[urn] Re: General grumble about incorporating other identifi ers into URNs

Michael Mealling <[email protected]> writes:
> I vaguely remember this specific issue with ISBNs and ISSNs popping up a
> very long time ago, and the quasi-consensus was that non-URN concepts of
> equivalence specific to an existing, or otherwise, namespace should be
> handled through namespace-specific metadata retrieved about the thing being
> identified. E.g. the general equivalent of an "also known as" field.
>
> The URN "resolution" infrastructure could still be easily stood up. ;-)

Hmmmm...  I re-read the urn:isbn registration a few days ago and it was
as I remember.  Specifically, if you're comparing a urn:isbn with a
10-digit number, you first have to prefix it with 978 to make the
13-digit form.  The initial proposal had a lookup step where the
tester-of-equivalence would go to some web site to do the conversion,
but that looked like it would be an operational nightmare compared to
just hard-coding into the registration how the 10-digit space was
embedded into the 13-digit space.

Dale

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