Guidelines and Registration Procedures for New URI Schemes
RFC 4395

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• 07

Network Working Group                                          T. Hansen
Request for Comments: 4395                             AT&T Laboratories
Obsoletes: 2717, 2718                                          T. Hardie
BCP: 115                                                  Qualcomm, Inc.
Category: Best Current Practice                              L. Masinter
                                                           Adobe Systems
                                                           February 2006

       Guidelines and Registration Procedures for New URI Schemes

Status of This Memo

   This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the
   Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).

Abstract

   This document provides guidelines and recommendations for the
   definition of Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) schemes.  It also
   updates the process and IANA registry for URI schemes.  It obsoletes
   both RFC 2717 and RFC 2718.

Hansen, et al.           Best Current Practice                  [Page 1]
RFC 4395                    New URI Schemes                February 2006

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Guidelines for Permanent URI Scheme Definitions  . . . . . . .  4
     2.1.  Demonstratable, New, Long-Lived Utility  . . . . . . . . .  4
     2.2.  Syntactic Compatibility  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     2.3.  Well-Defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     2.4.  Definition of Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     2.5.  Context of Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     2.6.  Internationalization and Character Encoding  . . . . . . .  7
     2.7.  Clear Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     2.8.  Scheme Name Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   3.  Guidelines for Provisional URI Scheme Registration . . . . . .  8
   4.  Guidelines for Historical URI Scheme Registration  . . . . . .  8
   5.  URI Scheme Registration Procedure  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     5.1.  General  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     5.2.  Registration Procedures  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     5.3.  Change Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     5.4.  URI Scheme Registration Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   6.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   7.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   8.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   9.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     9.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     9.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Hansen, et al.           Best Current Practice                  [Page 2]
RFC 4395                    New URI Schemes                February 2006

1.  Introduction

   The Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) protocol element and generic
   syntax is defined by RFC 3986 [5].  Each URI begins with a scheme
   name, as defined by Section 3.1 of RFC 3986, that refers to a
   specification for identifiers within that scheme.  The URI syntax
   provides a federated and extensible naming system, where each
   scheme's specification may further restrict the syntax and semantics
   of identifiers using that scheme.  This document provides guidelines
   for the definition of new URI schemes, for consideration by those who
   are defining, registering, or evaluating those definitions, as well
   as a process and mechanism for registering URI schemes within the
   IANA URI scheme registry.  The registry has two parts: 'provisional'
   and 'permanent', with different requirements.  Guidelines and
   requirements for both parts are given.

   This document obsoletes both RFCs 2717 [7] and 2718 [8].  RFCs 2717
   and 2718 drew a distinction between 'locators' (identifiers used for
   accessing resources available on the Internet) and 'names'
   (identifiers used for naming possibly abstract resources, independent
   of any mechanism for accessing them).  The intent was to use the
   designation "URL" (Uniform Resource Locator) for those identifiers
   that were locators and "URN" (Uniform Resource Name) for those
   identifiers that were names.  In practice, the line between 'locator'
   and 'name' has been difficult to draw: locators can be used as names,
   and names can be used as locators.

   As a result, recent documents have used the term "URI" for all
   resource identifiers, avoiding the term "URL" and reserving the term
   "URN" explicitly for those URIs using the "urn" scheme name (RFC 2141
   [2]).  URN "namespaces" (RFC 3406 [9]) are specific to the "urn"