[Nml-wg] URN urn:ogf:network

[Aaron Brown]

On Sep 23, 2008, at 4:41 PM, Freek Dijkstra wrote:

> Aaron Brown wrote:
>
>> urn:ogf:network:domain=glif.is:[domain-specific-chunk]
>
> This is an identifier of an *instance*, I was talking about  
> identifier of *classes*.

Right. I thought Jeroen was talking about instances in what I was  
responding to.

> Again, for class identifier, I don't have a preference for either  
> URL or URN in some OGF namespace (urn:ogf:network, or http://ogf.org/ns/network 
> , or similar).

Nor I.

> As for instance identifiers, I have two major objections against "urn:ogf:network:domain=glif.is:3267 
> "
>
> 1. This looks like a *query* to me, not an *identifier*. I associate  
> "domain=glif.is:3267" with a SELECT clause. This confuses me.
> I really like queries though, but don't see how that will fit here.
> Imagine I want to query for this identifier. Should I write
> "WHERE identifier=urn:ogf:network:domain\=glif.is:3267"?
> Better is: "urn:ogf:network:domain:glif.is:3267"
>
> 2. I don't see the need for the prefix "urn:ogf:network". The actual  
> identifying part is "glif.is:3267". The "urn:ogf:network:domain:" is  
> only there to set the type. However, the type (network in this case)  
> is probably clear from the context.
> Imagine that all DNS identifier had to be prefixed with "dns:". So,  
> we wou;d have to type "protocol:http://dns:www.google.com.path:/"
> (or worse: "urn.ietf.url:protocol=http:dns=www.google.com.:path=/").
> Better: remove the type information: "glif.is:3267"
> (see the resemblance with Internet2' GRI identifiers here?)
>
> So the best choice in my view is to use "glif.is:3267" as an  
> identifier. It is short. It is unique. It is transparent to a  
> program (a unique string). It is easy to query ("WHERE domain STARTS  
> WITH "glif.is:".
> It is human readable -- in short, it is all an identifier has to be.
> Why make it more complex?

There are reasons for a bulkier, less context-sensitive identifier  
scheme, but I'm not sure the NML list is the right place to hash this  
out since the identifier schemes are relevant more for lookup and  
distribution than basic description. For the sake of NML, i'd prefer  
to leave it at "identifiers are globally unique strings".

Cheers,
Aaron