[Replying to Mark, only because he inspired to make the remark]
On Apr 19, 2010, at 5:21 AM, Mark Nottingham wrote:
Couldn't IANA just implement the "search format" as
http://www.iana.org/assignments/Registry-Name
and cut out the middle man?
Regarding the "20 year" argument, it seems to imply that one of the following
will happen in that time scale:
1) HTTP will be replaced by another protocol in a non-backwards-compatible
fashion, and support in software is dropped (i.e., obviating all existing
HTTP URLs), or
2) URIs themselves will be replaced in a non-backwards-compatible way, and
URI-handling software disappears (obviating all URIs, period), or
3) The domain name system crashes and burns irrevocably, or
4) IANA loses legal control of iana.org, or
5) IANA lacks the organisational ability to guarantee stable identifiers for
its products, or
6) No Web serving software is available that gives IANA the ability to
control their own URI path components, and it is illegal for them to write it
themselves.
If #1 or #2 happens (unlikely), we will have enough warning to revise the
RFCs as appropriate, or provide a mapping to the new way of doing things. Not
fun, but a reasonably calculated risk, given the shelf life of most IETF
products.
If #3 - #6 happens (likelihood is reader-deterimined), we've got far worse
problems than some RFCs whose registries can't be easily found -- A STATE
THAT I WOULD MENTION WE ARE ALREADY IN TODAY.
Slightly orthogonal to how one approaches long-term stability of references in
RFCs there is the issue of the needs of the IETF. It is not completely
hypothetical that in a far, far future there will other or even multiple
'vendors' that offer the service[*]. It that context stability is important
too. See http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-iab-iana
The IAB is close to finalizing that document.
--Olaf
[*] In fact there are two organizations today, see Appendix A of draft-iab-iana
________________________________________________________
Olaf M. Kolkman NLnet Labs
Science Park 140,
http://www.nlnetlabs.nl/ 1098 XG Amsterdam
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