[urn] Re: Request to register urn:glue

Hi Dale,

Thanks for letting me the know the status of this application, Dale.  The whole point of the GLUE draft is to "incorporate ... identifiers controlled by other organizations" into the URN namespace.  This enables URNs to be used in protocols to refer to organizations, whether the identifiers controlled by other organizations already have a URN representation or not.  That's exactly why the working group took on this work.

This isn't academic.  There's intent to use it in multiple independent use cases.  For instance, ISO/IEC 6523 identifiers were included in the GLUE URN space because of a desire to use it for Swedish government use cases, per https://github.com/ietf-wg-spice/draft-ietf-spice-glue-id/issues/51.  GLUE was originally motivated by cross-border trade use cases.

Indeed, the description of URNs in https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8141#section-6.3 seems to anticipate uses of URNs incorporating identifiers from other standards:
   The IETF recognizes that situations will arise in which URN
   namespaces will be created to either embed existing and established
   standards, particularly identifier standards
That's exactly what GLUE does - so that URNs can be used for those namespaces that previously were not represented as URNs.

This is an aside, but the parts of GLUE that one could reasonably say are unnecessary are where URNs already exist for the identifiers.  LEI URNs are such a case, per https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-spice-glue-id-08.html#name-lei-urns.  The authors could consider dropping registrations of the arguably unnecessary duplicative GLUE URNs if that would address the Designated Expert's concerns.

Having every organizational identifier from any source be referenceable as a URN is the point.  Please let's get that done.

This note is written in the spirit of https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8141#section-6.2:
   Because naming can be difficult and contentious, URN namespace
   registrants and the Designated Experts are strongly encouraged to
   work together in a spirit of good faith and mutual understanding to
   achieve rough consensus (see [RFC7282]) on handling registration
   requests.

Please work with us to meet the need for URNs to be usable to refer to organizational identifiers from any source.

                                Thank you,
                                -- Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: Dale R. Worley <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2026 6:58 PM
To: Michael Jones <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [urn] Request to register urn:glue

Michael Jones <[email protected]> writes:
> Touching base on this.  The authors addressed the review comments from
> the designated experts.  The spec has completed working group, IETF,
> and IESG review.  Publication as an RFC is currently blocked until the
> state changes to "IANA OK".  Can one of you please approve the
> registration so it changes to "IANA OK"?

Currently the URN expert group is running into the problem that we disagree with -- or at least, have unresolved concerns with -- the
*concept* of the GLUE namespace, specifically, that it incorporates a number of identifiers controlled by other organizations.

The more generalized discussion is in the thread
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/urn/?gbt=1&index=KjzL-lRp3zCYw51AATq993ifAmo

Dale

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