Network Working Group                                         P. Hoffman
Internet-Draft                                            VPN Consortium
Expires: April 15, 2005                                 October 15, 2004


          Revised Registration Procedures for URL Scheme Names
                    draft-hoffman-scheme-reg-00.txt

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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).

Abstract

   This document revises the registration procedures given in RFC 2717
   based on five years of experience.  It simplifies the requirements
   for getting a scheme listed by IANA by removing the technical review
   and allowing multiple registrants to share a scheme name.

1.  Introduction

   RFC 2717 [RFC2717] describes the current mechanism for registering



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   new URL schemes.  There is widespread dissatisfaction in the Internet
   community with these procedures, which has led to many people simply
   ignoring them and using unregistered schemes in many widely-deployed
   applications.

   This document revises the procedures in RFC 2717 to make registration
   much simpler and more definitive, at a cost of allowing some schemes
   to have multiple registrations.  The basic structure of the new
   procedure is:

   o  Scheme names in the registry can have multiple entries for the
      name.  There is no "first come, first served" restriction on a
      name.
   o  After an RFC that registers a scheme name is published, the RFC is
      entered into the registry and the name is then closed to
      additional entries.
   o  There is no technical review of registrations, only a minor
      secretarial review (and a check whether or not the name's
      registration is already closed).
   o  Schemes in the current IANA registry are closed to new
      registrations.

2.  Procedure for Registering

   The registrant should first check the IANA scheme name registry to
   see whether or not there is already an entry for the name desired
   and, if so, whether the name's registration is closed.  If it is not
   closed (or there is no entry under the name yet), the registrant may
   register the name by submitting the template shown here to IANA.

   Upon receipt of the filled-in template, IANA:

   1.  Checks the submission for completeness.
   2.  Checks the current registry for an entry of that name.  If such a
       registry exists, checks that the registry is not closed.  If it
       is closed, IANA rejects the registration request.
   3.  Checks the URL given in the request, makes sure it is alive, and
       checks that it generally describes the URL scheme being
       registered.
   4.  [[ Possibly more here.  ]]
   5.  Fills in the registry.

2.1  Registration Template

   [[ Use same template as RFC 2717, but add "URL of document more
   completely describing the scheme".  ]]





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2.2  Registering from RFCs

   [[ Needs to be filled in.  Similar to steps as above, but with the
   addition of marking the name's registry as "closed" after entering
   the new entry.  ]]

3.  IANA Considerations

   Clearly, this whole document is about IANA considerations.

3.1  Converting the current registry to the new format

   [[ Stuff here about adding URLs.  ]]

   [[ Adding an indicator for each current name that the name is closed
   because all current names start off closed.  ]]

3.2  Registering new names

   [[ How to start a new name entry ]]

3.3  Adding additional registrations to existing names

   [[ Checking that the name is actually open ]]

3.4  Registering names from RFCs

   [[ Making it the last entry; closing out the name ]]

4.  Security Considerations

   There are no known security issues with the new registration
   mechanism.

5  Normative References

   [RFC2717]  Petke, R. and I. King, "Registration Procedures for URL
              Scheme Names", BCP 35, RFC 2717, November 1999.













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Author's Address

   Paul Hoffman
   VPN Consortium
   127 Segre Place
   Santa Cruz, CA  95060
   US

   EMail: paul.hoffman@vpnc.org










































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