Names are Not Locators and URNs are Not URIs
J. Klensin · 2014
Experience has shown that identifiers associated with persistent names are quite different from identifiers associated with the locations of objects. This is especially true when such names are are expected to be stable for a very long time or when they identify large and complex entities. In order to allow Uniform Resource Names (URNs) to evolve to meet the needs of the Informational Sciences community and other users, this specification separates the syntax for URNs from the generic syntax for Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) specified in RFC 3986, updating the latter specification accordingly.