Summary · Context · Proposed Charter · Timeline/Process
This is a proposal for a URI Interest Group in the W3C Architecture Domain to build and maintain shared understanding around Uniform Resource Identifier (URIs) technology and specifications.
The initial technologies from which the Web was built are HTML, HTTP, and URIs. W3C hosts the development of HTML, along with related development of Web data formats such as XML, RDF, SMIL, SVG, and MathML. The IETF hosted the development of HTTP, with significant member and staff involvement from W3C, thru the publication of the HTTP 1.1 draft standard, and continues to host related working groups such as WebDAV, Transport Level Security (TLS), Content Negotiation, Web Replication and Caching, etc.
But the forums that developed the URI specifications are largely inactive, and the specification documents alone are evidently not serving the needs of the W3C membership to understand and use the URI technology and develop related technologies: witness the w3c-ac-forum discussions (from International DOI Foundation, 8 Mar, Library of Congress, 3 Feb 2000 12 May 2000, etc.) on persistence, registration, and resolution, and the recent discussion of inconsistent use of URIs between the XML Namespaces and XPath specifications.
Given recent support of the W3C membership and the history of the development of URI specifications in the IETF, we discussed the organization of a forum to discuss URI technology in the 8 May 2000 IETF/W3C coordination teleconference. The idea of a W3C forum to promote understanding of URI specifications gained general support.
Per section 3.1.1 How to Create an Activity and 3.2.3 charters, we propose a URI Activity in the W3C Architecture Domain consisting of a URI Interest Group to address this demand. The charter is proposed as follows:
The mission of the URI Interest Group is to be responsive to the needs of the W3C membership and W3C working groups for information about URI technology. In particular, to provide, maintain, and/or discuss:
Development of mechanisms for resolving URIs is out of scope, though discussion of them (e.g. IETF URN WG developmens such as NAPTR, DNS extensions such as SRV records), in order that the participants should be familiar with them, is in order.
This forum may be used as a source of input in upcoming discussions of Web architecture (e.g. further development of Web Architecture from 50,000 feet).
This forum is responsible to update and maintain the materials in the W3C Web site related to Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs), and to organize and disseminate any particularly useful and widely agreed guidance as W3C NOTEs and IETF Internet Drafts and/or informational RFCs.
While this interest group may publish informational documents and may discuss proposals to form Working Groups, it is not chartered to produce any W3C Recommendations.
The duration is approximately 2 years, thru August 2002.
Participation in the review of specifications that have entered last call before this group convenes (including XML 1.0, RDF 1.0, HTML 4.0 and XHTML 1.0, and XLink) is not likely to be cost-effective; this group should undertake such review only by invitation.
NOTE: If you know of any other relationships that should be established, please note that in your Advisory Comittee Representative review form.
Membership in this group is open to all members of the Web community, by subscription to the mailing list. The proceedings of this group are public. The mailing list is uri@w3.org, which is a continuation of the mailing list that was used for the IETF URI working group (see archive and administrative info). Timely participation is expected, though at least a week will be allowed for indicating dissent to any decisions of the group, and all decisions of the group will be put by the chair or by a discussion leader appointed by the chair, such as the editor of a NOTE.
In order to stimulate timely resolution of discussion items, the chairs may call occasional teleconferences, as often as every other week, or as infrequently as one per quarter. As per W3C process for remote meetings, the time and telephone number shall be announced at least a week in advance, and an agenda shall be made available 24 hours in advance. In order to manage teleconference bridge capacity, participants may need to RSVP; if more persons confirm than can be accommodated, the chair may solicit volunteers to withdraw, select participants on a first-confirmed or random basis, or cancel the teleconference in stead of distributing an agenda.
Notes from any teleconferences shall be distributed to the mailing list; these notes may include proposed group decisions, but these proposals are subject to the same one week review as any other group decision.
No face-to-face meetings are planned, though participants in this group are encouraged to take notes and share them from discussions at, for example, at IETF meetings, conferences, workshops, etc.
The W3C Team is expected to spend about 20% of one full-time-engineer for each year of the 2 year duration of this interest group; we expect that Dan Connolly and Martin Dürst will provide this effort.
In order to be successful, we estimate that the group should include 5 to 15 active participants from the membership. In particular, we solicit
Daniel LaLiberte drafted an earlier proposal for a URI interest group.
Ray Denenberg of the Library of Congress, Norman Paskin of the International DOI Foundation, Mark Needleman of Data Research Associates, Larry Lannom of CNRI, and Terry Noreault of OCLC provided encouragment to establish a URI Activity. Michael Mealling provided corrections for some factual inaccuracies in the URI materials.
Larry Masinter provided the kernel of this proposal in his message to uri@w3.org of 01 May 2000. These ideas were dicussed in the 8 May 2000 IETF/W3C coordination teleconference, where no objections were raised. The general form of this proposal was presented at the May Advisory Commitee meeting, and the resulting discussions (morning of 22nd, afternoon of 22nd) showed general support.
Dan Connolly for
Philipp Hoschka, W3C Architecture Domain Lead and
Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director
$Revision: 1.21 $ of $Date: 2000/07/03 19:02:02 $ by $Author: connolly $