INTERNET-DRAFT Yaron Y. Goland Expires: April 1998 Microsoft Corporation Standards Track October 30, 1997 Uniform Resource Locators (URL): NOREG URL Naming Scheme draft-ietf-urlreg-noreg-00.txt Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or made obsolete by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress". To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the "1id-abstracts.txt" listing contained in the Internet-Drafts Shadow Directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), nic.nordu.net (Europe), munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East Coast), or ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast). Abstract This document proposes mapping DNS names into the URL scheme space for the purpose of preventing namespace collisions amongst URL schemes whose syntax and functionality are not appropriate for standardization. 1. Introduction In [URL-REG] a process is established for registering new URL schemes. However this registration process is centralized and keyed toward schemes that define new standards. Not all URL schemes need to be standardized. Many schemes are registered with client software so as to activate software, not to specify a generalized function. In such cases the key concern is the prevention of URL scheme name collisions, not an open registration of the URL's syntax or functionality. 2. NOREG URL Prefix Scheme Syntax Scheme = "NOREG+" domain '+' [extension] domain = see [STD13] section 3.5 extension = URL-Scheme URL-Scheme = see the scheme production in [URL-SYNTAX] section 4.1 Goland [Page 1] INTERNET-DRAFT NOREG URL Naming Scheme October 30, 1997 3. Examples The owner of the foo.bar.com DNS name would, under this proposal, be given control of the NOREG+foo.bar.com+ URL scheme. The scheme can be used by itself to form URLs, for example, NOREG+foo.bar.com+://www.nowhere.com/somewhere or can be used as a prefix, for example, NOREG+foo.bar.com+any-legal-scheme- characters:anything:anywhere. 4. Namespace Ownership Whoever owns a particular DNS name owns all NOREG URL scheme names as defined under this standard. If a DNS name should change ownership then all NOREG URL scheme names defined using this standard are transferred to the new owner. 5. Trademarks The trademark ramifications of this scheme are left in the hands of those who define names under this scheme. As no central authority handles registration of the names there is no central authority to be served with court papers. As such there are no special trademark issues that need to be addressed by the specification. 6. References [URL-REG] Masinter, Alvestrand, Zigmond, 'Guidelines for new URL Schemes', WORK IN PROGRESS, . [URL-SYNTAX] Berners-Lee, Fielding, Mastiner, WORK IN PROGRESS, 'Uniform Resource Locators: Generic Syntax and Semantics', . [STD13] Mockapetrix, 'DOMAIN NAMES - CONCEPTS AND FACILITIES', INTERNET STANDARD, . 7. Author's Address Yaron Y. Goland Microsoft Corporation 1 Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98052 Email: yarong@microsoft.com Goland [Page 2]