An IRI/URI Namespace for International Object Identifiers (OIDs)
draft-larmouth-oid-iri-00

Status of this Memo

By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79.

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 obsoleted 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.”

The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt.

The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.

This Internet-Draft will expire on May 5, 2009.

Abstract

This internet draft defines the IRI/URI scheme for International Object Identifiers. The syntax and semantics of the IRI is specified below using the International Object Identifier tree specified in [ITU-T X.660].

Table of Contents

1.  Introduction
2.  Information to be provided to IANA for registration
    2.1.  Declared registrant of the namespace
    2.2.  URI scheme name
    2.3.  Status
    2.4.  URI/IRI scheme syntax
    2.5.  URI/IRI scheme semantics
    2.6.  Encoding considerations
    2.7.  Applications/protocols that use this scheme
    2.8.  Interoperability considerations
    2.9.  Security considerations
3.  Acknowledgements
4.  References
    4.1.  Normative References
    4.2.  Informative References
§  Authors' Addresses
§  Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements

1.  Introduction

The International Object Identifier tree provides a hierarchically based identification scheme for objects/resources, using almost all Unicode/ISO 10646 characters to identify arcs in the tree. The first identifier in the sequence can be the name of any standards body or any other organization that requests an unambiguous identification of that organization, with subsequent identifications in the hierarchy being allocated by that organization. The OID tree has been in existence since about 1984 in a numerical form, but the ability to have arcs identified by Unicode labels to identify arcs of the International Object Identifier tree was only standardized in 2008.

There are just under 100,000 allocated Object Identifiers that are recorded in the OID Repository at http://www.oid-info.com

This form of URI/IRI commences with "oid:/" and is followed by a series of Unicode labels separated by the SOLIDUS '/' character, identifying a node in the hierarchical International Object Identifier tree.

NOTE - The SOLIDUS '/' character is not permitted in Unicode labels.

An IRI can contain most of the Unicode characters, and in particular can contain all the characters allowed in a Unicode label. A URI is restricted to the ASCII character set, but [RFC3987], clause 3.1 specifies the conversion of the characters allowed in an IRI into the characters allowed in a URI, enabling both an IRI and a URI to carry the same semantics for the identification. This mapping is an integral part of the "oid" URI/IRI scheme. This enables names based on the Unicode labels in the International OID tree to be used wherever an IRI or a URI is required.

2.  Information to be provided to IANA for registration

2.1.  Declared registrant of the namespace

J. Larmouth

Rapporteur, ITU-T SG17 ASN.1 & OID

Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6/WG 9

International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

Place des Nations

CH-1211 Geneva 20

Switzerland

E-mail: tsbmail@itu.int

2.2.  URI scheme name

oid

2.3.  Status

permanent

2.4.  URI/IRI scheme syntax

This sub-clause uses the ABNF notation commonly used in IETF RFCs (see [RFC 5234]). An IRI in the "oid" scheme is syntactically the ABNF construct "oidiri" defined as follows (with the semantics specified in 2.5), and with no white-space between lexical items:

oidiri = "oid:/" firstarcid subsequentarcid

firstarcid = unicodelabel

subsequentarcid = "/" unicodelabel [susequentarcid]

unicodelabel = iunreserved

When used as a URI, the transformations specified in [RFC 3987], clause 3.1 are applied.

2.5.  URI/IRI scheme semantics

The "firstarcid" is required to be a Unicode label assigned to one of the arcs from the root of the International OID tree specified in [ITU-T X.660] (including long arcs) that identifies a node in the International OID tree.

The next "unicodelabel" in the "subsequentarcid" is required to be a Unicode label that identifies an arc from that node to a lower level node.

This repeats until the final Unicode label identifies an arc, and hence a node of the International OID tree, that is the referenced resource.

NOTE - The last identified node is not necessarily a leaf of the tree, but is the identified resource.

2.6.  Encoding considerations

The internationalized resource identifier is specified as an abstract sequence of Unicode characters. The encoding of those characters depends on the specification of the protocol in which they are carried, but will normally be UTF8.

2.7.  Applications/protocols that use this scheme

This scheme can be used by any specification requiring an IRI or URI based on the international OID tree to identify an object.

2.8.  Interoperability considerations

Matching rules are based on exact equality of the sequence of abstract Unicode characters forming the IRI. There are no other known interoperability issues.

2.9.  Security considerations

There are no security implications in the use of this IRI scheme.

3.  Acknowledgements

This document is a product of the joint ISO/IEC and ITU-T ASN.1 & OID group. All members of the group are thanked for their efforts in this work.

4.  References

4.1. Normative References

4.2. Informative References

Authors' Addresses

Full Copyright Statement

Copyright © The IETF Trust (2008).

This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights.

This document and the information contained herein are provided on an “AS IS” basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE IETF TRUST AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM 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.

Intellectual Property

The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.

Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at http://www.ietf.org/ipr.

The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf-ipr@ietf.org.