Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months. Internet-Drafts may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It describes how different URN resolution schemes will fit together, the requirements for the multiple URN schemes, expectations for URN clients, and other general resolution issues. This document does not cover any specific resolution schemes, the syntax for URNs, or the format of resolution results.
URNs are simple text strings that unambiguously identify an Internet resource.
Any Internet resource may have multiple names, but all uses of a particular name identify the same resources, as viewed by their publisher. Using a URN resolution service, an Internet user or program can retrieve information about the named resource. URNs return information about the resource, not the resource itself. For example, as some Internet services get too popular for their original hosts, they move to different systems which have different URLs. Also, a service might move from host system to host system with the person who maintains it.