I belive you've lost
that argument I don't want to continue it.  You should
be aware of the case of Microsoft, which is using (or proposing to
use, I haven't kept track) "schemas-microsoft-com" in BizTalk and
hasn't applied for a formal NID.

Leslie wrote (to urn-nid):
| This list is not currently blocking Norman's application --
| I made that point on Friday, when I urged the discussion to the
| [email-masked] mailing list for policy discussions.

I don't have Larry's mail saved, so I'm not sure what list he
sent it to, but he vowed to oppose publication of Norm's I-D
as an RFC, which appears to be required by RFC 2611, section
4.0 (III) for a formal NID.  His grounds, though not formally
state, were, as I recall, something to do with either uniqueness
or persistence (and I'll remark again that "persistence" has
never been clarified sufficiently - a URN persists so long as
it's in use by anyone; if something else is meant, we should
say so).

| This list is not a cabal for annointing or trashing NID requests.

I surely would like to see it operate in such a fashion that it
does not appear to be so.

| When Norman's I-D surfaces in the I-D publication queue, I intend
| to take it up on the URN WG list, at least at the level of discussing
| what, if any, policy requirements people feel are missing in RFC2611.
|
| Terry Allen wrote:
| > he's very reliable as it is).  There may be technical objections
| > to his I-D that require revision, but blocking his application
| > is only going to bring this group into disrepute and leave the
| > rest of use to conclude that there is no point in requesting
| > formal or informal NIDs - we might as well just use experimental
| > ones.  Is that what we want?
|
| You're leaping to conclusion re. informal NIDs.

Larry's objection would apply to informal NIDs, too.

Leslie wrote (to urn-ietf):
| Terry Allen wrote:
| >  The wider issue is, where does
| > policy re NID assignment get set, and who sets it.
|
| In fact, this is not an issue at all.
|
| Policy is not set on the [email-masked] mailing list --  per
| RFC2611, the purpose of that mailing list is strictly and uniquely for
| input towards:
|
| "clarifying the expression of the registration information and
|  suggestions for improvements to the namespace proposal."
|
| As I have tried to point out:  although people on that list tend to
| have opinions about proposals (myself included) nothing changes policy
| until the IESG changes it.  That may happen with input from this
| working group [TA: that would be the URN WG, whose list is urn-ietf].

Well, you just muddied the water with that last sentence.  What I
want is to have a clear and public statement of *all* the policy
that exists, so that applicants can read it before applying, to
have urn-nid operate as its supposed to, AND to have a place for
those concerned with policy (including those such as Keith)
to debate it.  Whether that place would be a further work item
for this WG or (probably better) a new WG I don't really care.

| And I believe the right way to determine if there is need for a
| policy (change) is to give this WG the opportunity to see the
| namespace proposal in question, not perceptions on a piece of a thread
| taken out of context from another mailing list.

I think the WG [the URN WG, whose list is urn-ietf] would have to see
the thread, not just the proposal, to understand what policy is
being proposed.

Leslie also wrote (to urn-ietf):
| As it stands today, the only document/policy that governs URN namespace
| ID (NID) assignment is RFC2611.
|
| To paraphrase it, anyone can use URN NID's that are "x-<whatever>",
| anyone willing to ship in a particular request template to IANA
| can get Informal "IANA-<dddddd>"-style NIDs assigned, and entities
| that publish an RFC (of any category) can request and have
| a Formal NID of a chosen set of characters/strings assigned.
|
| I _really_don't_ want us to go down the rathole of discussion that
| we had prior to publishing RFC2611, so I'm not going to re-summarize
| the different issues that were thought of then.

But there is nothing in 2611 about the very issues raised wrt Norm's
I-D, which you wrote that you wanted the URN WG to examine.
I too don't want to rehash old issues, but somewhere there needs to
be an explicit public resolution of them.

| Given the specific namespace proposals that have come in, and the
| fact that there has been discussion about whether they were what
| we really hoped would happen, there is room to reflect as a group
| as to whether we still think the open policy of RFC2611 is the best
| plan to stick with, or whether there are additional objectively
| measurable criteria that can be applied in the assessment of
| applications for Formal NIDs.
|
| Either way -- we (the URN WG) will probably have to provide input
| to the IESG, which may have its own take on things.

Fair enough; is that the way the IESG sees it?  Should this be a new
work item?  or should this WG stay in existence indefinitely to
consider policy as new proposal arise or arrive?
...

| So, the wider question is not where does policy happen -- it's "is
| there policy that needs to happen here, or do we take a stand and
| say there isn't?".

Um, also, "does the IESG have policy, even if only the policy that
it expects the URN WG to refer policy issues to it"?

Martin Duerst wrote (to urn-ietf):
...

| >Eventually it granted the GCA
| >         (Graphic Communications Asso.) license to act as US
| >         registrar, but the GCA never did anything useful with
| >         that power.  The GCA is also a dubiously competent
| >         organization with murky governance.
|
| Could you mention an organization that you think does not have
| 'governance problems'? It seems every single organization you
| mention has them.

No, I mentioned four:  ISO, the GCA, the W3C, and OASIS.  I am
not aware of governance problems with ISO.  Nor for that matter
with the IESG, the IETF, or ANSI.

| >         - The W3C created the requirement that URIs be used as
| >         PUBLIC identifiers in XML instances,
|
| No. XML requires that external entities
| are identified either with the keyword PUBLIC, followed by
| both an FPI and an URI, or with the keyword SYSTEM, followed
| by an URI. In other words, the PubidLiteral is still an FPI,
| but it cannot appear alone. Please see
| http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#sec-external-ent.

My typo:  I meant SYSTEM, which must be a URI.

Leslie wrote most recently:
| To make things absolutely clear, pursuant to last week's mail re.
| the various proposed URN NID registrations of late, I'm putting the
| following question to the working group:
|
|         Does the WG have consensus that:
|                 1) (specific) changes are needed to the NID
|                    registration process (RFC2611),
|                 2) we don't want to make changes to the process
|                    (RFC2611) at this time, or
|                 3) we have no opinion either way, at this time
|         ?

And my response would be 4) we have no work item to consider this.
But maybe I'm wrong.  Do we?

regards, Terry

---

From: Norman Walsh <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 19:06:25 -0400

/ Terry Allen <[email-masked]> was heard to say:
| [my apologies for delay in responding.  And I'm posting only to
| urn-ietf, with a copy to Norm Walsh, as I believe all readers of
| urn-nid are readers of urn-ietf.]

Selected interjections; I have feeling there has been a lot more
discussion of the issues my application raises that I haven't seen.

| | >  - The institutions that are plausible candidates for supplying
| |         such a name space are ISO, the W3C, and OASIS.
| |
| | huh?  surely there are a lot more institutions which could support
| | URN namespaces.

I would like to know what objective criteria these organizations meet
that I do not. I assume that simple incorporation in the state of
Massachusetts (or some other state :-) would not satisfy you. Or would
it? The subjective assertion that I am less reliable than, say, the
W3C or OASIS does not move me.

| | Terry Allen wrote:
| | > he's very reliable as it is).  There may be technical objections
| | > to his I-D that require revision, but blocking his application
| | > is only going to bring this group into disrepute and leave the
| | > rest of use to conclude that there is no point in requesting
| | > formal or informal NIDs - we might as well just use experimental
| | > ones.  Is that what we want?
| |
| | You're leaping to conclusion re. informal NIDs.
|
| Larry's objection would apply to informal NIDs, too.

And Larry asserted as much. And I think Terry's statement above
follows logically from that assertion.

| Well, you just muddied the water with that last sentence.  What I
| want is to have a clear and public statement of *all* the policy
| that exists, so that applicants can read it before applying, to

Yes, please. I did my best to follow the published policy as I
understood it.

| | >         - The W3C created the requirement that URIs be used as
| | >         PUBLIC identifiers in XML instances,
| |
| | No. XML requires that external entities
| | are identified either with the keyword PUBLIC, followed by
| | both an FPI and an URI, or with the keyword SYSTEM, followed
| | by an URI. In other words, the PubidLiteral is still an FPI,
| | but it cannot appear alone. Please see
| | http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#sec-external-ent.
|
| My typo:  I meant SYSTEM, which must be a URI.

And in case the point was lost, there are now places where URIs can be
used to name things where public identifiers *cannot* be used. Namely
in the declaration of XML Namespaces[1].

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names

--
Norman Walsh <[email-masked]> | Man is an intellectual animal, and
http://nwalsh.com/            | therefore an everlasting contradiction
                              | to himself. His senses centre in
                              | himself, his ideas reach to the ends of
                              | the universe; so that he is torn to
                              | pieces between the two, without a
                              | possibility of its ever being
                              | otherwise.--Hazlitt

---

From: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 22:02:13 -0400

I'm not cc:'ing Norman Walsh on this, because this is WG stuff,
not addressing his/anyone's issues with his proposed NID.

> that exists, so that applicants can read it before applying, to

Point 1:

As it stands today:

        Policy = RFC2611

Per policy, there is nothing that stands between any of the NID
requests we've seen so far and being granted the NIDs but RFC
publication (which typically includes IESG perusal/acceptance, even for
Informational).

Point 2:

There have been a lot of comments on recently-proposed NIDs.  As
this WG is the creator of RFC2611, I have proposed it as the venue
to air proposed changes to it, to become revised policy.

> I-D, which you wrote that you wanted the URN WG to examine.

And I'm saying that:  if the issues are not raised here in the
context of updating policy with new insights, they are not issues
that are germane to this WG, nor will they stop the NIDs that have
been or will be proposed.

> consider policy as new proposal arise or arrive?

You'd have to ask the IESG that, but I will note that indefinite
WG's tend to be frowned upon.

Leslie.

--

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Leslie Daigle
[email-masked]
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