Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
4. Implications
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Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
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Requests For Comments
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RFC 1737
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4. Implications
4. Implications
For a URN specification to be acceptible, it must meet the previous
requirements. We draw a set of conclusions, listed below, from those
requirements; a specification that satisfies the requirments without
meetings these conclusions is deemed acceptable, although unlikely to
occur.
- To satisfy the requirements of uniqueness and scalability, name
assignment is delegated to naming authorities, who may then assign
names directly or delegate that authority to sub-authorities.
Uniqueness is guaranteed by requiring each naming authority to
guarantee uniqueness. The names of the naming authorities
themselves are persistent and globally unique and top level
authorities will be centrally registered.
- Naming authorities that support scalable naming are encouraged, but
not required. Scalability implies that a scheme for devising names
may be scalable both at its terminators as well as within the
structure; e.g., in a hierarchical naming scheme, a naming
authority might have an extensible mechanism for adding new
sub-registries.
- It is strongly recommended that there be a mapping between the
names generated by each naming authority and URLs. At any specific
time there will be zero or more URLs into which a particular URN
can be mapped. The naming authority itself need not provide the
mapping from URN to URL.
- For URNs to be transcribable and transported in mail, it is
necessary to limit the character set usable in URNs, although there
is not yet consensus on what the limit might be.
In assigning names, a name assignment authority must abide by the
preceding constraints, as well as defining its own criteria for
determining the necessity or indication of a new name assignment.
Next: 5. Other considerations
Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
4. Implications