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Re: strange feeling

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: strange feeling
• From: Joe English <jenglish@f...>
• Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 19:10:07 -0700
• In-reply-to: <000601c25f72$e29aee30$c801a8c0@didierhome>
• References: <000601c25f72$e29aee30$c801a8c0@didierhome>

Didier PH Martin wrote:
>
> John said:
> Fair enough.  But you can get a Persistent URL from purl.org, and
> you don't even need to worry about mapping it.

[ Aside: the same trick works for IDN FPIs. ]

> Didier replies:
> Yes you are right. The problem I have with PURL.org is that if the site
> is off, the name resolver is dead. This leads to a system breakdown.

But for abstract resources like namespace URIs and
(some) RDF subjects -- which is what we were talking about --
you don't ever need to actually dereference the thing.

XML applications can still process documents with
xmlns:foo = "http://purl.org/foo" even if the purl.org
server is down; it's only a problem if PURL.ORG goes
out of business and auctions off the domain name.

> If,
> on the other hand, the URN name resolution based on DNS would took off,
> even if a DNS server is off, the name resolution can still happen. This
> is because DNS includes server redundancy and caching. Said differently
> is more robust and scalable. Maybe DNS URN name resolution didn't
> happened because Microsoft and IBM weren't behind it... with their huge
> money pockets :0

URN schemes haven't taken off because too many people fail
to accept the idea of a universal name that doesn't ever
need to be resolved in order to perform a useful function
(despite the prolific abundance of such names in, e.g.,
XML namespace names and RDF subjects).  Every time
someone proposes a non-resolvable URN scheme, it gets
shot down on the grounds that it can't be resolved.


--Joe English

  jenglish@f...

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