Subject: [urn] registry format

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 May 2013 17:52:21 +0200

Hi there,

looking at 
<http://www.iana.org/assignments/urn-namespaces/urn-namespaces.xml>:

1) It has a "value" column (and it is sorted by "value"). What is this 
good for?

2) It mixes lowercase and uppercase NIS notations, where the NIS is 
supposed to be case-insensitive, right?

Should I notify IANA?

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Marc Blanchet <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 May 2013 11:59:10 -0400

Le 2013-05-22 à 11:52, Julian Reschke <[email-masked]> a écrit :

> Hi there,
> 
> looking at <http://www.iana.org/assignments/urn-namespaces/urn-namespaces.xml>:
> 
> 1) It has a "value" column (and it is sorted by "value"). What is this good for?
> 
> 2) It mixes lowercase and uppercase NIS notations, where the NIS is supposed to be case-insensitive, right?

RFC2141:

                    <URN> ::= "urn:" <NID> ":" <NSS>

Namespace Identifier Syntax

   The following is the syntax for the Namespace Identifier. To (a) be
   consistent with all potential resolution schemes and (b) not put any
   undue constraints on any potential resolution scheme, the syntax for
   the Namespace Identifier is:

   <NID>         ::= <let-num> [ 1,31<let-num-hyp> ]

   <let-num-hyp> ::= <upper> | <lower> | <number> | "-"

   <let-num>     ::= <upper> | <lower> | <number>

   <upper>       ::= "A" | "B" | "C" | "D" | "E" | "F" | "G" | "H" |
                     "I" | "J" | "K" | "L" | "M" | "N" | "O" | "P" |
                     "Q" | "R" | "S" | "T" | "U" | "V" | "W" | "X" |
                     "Y" | "Z"

   <lower>       ::= "a" | "b" | "c" | "d" | "e" | "f" | "g" | "h" |
                     "i" | "j" | "k" | "l" | "m" | "n" | "o" | "p" |
                     "q" | "r" | "s" | "t" | "u" | "v" | "w" | "x" |
                     "y" | "z"

Marc.

> 
> Should I notify IANA?
> 
> Best regards, Julian
> _______________________________________________
> urn mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/urn

---

From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 May 2013 13:20:10 -0400

> 1) It has a "value" column (and it is sorted by "value"). What is this good

I suspect that this might have been a misunderstanding of the
"version" in the template as specified in RFC 2611:

      - registration version number: starting with 1, incrementing by 1
        with each new version

...though I could be wrong about that.  In any case, you're certainly
right that there's no use for the value field, and sorting by it is
actually bad.

> to be case-insensitive, right?

Marc notes the ABNF, but misses this from RFC 2141, right below the grammar:

   Further, the Namespace
   Identifier is case insensitive, so that "ISBN" and "isbn" refer to
   the same namespace.

Yes, we should have the "value" field removed, the "URN namespace"
field rendered in lower case, and the table sorted by URN namespace.

As the responsible AD, I will contact IANA about this, and see what they say.

Barry

---

From: Marc Blanchet <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 May 2013 13:24:05 -0400

> field rendered in lower case, and the table sorted by URN namespace.

well, I'm not sure I want us to spend too much time on this, but my point is that lowercase and uppercase are allowed in the syntax. Therefore, I guess IANA has just copied whatever the requestor sent as the string to be registered. 

Obviously, on the protocol point of view, there are case-insensitive.

Marc.

---

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 May 2013 11:26:07 -0600

> As the responsible AD, I will contact IANA about this, and see what they say.

It sounds like something to fix in 2141bis...

Peter

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

---

From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 May 2013 13:29:46 -0400

> It sounds like something to fix in 2141bis...

Perhaps, but I don't see that it's necessary to do it that way.  I
can't find anything in any RFC that specifies the table as it is, so
it shouldn't need an RFC to fix it.  I think I can just work this out
with IANA.

Barry

---

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 May 2013 11:35:37 -0600

> it shouldn't need an RFC to fix it.  I think I can just work this out

Great!

Peter

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