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}





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        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




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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.







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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.






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Authors' Addresses

  Karl Best
  OASIS, Inc.
  P.O. Box 455
  Billerica, MA  01821
  US

  EMail: [email protected]


  Norman Walsh
  Sun Microsystems, Inc.
  One Network Drive
  MS UBUR02-201
  Burlington, MA  01803-0902
  US

  EMail: [email protected]
































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RFC 3121               A URN Namespace for OASIS               June 2001


Full Copyright Statement

  Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001).  All Rights Reserved.

  This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
  others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
  or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
  and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
  kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
  included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
  document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
  the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
  Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
  developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
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  followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
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  The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
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  This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
  "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
  TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
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Acknowledgement

  Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
  Internet Society.



















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