utility of URNs and DNSSEC (was: Re: URNs and Last Call: <draft-nottingham-rfc7320bis-02.txt> (URI Design and Ownership) to Best Current Practice)

[Keith Moore <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 1/7/20 8:41 PM, Rob Sayre wrote:

Definitions of success vary. URNs are widely used in the information
sciences (e.g., national libraries), but that isn't as visible as the web.

Definitions of success do indeed vary. Without weighing in on this particular issue, the IETF does seem to be clinging to unsuccessful standards like URNs and DNSSEC. That doesn't mean they're bad, but it does mean those standards missed the mark in ways that would have been difficult to predict at the time they were drafted. This failure to reflect is disappointing.

Actually, it means no such thing.

For URNs, the average Internet user or even IETF participant simply is not in a position to evaluate their utility.   Granted, the expectation within IETF was that URNs would be more publicly visible than they are now.   But most people don't know what ISBNs are either, and they've been around much longer.

(I expect that URNs would be much more visible to us today had URN resolution systems been developed and incorporated into browsers.   But this is still possible.   Meanwhile, URNs remain useful even without URN resolution support in browsers, just not as widely useful and not as visible.)

DNSSEC is still quite useful, even though it has had a bit of trouble getting going.   The very nature of DNSSEC was that it would take a long time to deploy.   A similar statement could be made (and has been made) about IPv6.

It's very shortsighted to expect that everything that IETF does that is useful, will appear useful to IETF participants within a few years of adoption.  

I realize that much of the industry has come to expect quick payoff.   Reality is that some good things take time to mature before they're useful.  Fortunately, IETF isn't a VC-funded startup that needs to ship product within two years.  

Keith