Re: forwarded... [Explicit Linking is Impossible]

marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen)
Date: Wed, 5 May 93 19:40:41 -0500
From: marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen)
Message-id: <9305060040.AA11863@wintermute.ncsa.uiuc.edu>
To: aronsson@lysator.liu.se
Cc: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
Subject: Re: forwarded... [Explicit Linking is Impossible]
In-reply-to: <199305052321.AA07208@bodil.lysator.liu.se>
References: <199305052321.AA07208@bodil.lysator.liu.se>
X-Md4-Signature: 58796e3912b6228e8a912a0f31d1891c
aronsson@lysator.liu.se writes:
> What if Tim and his WWW service moves from CERN to a new place?
> What if Tim decides to rename "WWW/Provider/Style" to
> "WWWSTYLE.DIR"?  I don't say that he would, but he certainly could,
> and that would be like pulling the rug away from under my feet.
> Would I fall and would that hurt?  If someone can pull this rug, why
> should I stand on it?
> 
> I would be happier to refer to an ISBN number, because then I only
> specify the publisher, and not the library where I found the book,
> and there would be an organization for registering new ISBN numbers
> that would stop an author from changing a documents name.
> 
> There are already number series for books (ISBN) and serials (ISSN).
> What I seem to ask for is ISHN, or an International Standard for
> Hypertext Numbers.

A large part of what you're talking about is coming, in the form of
the Uniform Resource Name or whatever it ends up being called.
Distributed hypertext is still in its infancy; be patient... (or
better yet, keep contributing ideas and criticisms).

Cheers,
Marc