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Network Working Group A. Walsh
Request for Comments: 3541 Web3D Consortium
Category: Informational May 2003
A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace
for the Web3D Consortium (Web3D)
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 (2003). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This document describes a Uniform Resource Name (URN) namespace for
the Web3D Consortium (Web3D) for naming persistent resources such as
technical documents and specifications, Virtual Reality Modeling
Language (VRML) and Extensible 3D (X3D) files and resources,
Extensible Markup Language (XML) Document Type Definitions (DTDs),
XML Schemas, namespaces, style sheets, media assets, and other
resources produced or managed by Web3D.
1. Introduction
Web3D is a non-profit organization with a mandate to develop and
promote open standards to enable 3D for the Internet, Web and
broadcast applications. Web3D is responsible for developing,
advancing, and maintaining the VRML97 ISO/IEC International Standard
(ISO/IEC 14772-1:1997), X3D (the forthcoming official successor to
VRML) and related technologies.
Web3D maintains and extends its standardization activities through
the coordinated efforts of dedicated Working Groups, Task Groups, and
professional Liaisons to related standards bodies such as ISO, W3C,
and MPEG. See http://web3d.org/ for details.
Web3D would like to assign unique, permanent, location-independent
names based on URNs for some resources it produces or manages.
This namespace specification is for a formal namespace.
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RFC 3541 URN Namespace for the Web3D Consortium May 2003
2. Specification Template
Namespace ID:
"web3d"
Registration Information:
Registration Version Number: 1
Registration Date: 2003-05-06
Declared registrant of the namespace:
Web3D Consortium, Inc.
Email: <contact@web3d.org>
Web: <http://web3d.org>
c/o
Name : Aaron E. Walsh
Affiliation: Web3D Working Group Chair; Web3D Liaison to MPEG, W3C
Address : 18 Haviland Street, Boston, MA USA 02115
Phone : +1 (617) 536-3279
Email : <aaron@mantiscorp.com>
Web : <http://mantiscorp.com/people/aew/>
Declaration of syntactic structure:
URNs assigned by Web3D will have the following hierarchical
structure based on the group's organizational structure:
urn:web3d:{subgroup}:{subgroup-specific string}
where "subgroup" corresponds to an official Web3D subgroup or
activity such as the VRML standard ('vrml97'), Extensible 3D
('x3d'), Universal Media Working Group ('media'), Geographical
VRML Working Group ('geovrml'), Humanoid Animation Working Group
('hanim') and so forth, and "subgroup-specific string" is a US-
ASCII string that conforms to URN Syntax requirements ([RFC2141]).
In cases where ownership or management of a resource is shared by
multiple Web3D subgroups or activities, a general category may be
used in place of a specific subgroup.
Chairs of Web3D subgroups and activities assign all unique
identifiers that fall within the scope of the subgroup or activity
that they chair. Chairs of Web3D subgroups and activities are
also responsible for publishing the specific structure of URNs
assigned by their group or activity.
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RFC 3541 URN Namespace for the Web3D Consortium May 2003
Relevant ancillary documentation:
None
Identifier uniqueness considerations:
Identifier uniqueness will be enforced by the Web3D Board of
Directors (BoD) in cooperation with Chair(s) of corresponding
Web3D subgroups.
Identifier persistence considerations:
Web3D is committed to maintaining the accessibility and
persistence of all resources that are officially assigned URNs by
the organization.
Process of identifier assignment:
Assignment is limited to the owner and those authorities that are
specifically designated by the owner. Web3D may designate
portions of its namespace for assignment by other parties.
Process of identifier resolution:
The owner will develop and maintain "URN catalogs" that map all
assigned URNs to Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), specifically to
enable Web-based resolution of named resources. In the future, an
interactive online resolution system may be developed to automate
this process.
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 develop and maintain URN catalogs.
The presence of a URN in a catalog indicates that it is valid.
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RFC 3541 URN Namespace for the Web3D Consortium May 2003
Scope:
Global
3. Examples
The following examples are not guaranteed to be real. They are
presented for pedagogical reasons only.
urn:web3d:vrml97:node:GeoCoordinate
urn:web3d:vrml97:node:NurbsCurve
urn:web3d:x3d:schemas:2002:compact
urn:web3d:x3d:schemas:2002:compromise
urn:web3d:media:textures:nature:grass
4. Security Considerations
There are no additional security considerations other than those
normally associated with the use and resolution of URNs in general.
5. Namespace Considerations and Community Considerations
The Web3D Consortium (formerly "VRML Consortium") long acknowledged
the value and utility of URNs starting with the VRML International
Standard issued in 1997 (ISO/IEC 14772-1:1997, commonly known as
"VRML97"). Annex F.2, "URNs", of that standard outlines non-
normative use of URNs as a persistent naming mechanism for referenced
resources such as files, EXTERNPROTOs, textures, and so forth.
As such numerous VRML players and authoring tools, as well as content
authoring communities, have adopted Web3D-oriented URNs for this
purpose despite the fact that no formal "web3d" URN NID has been
established by the Web3D Consortium. Consequently, interoperability
of resources named using these disparate naming conventions is
difficult, if not impossible, owing to the lack of a single, well
defined "web3d" URN namespace that is formally registered and
maintained by the Web3D Consortium.
In order to promote complete compatibility and interoperability
across past, current and future Web3D standards, as well as across
myriad Web3D-related products, tools, and content, the Web3D
Consortium believes formal registration and management of the "web3d"
URN namespace is necessary and in the best interest of the larger
Internet- and Web-based communities it serves.
The "web3d" URN namespace will be used to name VRML and X3D files and
resources, XML DTDs and Schemas, namespaces, style sheets, media
assets, and other resources produced or managed by Web3D. As an open
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RFC 3541 URN Namespace for the Web3D Consortium May 2003
standards organization, any Web3D Consortium resources that are
officially named using the "web3d" namespace will be made freely
available to the public.
Resources will be named and maintained in accordance with the
process(es) described in this document. Any organization or
individual can utilize the Web3D Consortium's freely available URN
catalogs to resolve a resource named therein. Although the Web3D
Consortium will control the naming and allocation of resources in
order to maintain compliance with the process(es) described in this
document, resolution and/or use of these resources is unrestricted
and without fee in order to promote widespread adoption of open Web3D
technologies. To this end, related documentation and open source
resolvers will be freely provided through the Web3D Consortium's Web
site.
Additionally, member organizations or individuals that wish to name
their own resources using the "web3d" namespace may submit such
request(s) directly to the corresponding Web3D Working Group
(subgroup) for subsequent review.
6. IANA Considerations
This document describes a "web3d" URN NID registration for the Web3D
Consortium which has been entered into the IANA registry of URN NIDs
(http://www.iana.org/assignments/urn-namespaces).
References
[RFC2141] Moats, R., "URN Syntax", RFC 2141, May 1997.
Author's Address
Aaron E. Walsh
Mantis Development Corp.
18 Haviland Street
Boston, MA USA 02115
Phone: +1 (617) 536-3279
EMail: aaron@mantiscorp.com
Web : <http://mantiscorp.com/people/aew/>
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RFC 3541 URN Namespace for the Web3D Consortium May 2003
Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). 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
copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
English.
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assignees.
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
BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Acknowledgement
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
Internet Society.
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