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Subject: Re: [xdi] Response requested: What should we do with the term "XRI"


Do we still feel XRI has too much undesirable association with the earlier failed proposal? If so we should minimize use, primarily in the body text of the coming XDI specs, but I find it hard to believe it's that hard to avoid in the title as well.

If we "recharter", given that there are no substantive issues, there should be a way to expedite the process. The circumstance of a dependent standard disappearing is also a unique case that could justify an exception in procedure.

Suppose we simply don't expand XDI in the TC name at the head of the specs, then use eXtensible in explanation of the protocol's name in the spec body text, without having to exactly equate the names of the TC, the standard, and the protocol(s) in the standard. The choice of eXtensible vs. XDI in the expansion of XRI is not that important. More important is whether we can use eXtensible instead of XRI in the expansion of XDI.

If we don't feel XRI is a liability, then it doesn't matter.



On Aug 18, 2013, at 1:59 PM, Drummond Reed <drummond.reed@xdi.org> wrote:

XDI TC Members,

It's been over a year since we decided the XDI 1.0 specifications would no longer have any dependency on the OASIS XRI specifications, which are effectively dormant at this point in time. (Chet Ensign at OASIS has contacted me as co-chair of the XRI TC about formally sunsetting the XRI TC).

This leaves us with the awkward issue that the formal OASIS name of the XDI TC is "XRI Data Interchange".

As I understand it, we have two options:
  1. Completely recharter the XDI TC in order to formally change the name.
  2. Keep the existing name of the TC but redefine what the term "XRI" means in our scope.
Neither option is attractive. However from some preliminary checking, it appears option #1 is extremely painful, i.e., it will involve a high amount of overhead in terms of OASIS process simply to fix a name.

So this email is to explore a simple alternative: reassigning the meaning of "XRI" in our scope (those of you who worked on XRI must appreciate the enormous irony of the identifier "XRI" itself actually having its semantics reassigned ;-)

An obvious new definition would be "XDI Resource Identifier". That doesn't entirely solve the problem of the TC's name being a recursive acronym ("XRI Data Interchange" would expand into "XDI Resource Identifier Data Interchange"), but it would accomplish the job of "reclaiming" the acronym within the scope of the XDI TC.

It would also give us a simple and universal acronym for an XDI address -- any valid XDI address could now be referred to as an XRI.

As simple as this seems, the primary downside to this solution is that in the short term it could lead to confusion with the old meaning of XRI as Extensible Resource Identifier. It was to avoid that confusion that we stopped using the term "XRI" altogether a year ago.

Net net: while neither option is attractive, the fact that XRI is built into the name of our TC means that we MUST resolve this issue one way or another: either rename the TC or redefine what we mean by the term XRI.

Please reply to this thread when you have time and share your thoughts on this issue.

Thanks,

=Drummond  





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