Pointing to IANA registries

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Hi,

I was recently pointed at:

<http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5226#section-4.2>:

      1) The name of the registry (or sub-registry) being created and/or
         maintained.  The name will appear on the IANA web page and will
         be referred to in future documents that need to allocate a
         value from the new space.  The full name (and abbreviation, if
         appropriate) should be provided.  It is highly desirable that
         the chosen name not be easily confusable with the name of
         another registry.  When creating a sub-registry, the registry
         that it is a part of should be clearly identified.  When
         referring to an already existing registry, providing a URL to
         precisely identify the registry is helpful.  All such URLs,
         however, will be removed from the RFC prior to final
         publication.  For example, documents could contain: [TO BE
         REMOVED: This registration should take place at the following
         location:  http://www.iana.org/assignments/foobar-registry]

I have to say that I think that this is very very wrong.

Reasons:

1) Cool URIs do not change (<http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI>).

2) If RFCs that define a registry can not carry a link to the registry, the reader is actually forced to look up the registry using a search engine. I think it's *far* more better to be optimistic and provide the actual link, saving the reader one indirection step.

3) Also note: "It is highly desirable that the chosen name not be easily confusable with the name of another registry." If that was "MUST be unique", instead of this handwaving (sorry...), then we already would have the necessary ingredient for a stable URI.

Instead, we should instruct IANA to actually maintain registry URIs they have assigned. Note that this does not rule out format changes or reorganizations; HTTP redirects exist for a reason.

Best regards, Julian

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