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I wrote the original magnet-URI proposal, so trust me when I say the JS-stuff was a demo hack, and the content-based names the real point. (Essentially no one e

by gojomo 11y ago

I wrote the original magnet-URI proposal, so trust me when I say the JS-stuff was a demo hack, and the content-based names the real point. (Essentially no one ever implemented the JS-handler-negotiation, which was a quasi-web-intents mechanism before that concept was named.) Magnet-URI's immediate predecessor was the Hash/Urn Gnutella Extensions, 'HUGE' [1], and the reason that all the examples in the magnet-URI spec are hash-URNs, and that such hash-URNs are the main way magnet-URI has been used, is because that's what magnet-URI was for. I respect that your design opinion is that URNs aren't good for this; it's just false for you to say hash-names are against the URN specs. Neither the language of the URN specs nor historical practice supports that idea. And, hashes are, as you clearly agree, a great way to generate "persistent, location-independent, resource identifiers" (the stated purpose of URNs). A system (P2P, CDN, local content-addressed stores, etc.) can be plenty useful even if it chooses to support only some URNs, or only some magnet-URIs. All the magnet-using systems have essentially ignored standardized/assigned URNs, and instead used ad-hoc hash URNs, and in total they've been quite useful to a lot of people. [1] http://rfc-gnutella.sourceforge.net/Proposals/HUGE/draft-gdf-huge-0_93.txt http://rfc-gnutella.sourceforge.net/Proposals/HUGE/draft-gdf...

btrask 11y ago
Sorry, I didn't know Magnet was your work. I think it's an example of the inner-platform effect (tunneling URIs in URIs), but I agree it's served a lot of applications (especially BitTorrent) very well. You're right that hashes aren't prohibited by the URN specification. My argument is that the URN spec doesn't prohibit anything, because it's too broad. In fact, I think that URNs boil down to URLs, because in order to resolve many schemes (including ISBNs), you need a dynamic lookup to a central authority. I've been considering an article called something like "Locations, names and hashes" in order to explain that locations and names are effectively the same, but hashes are fundamentally different. That is my opinion of the underlying reason why URNs failed to catch on (aside from BitTorrent). Even the practical point of interoperability is moot, because BitTorrent namespaces its hashes. It's impossible for another system to support existing URN/magnet links without "emulating" torrent files (which introduces too much ambiguity anyway). BTW, the http://memesteading.com/ http://memesteading.com/ link in your profile appears to be broken. Edit: I see you've worked on a lot of things I've read about, e.g. WARC files. Do you currently work at the Internet Archive? I was planning on approaching them at some point with some ideas.
- gojomo 11y ago
  Yes, I think many now recognize that the original idea of a stark contrast between URLs and URNs doesn't fit the fuzzy reality. (RFC3986's "URI, URL, and URN" section, https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#section-1.1.3 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#section-1.1.3, acknowledges this point.) My interpretation is: there's quite a few de-facto URNs in use, just without the official label "urn:" or namespace registration, which in practice has turned out to be an unnecessary formality. (Thanks for the note regarding memesteading.com; mapping updated to work now.) I'm no longer regularly doing anything for the Internet Archive, but can definitely help make contact! If you're in the bay area, a good way to start learning more about its projects (or show off your own) is to attend the open-house lunches, held most Fridays. (You should just shoot them a note or call before showing up, so they know the expected attendance, or warn you if it's one of the occasional days that it's not held.)
  - btrask 11y ago
    Rather than de facto URNs, I'd say de facto URLs, but we don't have to quibble over that. I'm on the east coast, unfortunately (North Carolina). HN is going to start capping the thread depth, but you're welcome to email me if you'd like to talk more (bentrask@comcast.net). I've been trying to come up with an archival web proxy or something sort of related to WARC and the tooling around it, possibly using content addressing (although converting existing web pages seems ugly and I haven't found an ideal way).

by gojomo 11y ago

btrask 11y ago

Sorry, I didn't know Magnet was your work. I think it's an example of the inner-platform effect (tunneling URIs in URIs), but I agree it's served a lot of applications (especially BitTorrent) very well. You're right that hashes aren't prohibited by the URN specification. My argument is that the URN spec doesn't prohibit anything, because it's too broad. In fact, I think that URNs boil down to URLs, because in order to resolve many schemes (including ISBNs), you need a dynamic lookup to a central authority. I've been considering an article called something like "Locations, names and hashes" in order to explain that locations and names are effectively the same, but hashes are fundamentally different. That is my opinion of the underlying reason why URNs failed to catch on (aside from BitTorrent). Even the practical point of interoperability is moot, because BitTorrent namespaces its hashes. It's impossible for another system to support existing URN/magnet links without "emulating" torrent files (which introduces too much ambiguity anyway). BTW, the http://memesteading.com/ http://memesteading.com/ link in your profile appears to be broken. Edit: I see you've worked on a lot of things I've read about, e.g. WARC files. Do you currently work at the Internet Archive? I was planning on approaching them at some point with some ideas.

gojomo 11y ago
Yes, I think many now recognize that the original idea of a stark contrast between URLs and URNs doesn't fit the fuzzy reality. (RFC3986's "URI, URL, and URN" section, https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#section-1.1.3 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#section-1.1.3, acknowledges this point.) My interpretation is: there's quite a few de-facto URNs in use, just without the official label "urn:" or namespace registration, which in practice has turned out to be an unnecessary formality. (Thanks for the note regarding memesteading.com; mapping updated to work now.) I'm no longer regularly doing anything for the Internet Archive, but can definitely help make contact! If you're in the bay area, a good way to start learning more about its projects (or show off your own) is to attend the open-house lunches, held most Fridays. (You should just shoot them a note or call before showing up, so they know the expected attendance, or warn you if it's one of the occasional days that it's not held.)
- btrask 11y ago
  Rather than de facto URNs, I'd say de facto URLs, but we don't have to quibble over that. I'm on the east coast, unfortunately (North Carolina). HN is going to start capping the thread depth, but you're welcome to email me if you'd like to talk more (bentrask@comcast.net). I've been trying to come up with an archival web proxy or something sort of related to WARC and the tooling around it, possibly using content addressing (although converting existing web pages seems ugly and I haven't found an ideal way).