[urn] Re: Incorporating other identifiers into URIs

Hello everybody,

On 2026-03-19 23:39, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
> On 3/18/26 8:52 PM, Dale R. Worley wrote:
> 
>> In regard to the *semantics*, I think it is reasonable to state in the
>> registration that the semantics are entirely delegated to the maintainer
>> of the external identifier.  A statement like
>>
>>      The URN "urn:foobar:upc:nnnnnnnnnnnn" names the Universal Product
>>      Code nnnnnnnnnnnn.
>>
>> seems to me to be well-defined, and it doesn't infringe on the authority
>> of the Universal Produce Code organization, because it slavishly follows
>> whatever that authority says about nnnnnnnnnnnn.
> 
> This sidesteps the question of whether the originating authority wishes 
> its identifiers to be incorporated. It seems to me that as a matter of 
> professional courtesy and to avoid any misunderstandings the IETF should 
> not incorporate identifier systems defined by other standards 
> development organizations without consultation and prior agreement. 
> Anything less could be perceived as rather aggressive.

Very much so. It also possibly restricts further developments on that 
identifier space. If that identifier space is registered directly as an 
URN namespace, the registrants can update the registration. But if 
something like :foobar: comes in the way, there may be some unnecessary 
hurdles, both technical (implementations treating :foobar: a certain 
way) and organisatorial (need to convince the :foobar: registrants that 
some changes are needed).

So I think that if we should get e.g. a request for a :pub: URN 
namespace, we should reject it pointing to the fact that things such as 
ISBN already have their namespaces.


> Here again, things would be much simpler if the URN namespace maintainer 
> were the originating authority, not an intermediary (some would say 
> "interloper").

Fully agreed.

Regards,   Martin.

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