Network Working Group K. Best
Request for Comments: 3121 OASIS, Inc.
Category: Informational N. Walsh
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
June 2001
A URN Namespace for OASIS
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This document describes a URN (Uniform Resource Name) namespace that
is engineered by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured
Information Standards (OASIS) for naming persistent resources
published by OASIS (such as OASIS Standards, XML (Extensible Markup
Language) Document Type Definitions, XML Schemas, Namespaces,
Stylesheets, and other documents).
1. Introduction
The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information
Standards (OASIS) produces many kinds of documents: specifications,
working drafts, technical resolutions, schemas, stylesheets, etc.
OASIS wishes to provide global, distributed, persistent, location-
independent names for these resources.
The Extensible Markup Language (XML) requires that all resources
provide a system identifier, which must be a URI, in addition to an
optional public identifier (which provides an alternate mechanism for
constructing identifiers) and many evolving specifications require
authors to identify documents by URI alone (XML Namespaces, XML
Schema, XSLT, etc.).
Motivated by these observations, OASIS would like to assign URNs to
some resources in order to retain unique, permanent location-
independent names for them.
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RFC 3121 A URN Namespace for OASIS June 2001 This namespace specification is for a formal namespace. 2. Specification Template Namespace ID: "oasis" requested. Registration Information: Registration Version Number: 3 Registration Date: 2001-02-05 Declared registrant of the namespace: Karl Best OASIS - Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards Post Office Box 455 Billerica, MA USA 01821 Phone: +1 (978) 667 5115 Declaration of structure: The Namespace Specific String (NSS) of all URNs assigned by OASIS will have the following hierarchical structure: There are two branches at the top of the hierarchy: "names" and "member". The Names Hierarchy The NSS in the names hierarchy begins with a document class identifier. There are three classes of identifiers: "specification", "tc", and "technical". Specifications The "specification" hierarchy is for OASIS Specifications. The general structure of the NSS in the specification hierarchy has the form: urn:oasis:names:specification:{specification-id} :{type}{:subtype}?:{document-id} Best & Walsh Informational [Page 2]
RFC 3121 A URN Namespace for OASIS June 2001 where "specification-id" is a unique identifier for the specification, "type" identifies the document type (document, schema, stylesheet, entity, xmlns, etc.), the optional "subtype" provides additional information about the document type (for example, stylesheet or schema language), and "document-id" is a unique identifier for the document. The Director of Technical Operations at OASIS assigns document types, subtypes, and all unique identifiers. Technical Committee Work Products The "tc" hierarchy is for work products of OASIS Technical Committees. The general structure of the NSS in the tc hierarchy has the form: urn:oasis:names:tc:{tc-id}:{type}{:subtype}?:{document-id} where "tc-id" is a unique identifier for the Technical Committee, and the remaining fields are assigned as per the specification hierarchy. Technical Papers The "technical" hierarchy identifies legacy documents (Technical Notes, Resolutions, Memoranda, and Research Papers). The general structure of the NSS in the "technical" hierarchies has the form: urn:oasis:names:technical:{document-type} :{document-id}:{amendment-id} The document type is one of the following: "note", "resolution", "memorandum", or "researchpaper". The document and amendment identifiers are derived from the legacy system for naming these documents. The document identifier consists of a two digit year and a sequential number, the amendment identifier is the year of the amendment. The Members Hierarchy The NSS in the members hierarchy begins with a unique member identifier assigned by OASIS. The string following the member identifier is opaque. For example: urn:oasis:member:A00024:x Best & Walsh Informational [Page 3]
RFC 3121 A URN Namespace for OASIS June 2001 The member identifiers will be assigned by The Director of Technical Operations at OASIS. The opaque string is defined by the owner of the branch that begins with "urn:oasis:member:{member-id}:". Relevant ancillary documentation: None Identifier uniqueness considerations: Identifier uniqueness will be enforced by the Director of Technical Operations who assigns unique identifiers to all documents identified by URN. Identifier persistence considerations: OASIS is committed to maintaining the accessibility and persistence of all the resources that are assigned URNs. Process of identifier assignment: Assignment is limited to the owner and those authorities that are specifically designated by the owner. OASIS will assign portions of its namespace (specifically, those under the members hierarchy) for assignment by other parties. Process of identifier resolution: The owner will distribute catalogs (OASIS TR9401 Catalogs) that map the assigned URNs to resource identifiers (e.g., URLs). A more interactive, online resolution system will also be deployed in the near future. The owner will authorize additional resolution services as appropriate. Rules for Lexical Equivalence: URNs are lexically equivalent if they are lexically identical. Conformance with URN Syntax: No special considerations. Best & Walsh Informational [Page 4]
RFC 3121 A URN Namespace for OASIS June 2001 Validation mechanism: None specified. The owner will publish OASIS TR9401 Catalogs. The presence of a URN in a catalog indicates that it is valid. Scope: Global 3. Examples The following examples are not guaranteed to be real. They are listed for pedagogical reasons only. urn:oasis:names:specification:docbook:dtd:xml:4.1.2 urn:oasis:names:tc:docbook:dtd:xml:docbook:5.0b1 urn:oasis:names:technical:memo:9502:1995 urn:oasis:member:A00024:x 4. Security Considerations There are no additional security considerations other than those normally associated with the use and resolution of URNs in general. References [1] Goldfarb, C. F., "ISO (International Organization for Standardization) ISO 8879:1986(E) Information Processing -- Text and Office Systems -- Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)", 1986. [2] W3C, XML WG, "Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0", February 1998, <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml>. [3] W3C, Namespaces WG, "Namespaces in XML", January 1999, <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names>. [4] OASIS, Entity Mgmt. TC, "Entity Management: OASIS Technical Resolution 9401:1997 (Amendment 2 to TR 9401)", January 1994, <http://www.oasis-open.org/html/a401.htm>. [5] Moats, R., "URN Syntax", RFC 2141, May 1997. [6] Mealling, M. and R. Daniel, "URI Resolution Services Necessary for URN Resolution", RFC 2483, January 1999. Best & Walsh Informational [Page 5]
RFC 3121 A URN Namespace for OASIS June 2001 Authors' Addresses Karl Best OASIS, Inc. P.O. Box 455 Billerica, MA 01821 US EMail: karl.best@oasis-open.org Norman Walsh Sun Microsystems, Inc. One Network Drive MS UBUR02-201 Burlington, MA 01803-0902 US EMail: Norman.Walsh@East.Sun.COM Best & Walsh Informational [Page 6]
RFC 3121 A URN Namespace for OASIS June 2001
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Acknowledgement
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