Network Working Group                                         J-P. Evain
Request for Comments: 5174                                           EBU
Category: Informational                                         May 2008

              A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace for
                 the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)

Status of This Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   This document describes a Uniform Resource Name (URN) namespace for
   the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) for naming persistent resources
   defined within EBU technical documentation and Internet resources.
   Example resources include technical documents and specifications,
   eXtensible Markup Language (XML) Schemas, classification schemes, XML
   Document Type Definitions (DTDs), namespaces, style sheets, media
   assets, and other types of resources produced or managed by the EBU.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................2
   2. Specification Template ..........................................2
   3. Examples ........................................................4
   4. Namespace Considerations ........................................4
   5. Community Considerations ........................................5
   6. Security Considerations .........................................6
   7. IANA Considerations .............................................6
   8. Normative References ............................................6

1.  Introduction

   The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) is the largest non-for profit
   professional association of broadcasters worldwide and was
   established in 1950.  The Union has more than 70 active members in 55
   countries in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, and more than
   40 associate members in 25 countries further afield.  The EBU
   negotiates broadcasting rights for major sport events, operates the
   Eurovision and Euroradio networks, organizes program exchanges and
   co-productions, and provides other operational and legal support.  It
   provides technical advice to its members and favors the adoption of
   standardized solutions in broadcast systems from content ingest to
   end-user delivery.  EBU activities cover traditional broadcast and
   new delivery medias, such as the Internet, for which a growing number
   of resources are being developed.

   The EBU would like to assign unique, permanent, location-independent
   names based on URNs for some resources it produces or manages.

   This namespace specification is for a formal namespace.

2.  Specification Template

   Namespace ID:

      "ebu"

   Registration Information:

      Version: 1
      Date: 2007-02-20

   Declared registrant of the namespace:

      Name:           Jean-Pierre Evain
      Title:          Senior Engineer
      Affiliation:    European Broadcasting Union (EBU)
      Address:        Ancienne Route 17a
                      CH-1218 Geneva
                      SWITZERLAND
      Phone:          +41 22 717 2734
      Email:          evain@ebu.ch

   Declaration of structure:

      URNs assigned by the EBU will have the following hierarchical
      structure based on the organizational structure of the EBU
      resources:

                         urn:ebu:{category}:{string}

      where "{category}" is a US-ASCII string that conforms to the
      syntax of the <NID>, and "{string}" is a US-ASCII string that
      conforms to the syntax of the <NSS> [RFC2141].

      The individual URNs will be assigned by the EBU through the
      development process of EBU resources.

   Relevant ancillary documentation:

      More information on the EBU and relevant technical activities can
      be found at http://www.ebu.ch/metadata.

   Identifier and namespace uniqueness considerations:

      The EBU understands the vital necessity for uniqueness and will
      establish unique identifiers and namespaces under the authority of
      its metadata expert group under the auspices of the EBU Production
      Management Committee to prevent re-assignation of existing
      identifiers and namespaces.

   Identifier and namespace persistence considerations:

      The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) shall ensure the
      accessibility and persistence of all resources that are officially
      assigned URNs by the organization, in particular upon suitable
      delegation at the level of "{category}"s, and persistence of
      category assignment.

   Process of identifier and namespace assignment:

      The assignment of identifiers and namespaces is fully controlled
      and managed by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

   Process of identifier resolution:

      The owner will develop and maintain "URN catalogues" that map all
      assigned URNs to Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) specifically to
      enable Web-based resolution of named resources.  In the future, an
      interactive online resolution system may be developed to automate
      this process.

      The owner will authorize additional resolution services as
      appropriate.

   Rules for Lexical Equivalence:

      The "{category}" is case-insensitive.  Thus, the portion of the
      URN:

                   urn:ebu:{category}:

      is case-insensitive for matches up to {category}.  The remainder
      of the identifier shall be considered case-sensitive; hence, URNs
      are only lexically equivalent if they are also lexically identical
      in the remaining "{string}" field.

   Conformance with URN Syntax:

      No special considerations.

   Validation mechanism:

      The owner will develop and maintain URN catalogues.  The presence
      of a URN in a catalogue indicates that it is valid.  Validation
      shall more particularly be done by a syntax grammar corresponding
      to each "{category}".

   Scope:

      Global

3.  Examples

   The following examples are not guaranteed to be real.  They are
   presented for pedagogical reasons only.

      urn:ebu:metadata:pmeta_2007
      urn:ebu:metadata-cs:EscortCS_2007

4.  Namespace Considerations

   The EBU develops and maintains metadata schemas and classification
   schemes, which are made publicly available from
   http://www.ebu.ch/metadata for integration or cross reference in
   third party implementations, technical specifications and standards.
   Reference to the urn:ebu namespace shall be a guarantee of open
   access and quality.

   Furthermore, the value of well-defined namespaces is fully recognized
   including for versioning purposes, which will be facilitated through
   the EBU maintenance of its own namespace dictated by the following
   rules.

   URN assignment procedures:

      The individual URNs shall be assigned through the process of
      development of EBU resources by the European Broadcasting Union
      (EBU).

   URN resolution/delegation:

      The resolution and delegation shall be determined through the
      process of development of EBU resources by the European
      Broadcasting Union (EBU).

   Type of resources to be identified:

      Types of resources to be identified include XML schema definition
      files, classification schemes, and identification systems.

   Type of services to be supported:

      Types of services supported include controlled term lookup in
      classification schemes and resolution of IDs in identification
      systems.

5.  Community Considerations

   The EBU traditionally addresses the broadcasting community, but its
   resources are made available to all interested parties.

   Communities involved in offering content over new IP-based delivery
   medias such as via the Internet and mobile communication networks, or
   using IP infrastructures and Service-Oriented Architectures are
   welcome to use EBU resources.  Metadata and content identifiers, for
   which the EBU mainly needs the urn:ebu namespace, play a key role in
   content search and retrieval, end-to-end from content commissioning
   to user delivery.

   Web services, search engines, and the semantic web are among the core
   technologies that the EBU is now exploiting to access users in a
   multimedia multi-platform connected world.

   Potential beneficiary developing communities include:

      a) Implementers and users of EBU resources.

         Resources that comply with EBU specifications (including
         schemas, instance documents that comply with EBU schemas, and
         the EBU default Classification Schemes) may, by means of the
         registered namespace, become exposed to the general Internet
         and gain from the interoperability benefits of the Internet at
         large.

      b) Implementers of other specifications that incorporate part or
         all of available EBU resources.

         URNs used to identify EBU resources may be used to enable their
         inclusion in, and enhancement of, other specifications while
         maintaining, to a certain degree, interoperability with the EBU
         (see a) above).

      c) Implementers of other semantically related specifications that
         do not directly incorporate part or all of EBU resources.

         URNs used to identify EBU resources, such as identifiers of
         terms within default Classification Schemes, may enable
         interoperation with other semantically determined
         specifications (including present and future metadata/resource
         description and ontology specifications) of relevance to EBU
         implementation communities (see a) and b) above).

6.  Security Considerations

   The portion of the URN, urn:ebu:{category}:, is case-insensitive for
   matches up to {category}.

   Otherwise, there are no additional security considerations other than
   those normally associated with the use and resolution of URNs in
   general.

7.  IANA Considerations

   The IANA has registered the formal URN namespace 'ebu' (38) to the
   EBU within the IANA registry of URN NIDs, according to the
   registration template in Section 2.

8.  Normative References

   [RFC2141]  Moats, R., "URN Syntax", RFC 2141, May 1997.

Author's Address

   Jean-Pierre Evain
   European Broadcasting Union
   Technical Department
   L'ancienne route 17A
   CH-1218 Grand-Saconnex (GE)
   SWITZERLAND

   Phone: +41 22 717 2734
   Fax:   +41 22 74 74 734
   EMail: evain@ebu.ch

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