Subject: URN namespaces for use in 'magnet' URIs

From: Mykyta Yevstifeyev <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 12:46:46 +0300

Hello all,

The 'magnet' URIs, which are quite popular with P2P networks, have an 
element named "exact topic" which contains the URN, forming an URI like:

> magnet:?xt=<URN>&<other parameters>

The URNs used in 'magnet' URIs must be a "hash URN", none of which are 
currently officially registered.  The hash URN is smth. like 
<urn:sha1:c3499c2729730a7f807efb8676a92dcb6f8a3f8f> using SHA-1; see 
Wikipedia page on 'magnet' URIs - 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_URI_scheme#URN.2C_containing_hash_.28xt.29 
- for more examples of hash URNs.

As I've mentioned, none of used hash URNs use the registered 
namespaces.  Correspondingly, my question - is there a sense in 
documenting such ones?

Mykyta Yevstifeyev

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From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2011 11:43:18 -0400

> namespaces.  Correspondingly, my question - is there a sense in

Why not use UUIDs?

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4122

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

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From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 08:51:44 -0400

On 7/24/11 11:05 PM, Mykyta Yevstifeyev wrote:
> 24.07.2011 18:43, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
> P2P networks use DHT, Distributed Hash Table, which identifies the file
> using hashes.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_hash_table

I've heard of several people who are interested in defining a URN
namespace for hashes. Such a namespace would be similar to the UUID
namespace. However, RFC 4122 is not really a formal namespace in the
sense of all other URN namespaces. URNs are supposed to be formally
issued or generated by an authoritative entity that has responsibility
over the namespace.

RFC 3406 says:

   Assumption #2:

      The space of URN namespaces is managed.

The UUID namespace is not managed. A hash namespace would not be
managed. Although there is value in having a URI that enables people to
use UUIDs or hashes, I don't think they should be URNs. (Yes, the UUID
namespace already exists, but I don't think RFC 4122 would be published
now if we were considering it again.)

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

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From: Mykyta Yevstifeyev <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 06:05:23 +0300

Mykyta

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From: Mykyta Yevstifeyev <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 19:16:34 +0300

> now if we were considering it again.)
Yes, as UUIDs, as hash URIs may not be managed; however, my point is 
that the latter are currently widely used.  I was asking whether they 
are OK to be documented; considering they may not suit the requirements 
for URNs documenting them won't be fine as well.  So the optimal 
approach is to let hash URNs be used further but retain them undocumented.

Mykyta

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From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:56:28 -0400

> approach is to let hash URNs be used further but retain them undocumented.

What I'm saying is that a URI would be fine, but that URNs would be
wrong, because the hash URI "space" would be unmanaged.

If folks want to continue this discussion, I think it might belong on a
different list.

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/