URI Activity

URI Interest Group Charter

Per section 6 Working Groups, Interest Groups, and Coordination Groups of the W3C Process, this charter, and any changes to it, take effect by way of an announcement to the W3C Membership via w3c-ac-members.

1. Mission
2. Scope
3. Deliverables
4. Duration
5. Coordination With Other Groups
6. Confidentiality
7. Meetings
8. Communication
9. Group participation
10. Patent Disclosures

Mission

The mission of this group is to review and discuss ongoing work in the area of Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) and Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs) and to facilitate deployment of quality implementations by maintaining testing materials.

Scope

The scope of the URI Interest Group encompasses:

• review of URI/IRI issues between W3C and the IETF, including monitoring maintenance of the IANA URI scheme registry, updating and maintaining materials and documentation on the W3C site relevant to URIs, and promoting development of supplementary guidelines
• bringing architectural issues and recommendations to the attention of the TAG
• acting as a resource for information and clarifications involving URI issues to the W3C Membership
• working with other organizations on URI/IRI issues where appropriate
• maintaing testing materials

Consideration of this group extends over registered, proposed and potential URI schemes.

Deliverables

The Interest Group does not produce recommendation-track deliverables; its mailing list archives and test repository may serve as valuable community resources.

Duration

The expiration date of this charter is 28 February 2007.

Coordinations With Other Groups

W3C Groups

The URI Interest Group review and discuss the use of URIs in W3C specifications. URI/IRIs are heavily used and discuss by the following W3C groups:

W3C Technical Architecture Group

The URI Interest Group should ensure that issues related to URI/IRI are brought to the attention of the TAG.

W3C Internationalization Working Group

The Character Model for the World Wide Web references an extension to URI reference syntax (see "Editing 'Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs)'") introduced in HTML 4.0 and carried into XML 1.0 and other specifications. The URI Interest Group should ensure appropriate review.

XML Core

Many of the documents under development by the XML Core WG make use of URIs. For example, namespace names, entity references, base URIs, and XInclude URIs.

External Groups

The URI Interest Group also reviews development of URI-related technology in W3C with other organizations:

IETF Applications Area

The core URI specifications were developed in the IETF applications area, and they continue to be used throughout the IETF. The IRI specification is being developed jointly between W3C and IETF. The URI Interest Group coordinates with the IETF on guidelines for new URI schemes, registration of URI schemes, appropriate supplementary documentation about URIs, etc.

OpenURL

OpenURL is an effort by NISO ((US) National Information Standards Organization) to develop a standardized format for transporting metadata in a URL.

Library Community

A number of library applications depend on identifiers. For example, libraries want to build and maintain large digital libraries, provide access to traditional library information such as bibliographic records, describe resources, and preserve digital material. These applications raise concerns including (but not limited to) resolution of URIs and registration (and proliferation) of URI schemes, persistence, location independence, granularity, separation of metadata from identifier, Unicode support, and support for legacy identifiers.

ICANN

Through the use of domain names in URIs, both the Web and W3C have a substantial dependency on a stable DNS. W3C is one of the four members of the Technical Liaison Group (TLG). The technical experts on the TLG from W3C are Danny Weitzner and Martin Dürst. They will use this Group to provide additional technical expertise.

Confidentiality

The proceedings of this Interest Group are public.

Meetings

The URI Interest Group exists primarily as an archived email forum. The chair may call occasional teleconferences or scheduled IRC chats, not more than twice per month (with the usual 7 days notice of the time, agenda 24 hours in advance, and minutes to follow within 2 days per W3C process for meetings).

The URI Interest Group does not meet face-to-face, though participants are encouraged to report on relevants such as IETF BOFs.

Communication

The URI Interest Group shall communicate among its participants using the public mailing list uri@w3.org (archive) or public-iri@w3.org for issues related to IRIs. The Group will also maintain a public homepage.

Group participation

Membership of the URI Interest Group is open to the public; W3C Membership is not a prerequisite.

Membership is signified by subscribing to the mailing list, uri@w3.org or public-iri@w3.org. One can subscribe to the mailing lists by sending an email to uri-request@w3.org or public-iri-request@w3.org, respectively, with 'subscribe' in the Subject. There is no time commitment for participation to this Interest Group.

Note: the mailing lists uri@w3.org and public-iri@w3.org follow the rules of IETF applicable to mailing list usage (section 8. NOTICES AND RECORD KEEPING, RFC2026).

Chair

The initial Chairs of this Group are Dan Connolly (W3C) and Norman Walsh (Sun Microsystems).

W3C Team Contact

The initial W3C Team Contact is Dan Connolly. This charter allocates 0.10 FTE of W3C Team resource for this Interest Group.

Patent Disclosures

The URI Interest Group provides an opportunity to share perspectives on URI. W3C reminds Interest Group participants of their obligation to comply with patent disclosure obligations as set out in Section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy. While the Interest Group does not produce Recommendation-track documents, when Interest Group participants review Recommendation-track specifications from Working Groups, the patent disclosure obligations do apply.