RE: [xri] Comments on requirements draft-02 motivations

["Wachob, Gabe" <gwachob@visa.com>]

That mostly addresses it -- but I really do need to know specifically the
difference between linking and identifying. 

It seems that we are just doing identifiers. Linking seems to be something
more of a statement *about* an identifier (as in XNS contracts, or in XLINK,
or even HTML), rather than merely the string of characters comprising a
link. 

	-Gabe

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Drummond Reed [mailto:Drummond.Reed@onename.com]
> Sent: Monday, March 31, 2003 12:13 PM
> To: gwachob@visa.com; xri@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: RE: [xri] Comments on requirements draft-02 motivations
> 
> 
> Gabe, great feedback. I'll incorporate it into the next draft 
> that I'm doing
> on Wednesday.
> 
> I think the distinction between level 5 - URLs - and level 6 
> - URNs is the
> most fundamental point in the whole piece, so I'll try to 
> make sure it's as
> clear as possible. I agree that the label "URL" is probably 
> something we
> should avoid, since it has become so nebulous. I'm tempted 
> then to label the
> levels using our glossary terms as follows:
> 
> Layer 7 - Reassignable Abstract Resource Identifiers
> Layer 6 - Permanent Abstract Resource Identifiers
> Layer 5 - Concrete Resource Identifiers
> Layer 4 - DNS Names
> Layer 3 - IP Addresses
> Layer 2 - MAC Addresses
> Layer 1 - Internal Machine Addresses
> 
> Layers 5, 6, and 7 are all URIs, just for different purposes and with
> different requirements. The whole reason for XRIs is to have an
> interoperable standard for abstract URIs - layers 6 and 7.
> 
> You asked about Layer 1 - it is the internal address of a 
> resource within a
> particular MAC-addressable machine, i.e., a filename, a 
> spreadsheet cell, a
> database record, etc. Layer 1 addresses are allocated by 
> operating systems
> and applications. Does that answer your question?
> 
> =Drummond 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gwachob@visa.com [mailto:gwachob@visa.com]
> Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2003 8:28 PM
> To: xri@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: [xri] Comments on requirements draft-02 motivations
> 
> Drummond-
> 
> Comments on the requirements motivations section. Overall its 
> fine - here'
> some specific comments.
> 
>   -Gabe
> 
> 
> line 83: whats the "layer 1"? I'm not sure what you mean 
> here. Whats the
> difference between linking and naming? Also, the stacking of 
> URN on top of
> URL is perhaps contentious. The offical "modern view" is that 
> URNs and URLs
> are mostly non-overlapping and they are both subsets of the 
> space of URIs.
> URLs are actually not formally defined anywhere (some people 
> think HTTP URIs
> when you say URLs, some think its exactly the same as URIs, 
> some think its
> some category of URIs that have a machine address in them)
> 
> line 88-89: the description of IP should talk about "between other
> machine-level networking protocols" - probably better to say 
> "between local
> networks"
> 
> line 99-102: URNs are NOT web-resolvable URLs. Some argue that the
> non-resolvability of URNs is whats held them up from being used. Us
> providing at least a basic resolutoin mechanism will make
> 
> line 116-122: I think you aren't addressing the real problem 
> with URNs (or
> I'm not following you). I'm not sure the problem is best 
> stated as that they
> are hard to use for humans. I think the problem you are 
> getting at is that
> there is an inherent tension between the persistence of URNs and the
> transitivity of human understanding of terms. There are certainly
> non-transient things that can be identified by URNs (ie a 
> particular SENSE
> of a word - like "bare" can mean "undressed" or it can mean 
> "plain"). So the
> problem is that the symbols humans are used to have inherent 
> non-persistence
> and "imprecision" that are in conflict with the precision and 
> permanence of
> URNs.
> 
> lines 143-148: the "postal mail to the bathroom" example is a little
> strained. Perhaps the concept of addressing to a corporate role (ie
> "President") is more illustrative (ie to addess mail to 
> "President, XYZ
> Corp, 123 Main St, Anywhere, CA, 94001)
>