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.

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}

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

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.

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", RFC2141, May 1997.

[6] Mealling, M. and R. Daniel, "URI Resolution Services Necessary
for URN Resolution", RFC2483, January 1999.

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

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