[urn] Re: URN namespace registration request - Wi-Fi Allianc e

Peng Yan <[email protected]> writes:
> I am submitting a URN namespace registration request on behalf of
> Wi-Fi Alliance (WFA), an SDO focusing on IEEE 802.11 technologies. The
> required registration information is as follows:

First comments:

>     Namespace Identifier:  wfa (requested of IANA)
>
>     Version:  1
>
>     Date:  2025-12-16
>
>     Registrant:  Wi-Fi Alliance (https://www.wi-fi.org), a standards
>     development organization. 
>     Address: 10900-A Stonelake Boulevard, Suite 195, Austin, Texas 78759 U.S.A.
>     Telephone: +1 512 498-WIFI
>     Designated contact: Peng Yan ([email protected]), 3408 Garrett Dr,
>     Santa Clara, California 95054 U.S.A

As Peter noted, what is most useful is a "role" e-mail address, one that
the organization will maintain pointing to the contact person (who will
change over time).

>     Purpose:  Industry usage of telemetry - described as a YANG data
>     model - arising from usage of Wi-Fi.

Uh, what?  I'm guessing that you mean that the namespace will contain
one(?) URN which is name of one(?) Yang data model.

>     Syntax:  Example: "urn:wfa:yang:wfa-dataelements". Semantics are undefined

1) An example is not a specification.  You're involved in standards work
and should know this.

2) If the semantics of a URN are truly undefined, then the URN means
nothing.  IIUC from the previous section, you mean for one URN to be the
name of a Yang data model... which is its semantics.

>     Assignment:  The "wfa" namespace would be solely managed by Wi-Fi
>     Alliance - commonly abbreviated as WFA.
>
>     Security and Privacy:  No potential issues related to security and privacy.
>
>     Interoperability:  All assignments will be made in pure US-ASCII.

Uh, what?  URNs are composed of "pure US-ASCII", indeed are considerably
more restricted than that.

>     Resolution:  Resolution mechanisms are NOT intended.
>
>     Documentation:  Wi-Fi Data Elements specification
>     (https://www.wi-fi.org/file/wi-fi-data-elements-specification-package)

What is this?  I go to it and get some sort of registration page, not a
document.  Is the game that I have to tell you who I am to be able to
read the documentation?  That doesn't seem to be forbidden, but it's not
really compatible with the Tao of the IETF.

>     Additional Information:  None.
>     
>     Revision Information: Not applicable.

I don't want to sound too negative here.  We have a history of
registering namespaces to SDOs on the loosest terms -- essentially, the
syntax "namespace specific part" is "anything allowed by the general URN
syntax" and the purpose is "whatever we decide that we need".  See for
example the "cablelabs" registration:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6289

Dale

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